Funny Games (Haneke, 1997): Genesis Cinema, 6.20pm
This is a 35mm screening, part of a season of Michael Haneke films on celluloid.Chicago Reader review:
The latest by Europe’s philosopher of violence, Michael Haneke, whose Benny’s Video
(1992) was a mixed blessing at best. If you’re the sort of person who
complains about violence in movies, don’t even think about seeing this;
otherwise you might be intrigued by this alternately cool and horrifying
meditation on pain and human nastiness in which a middle-class Austrian
family on holiday is set upon by two sadists who apparently have
nothing better to do than torture them. Haneke has put a cerebral spin
on the whole business, issuing a manifesto to the press at Cannes, where
the film was in competition. His purpose, he says, is to show violence
as something visceral and revolting as a counter to the cartoon carnage
of a Schwarzenegger film. Near the end of Funny Games Haneke
begins playing with the audience as Brecht might, foregrounding its role
in the whole voyeuristic process. A brilliant yet chilling theoretical
study.
Peter Brunette
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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