So I guess they’ve gone ahead and remade Funny Games. As it’s supposed to be a faithful, almost identical, remake of the 1997 Austrian film from its original director, it’s not something I’d want to see. I hated the original Funny Games, not because it was a bad movie, but because it was insulting to me, as a viewer. It’s a film that made me mad at its makers, which is a very rare reaction, but one I think is interesting enough to explore here.
What could elicit such a negative response? Again, being a bad movie doesn’t do it. I wasn’t mad at the people who made Battlefield Earth. They were idiots for making it and I was an idiot for watching it. Problem solved. (Funniest Jon Stewart line – “Battlefield Earth was kind of a cross between Star Wars and the smell of ass.”)
I’m also not going to get mad simply by being shown offensive images. The reason John Waters’ Pink Flamingos doesn’t bother me is because I will never see it. How can I be so closed minded, you might ask? Well, it’s because I’ve read about it, and at the end, a drag queen eats dog shit. For real! You see it coming out of the dog’s anus and being scooped into his/her mouth. I love all kinds of movies, but I can go through my whole life without ever seeing someone eating either shit, real or synthetic. This is a rule. If the next Scorsese movie shows shit being eaten, count me out. This does not apply to something that may look like shit, but is, say, a candy bar (heretofore referred to as the Caddyshack exemption.)
No, a movie that makes me mad will more likely be made by a talented filmmaker. All the films below have a degree of talent and creativity involved. They would not be worth discussing otherwise. My question is, to what end is this talent being used? The following reviews contain SPOILERS, but that’s OK, cause you probably don’t want to see them anyway.
Funny Games
A mother, father and young son are tortured and murdered by two psychotic intruders. The end. For most of its running time, Funny Games plays as a conventional thriller. Think Panic Room. The baddies are young punks who view their sadism as a kind of public art.
A little more than halfway through, an interesting thing happens. One of the villains breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience. When asked why he doesn’t simply kill the family, he answers something to the effect of - "we don’t want to end the movie this soon." We, as an audience, are now implicated as participants in these funny games.
Intriguing, but having brought us in, director Michael Haneke, makes it clear that we are not welcome. We, who had hoped to be put in suspense by a quality thriller, are now subjected to mindless violence. Its not that there’s an unreasonable level of gore, it’s just that a key convention of a good thriller is that the potential victims have a fighting chance.
I’m not against violence on film. Some of my favorite films are violent. I’m not against bleak endings. When earned, they can be very powerful. This is how Funny Games ends: The mother gets hold of a gun and shoots one of the assailants. The other picks up a remote control, rewinds the film we are watching to before she gets the gun and proceeds to slaughter the rest of the family.
The message here seems to be that we, the audience, should be held accountable as a party to this carnage. Didn’t we go to this movie as voyeurs to see some mayhem? Well, this will show us. Haneke has made a film for which the only proper reaction is to never have seen it. I, for one, will react properly for the remake.
Bamboozled
Spike Lee is a director whose films I admire and whose politics I oppose. To oversimplify the dichotomy set up in his best film, Do the Right Thing, he chooses Malcolm X and I choose MLK. He may have, kind of, sort of come out against interracial dating in Jungle Fever and he definitely used anti-Semitic caricatures in Mo’Better Blues, but his artistic skill cannot be denied with such wonderful films as School Daze, The 25th Hour and, of course, Do the Right Thing, which I believe is a masterpiece despite disagreeing with its conclusions.
Then there’s Bamboozled. Lee’s take on the minstrel entertainment personified by such racist stereotypes as Amos & Andy. The film ends with a very effective montage of so many of the real life degrading imaging that have for too long disparaged black culture. It would have been a fine short, had it began and ended there.
Unfortunately, before this mini-documentary, Lee chooses to criticize the offensive minstrels by creating one himself. Damon Waynes plays a sell-out TV executive with the most bizarre vocal inflections. Fellow In Living Color alumnus, Tommy Davidson, is the African-American actor who performs in blackface for a modern day update called “Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show.”
The content of the show is too offensive to describe in detail, but let’s just say the KKK would be proud. I understand what Spike was trying to do. We’re supposed to recoil from the TV material, but his failure is not contrasting the horrid programming with some behind the scenes drama and a sympathetic character or two. It could have harkened back to Network, but instead, the movie itself becomes exactly what it despises.
He could also have followed in the footsteps of Mel Brooks or South Park and taken the material to such an extreme that we’d be brought to understanding through laughter. Unfortunately, Bamboozled is too goofy to be taken seriously as drama and in no way funny enough to be considered a comedy. All we’re left with is a reminder of a painful experience through a direct recreation of that experience.
Storytelling
Todd Solodnz is a director of films about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other and themselves. His debut, Welcome to the Dollhouse, was about a nerdy 13-year-old girl whose only friend is a boy she hopes will follow through on his promise to rape her, although neither seems to understand what that word means. This is Solondz’ most watchable film. His follow-up, Happiness, brings us an Altmanesque array of horrible people we don’t want to know, personified by a friendly child molester.
Storytelling is not one, but two tales of misery. The first subtitled “Fiction” and the second, “Non-Fiction.” Between them no racial, religious or sexual taboo is left unexplored. Take Selma Blair’s college English student in “Fiction” whose boyfriend has cerebral palsy and who proceeds to seduce her African-American English professor. Not that he needs much convincing.
Two things are notable about the sex scene that follows. One is that, because its kinda rough sex, it had to be censored to get an R rating. The director’s solution is to put a GIANT red box over both bodies to hit home the point that this film hasn’t just been censored, it’s been CENSORED. (Points for Solondz.) The other bit you can’t miss is that the professor humiliates his student by forcing her to yell racial slurs that made me think I was back to watching Bamboozled. (Points deducted.)
