So I finally watched Michael Haneke's home-invasion torture-fest Funny Games, the original 1997 German-language version, as opposed to his American remake, now in theaters. Or to be more accurate, I got it from Netflix and watched the first 15 minutes or so, until it started getting uncomfortable, and then I fast-forwarded through the rest at 2x speed, reading the subtitles and following the narrative without getting too emotionally involved.

Which is absolutely cheating, and completely missing the whole point of the film.

Which is exactly what I intended. Michael Haneke can go fuck himself, as far as I'm concerned, as far as this particular film is concerned.

For me, the problem with this film was that I'd already read and heard too much about his intentions for it (both versions; the American one is a shot-for-shot remake), which were basically to castigate the audience for watching. To show them what "real" violence is like, as opposed to American-thriller-movie violence. To accuse them of being complicit in the crimes they're watching onscreen. To point out their voyeurism, and how unhealthy and unsavory it is. Haneke has been pretty specific about this; I also watched an interview with him on the same DVD, in which he basically says that anyone who sits through the whole film, as opposed to walking out in horror and disgust, is clearly in need of his messages, and is getting what they deserve by being wrenched and sickened by the movie.

There are so many arrogant assumptions implicit in that message that I don't know where to begin, but chief among them is the idea that there is only one reason people would show up for Funny Games — in the mistaken hope that they might see some awesome, shallow, mindless violence. Which is absolutely unfair, and untrue. I think a lot of people are seeing it because they've heard or read that it's a brilliant deconstruction of cinematic violence, or that it has a couple of big, unpredictable, amazing twists, or that the performances are incredible, or that it isn't like anything they've ever seen before. All of which may be true, without implying that those viewers are bloodlusting fiends who need to be punished and taught the truth about how pain makes people hurt and fear makes people scared. Everyone brings their own background and their own attitude to art, and assuming that they all have the same intentions strikes me as simplistic and judgmental. Which is how Haneke's sounded to me every time he's discussed this film.

And his object lesson also assumes that they've never seen "real" violence in a movie before, so seeing it might change them somehow. I've squirmed my way through some ugly, ugly films — Straw Dogs, Irreversible, and Dancer In The Dark leap to mind as movies that are brilliantly made but raw and excruciating — and apart from its specific big plot surprises, Funny Games just didn't seem that different. (From Straw Dogs in particular.)

But every review I've seen has hedged around what those plot twists are, while simultaneously praising them in a way that seems likely to lure people in — people who aren't just going for cheap titillation. But according to Haneke, those people are morally suspect and in need of correction if they sit all the way through the film, waiting to see what will happen next. And I find that infuriating. For several reasons. Again, he's making specific, narrow judgments about why people would endure the film — judgments that I think are largely false. More to the point, he's excoriating those people for trusting him — for believing that he has a point in mind, and that the film exists for some reason other than to punish them. I go into a film assuming that I'm going to stay all the way through, no matter what happens, even if I hate it, because I owe it to the film to give it a chance, just as the film (and the filmmakers) owe it to me and my money to at least try to pull off something worthy of my time.

Haneke talks a lot in the interview on the DVD about social contracts, and how uncomfortable it is when people break them, and how easily civilization breaks down when people violate those contracts — by, for instance, invading other people's homes and harming them. Well, I feel like Funny Games is a violation of a sort of cinematic contract — the man who created it wants people not to watch it, not to finish it, and not to trust him.

Don't get me wrong. It's a fascinating experiment. I just chose to take him up on it. Since I wasn't watching it for the reasons he thinks people would watch it, I didn't feel constrained by any need to watch it in the way he intended it to be watched. In fact, I felt a strong need not to play into his hands, and not to do what he expected me to do — to get involved, and to get sickened and traumatized.

So presumably I'm not the intended audience for the film, and I can walk away happy. Which I will, as soon as I can get over being irked by the whole thing.

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In a related issue… I watched the American trailer for the film, and it left me a little staggered. Particularly the way it selectively uses footage to make the whole thing seem like it's funnier, bouncier, and more upbeat than it actually is. (Using Grieg's playful "Hall Of The Mountain King" is just cruel.) And then there are the worlds splashing across the screen: "sensual, wicked, wild, brilliant, magnificent." (Sensual? Really?) Part of me feels like this is a pretty unfair misrepresentation of the movie. Part of me feels like it's just a commercial, and like so many trailers, it has nothing to do with the film because accurately representing the film would put fewer butts in seats. And part of me feels like this is a conscious, reasoned attempt to lure in the viewers that Haneke wants to punish. (Cass says the Filmspotting podcast reviewers characterized the trailer as "entrapment.") It's a whole 'nother issue, and in some ways, it feels like a more complicated one. Possibly because Haneke hasn't done a whole bunch of interviews about it, telling people what its intentions were, and how they should think about it, and what the only appropriate response to it is.

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And in another related issue, Cass had told me some time ago that he had no intention of seeing the film himself, which annoyed me even as I understood it. Because while he, too, was turned off by Haneke's statements about the film and its intentions, he seemed completely incurious about the contents. And given how curious I was, and how curious welcomerain was when we were discussing it last weekend, I felt somewhat slighted by how easily he shrugged off any interest in what was actually IN the film. Turns out he'd actually read the MovieSpoiler.com summary of the film in order to get all the details without having to live through them. Current score: Michael Haneke: 0, Us: 2.

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Oh. Except that he clearly won with Cache. Fine. Two-all.

I'm-a feelin': irritated