Movie-A-Day #11: "Funny Games" (2007)

** Mild, unavoidable spoilers about the nature of the ending **

Hey, I like thrillers and Polanski-esque tension and films that zig when they should zag as much as anybody.

Hell, I like 'em probably more than most.

But I don't think movies should serve the kind of function "Funny Games" attempts to perform.

The film, essentially, wants to punish its viewers for first watching the movie and then for caring about the characters. It's like a toaster that aspires to shave your whiskers with its high heat -- you want to say, "Just make the toast, bud."

There's been a lot of talk about how this thing is anti-American or anti-bourgeois or anti-wealth.

I don't care about that perspective, whatever. All I know is Naomi Watts and Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart play a well-to-do family who go to their vacation home one sunny day and encounter two cherub-faced white boy crackpots who let themselves in and politely-but-firmly mess with the family's minds, bodies and lives for an hour-and-a-half straight.

The movie is apparently a reaction to ultra-violent movies. It doesn't follow arcs or acts or even include much in the way of twists. It's just one ascending scale as the family's plight gets worse and worse and worse. Every time you think the family is going to get away or get to kick a little ass, the boys get the upper hand. And their upper hand is clammy.

The notion Haneke seems to be putting across is, "You think you like messed up situations? Here is a really messed up situation. It's going to make you want revenge. But there is no revenge." Presumably because in life, with the worst instances of human behavior, there's rarely satisfactory vengeance.

This overlooks two important things:

1. Messed-up people who can't disassociate movie violence from real violence will not get the point. They will just get off. Because while Haneke is surprisingly able to keep the violent activity off-screen, this is a movie with a shitload of bad ideas buzzing around and it is one intense piece of work.

2. Haneke is not just defying the expectations of thriller fans, he's going against the basic rules of drama and narrative. If a story -- violent or otherwise -- has no arc, no resolution, no satisfaction, no closure, no hope ... what the hell's the point of telling it? Much less telling it twice, since this is a remake of Haneke's 1997 Austrian film of the same name.

And this is unfortunate, too, because director Haneke is the real deal. He's got the gift of a true and unique craftsman. He's especially good at using long, largely static takes and at using camera distance to heighten tension. An early long shot of four well-dressed people standing in an expansive yard bathed in amber sunlight literally made my skin crawl with dread.

Added to which: Anybody who likes powerfully creepy movies should have already seen Haneke's "Cache," which handles similar subjects but with a far subtler and more effective approach.

A side note: I'm a big Naomi Watts fan. I am not a big fan of Michael Pitt, who plays one of her tormentors. Yes, he's frequently in good movies and he reminds me a little of a young Malcolm McDowell. But there's something about him ... his face, his eyes, his mouth, his hair ... he just strikes me as a guy who spends part of each day blowing saliva bubbles.

That's an admittedly surface impression based entirely on perceptions of fiction, but it just goes to say that any movie in which Pitt tortures Watts has an uphill battle with me. At least Haneke didn't cast Jeremy Davies ....