FUNNY GAMES (83)

Directed by: Michael Haneke

Starring: Susanne Lothar, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering

The Pitch: A family are held prisoner in their country home by a pair of clean-cut, murderous young men.

Theo Sez: A think-piece, providing hours of heated debate for the forelock-tuggers, that's also the most brilliant example in years (since DEAD RINGERS? surely not since ROSEMARY'S BABY?) of the cinema's power to disturb by implication, conjuring not just mild discomfort but queasy, please-God-make-it-go-away terror out of five people talking quietly in pleasant, everyday surroundings. It touches on something primal, the grown-up version of a child's fear of abandonment - the fear of one's space being invaded, of losing that fragile control over one's little world, being helpless before an implacable and (literally) nameless foe ; the early scenes especially, positioning the intruders more and more centrally within the family nest (culminating in that simple-but-shocking shot of the two men suddenly filling the frame), are so filled with anticipatory dread you may want to walk out (or press "Stop", as the case may be). What comes next may also provoke walkouts, but for different reasons - because the film is sadistic and, above all, because it accuses the audience of complicity in its sadism : it feels like a personal insult - you want to protest your innocence, to insist indignantly (like our hapless heroine) that "I don't know what game you're playing, but I won't be a part of it". Trouble is, it's a trap : the more you struggle against complicity, by sympathising with the family - by urging them on, putting yourself in their place, noting that they might've escaped if they'd only had better luck - the more you're drawn into Haneke's little game (indeed, the whole concept of "luck" is derived from games-playing). Like the killers' impeccable manners, apeing and mocking their victims' bourgeois politeness (and making the point that "civilised" exteriors can easily hide unimaginable violence), the whole film is a sarcastic kind of black comedy, drawing us in expertly then apeing the callousness that's part and parcel of film-watching - daring us to bleat self-righteously about "movie violence" without admitting that we also cheapen human life every time we watch suffering onscreen then dismiss it as "only a movie". It's the kind of film Bunuel might've made had he ever gotten really pissed off at the world (instead of being slyly amused by it). It's the opposite of escapism - you want to escape from it, back into the real world. Which, if you think about it, is probably a good thing.