In “Non-fiction,” Paul Giamatti is a documentary filmmaker whose wants to study the ideal American family. It was not a surprise when all are revealed to be petty, cruel, hypocritical and generally unpleasant (including the kids!) Most notable is the young boy who treats their Hispanic maid as slave labor.
The bonus to Storytelling is that it acts as its own critic. The Giamatti character’s film is criticized for the same sins that Solondz himself is accused of, namely that he hates his characters. In both the film within a film and the movie itself, these accusations are true. Should the director get points because he’s willing to state openly exactly why his film is bad? I’d say no.
Instead watch…
So as not to end on too sour a note, I would like to recommend three films that also tackle unpleasant and controversial issues. They’re not fun, but they will make you ponder some very dark questions. The differences to those reviewed above come down to one thing, respect for the audience.
In the Company of Men – A very disturbing look at misogyny. Most guys know and many women suspect that there is a darker side to sexual power (that’s power, not prowess) than mainstream romances are willing to recognize. Sometimes psychological brutality can look as ugly as the physical.
Bad Lieutenant – Misogyny is only one of Harvey Keitel’s many vices in this look at a drug dealing, perverse police officer. Keitel is both literally and figuratively naked in a performance of devastating sorrow. How this ends up being one of the most religious movies ever made, I will leave you to discover
Manderlay – Lars Von Trier’s sequel to Dogville is part of this American Trilogy (the third has not yet been released.) Von Trier, who has never been the U.S. is openly hostile towards America, but his attacks are precise and thought provoking. Manderlay is a small town where slavery was never abolished. You may think you know where he’s going with this. You don’t.
What could elicit such a negative response? Again, being a bad movie doesn’t do it. I wasn’t mad at the people who made Battlefield Earth. They were idiots for making it and I was an idiot for watching it. Problem solved. (Funniest Jon Stewart line – “Battlefield Earth was kind of a cross between Star Wars and the smell of ass.”)
I’m also not going to get mad simply by being shown offensive images. The reason John Waters’ Pink Flamingos doesn’t bother me is because I will never see it. How can I be so closed minded, you might ask? Well, it’s because I’ve read about it, and at the end, a drag queen eats dog shit. For real! You see it coming out of the dog’s anus and being scooped into his/her mouth. I love all kinds of movies, but I can go through my whole life without ever seeing someone eating either shit, real or synthetic. This is a rule. If the next Scorsese movie shows shit being eaten, count me out. This does not apply to something that may look like shit, but is, say, a candy bar (heretofore referred to as the Caddyshack exemption.)
No, a movie that makes me mad will more likely be made by a talented filmmaker. All the films below have a degree of talent and creativity involved. They would not be worth discussing otherwise. My question is, to what end is this talent being used? The following reviews contain SPOILERS, but that’s OK, cause you probably don’t want to see them anyway.
Funny Games
A mother, father and young son are tortured and murdered by two psychotic intruders. The end. For most of its running time, Funny Games plays as a conventional thriller. Think Panic Room. The baddies are young punks who view their sadism as a kind of public art.
A little more than halfway through, an interesting thing happens. One of the villains breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience. When asked why he doesn’t simply kill the family, he answers something to the effect of - "we don’t want to end the movie this soon." We, as an audience, are now implicated as participants in these funny games.
Intriguing, but having brought us in, director Michael Haneke, makes it clear that we are not welcome. We, who had hoped to be put in suspense by a quality thriller, are now subjected to mindless violence. Its not that there’s an unreasonable level of gore, it’s just that a key convention of a good thriller is that the potential victims have a fighting chance.
I’m not against violence on film. Some of my favorite films are violent. I’m not against bleak endings. When earned, they can be very powerful. This is how Funny Games ends: The mother gets hold of a gun and shoots one of the assailants. The other picks up a remote control, rewinds the film we are watching to before she gets the gun and proceeds to slaughter the rest of the family.
The message here seems to be that we, the audience, should be held accountable as a party to this carnage. Didn’t we go to this movie as voyeurs to see some mayhem? Well, this will show us. Haneke has made a film for which the only proper reaction is to never have seen it. I, for one, will react properly for the remake.
Bamboozled
Spike Lee is a director whose films I admire and whose politics I oppose. To oversimplify the dichotomy set up in his best film, Do the Right Thing, he chooses Malcolm X and I choose MLK. He may have, kind of, sort of come out against interracial dating in Jungle Fever and he definitely used anti-Semitic caricatures in Mo’Better Blues, but his artistic skill cannot be denied with such wonderful films as School Daze, The 25th Hour and, of course, Do the Right Thing, which I believe is a masterpiece despite disagreeing with its conclusions.
Then there’s Bamboozled. Lee’s take on the minstrel entertainment personified by such racist stereotypes as Amos & Andy. The film ends with a very effective montage of so many of the real life degrading imaging that have for too long disparaged black culture. It would have been a fine short, had it began and ended there.
Unfortunately, before this mini-documentary, Lee chooses to criticize the offensive minstrels by creating one himself. Damon Waynes plays a sell-out TV executive with the most bizarre vocal inflections. Fellow In Living Color alumnus, Tommy Davidson, is the African-American actor who performs in blackface for a modern day update called “Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show.”
The content of the show is too offensive to describe in detail, but let’s just say the KKK would be proud. I understand what Spike was trying to do. We’re supposed to recoil from the TV material, but his failure is not contrasting the horrid programming with some behind the scenes drama and a sympathetic character or two. It could have harkened back to Network, but instead, the movie itself becomes exactly what it despises.
He could also have followed in the footsteps of Mel Brooks or South Park and taken the material to such an extreme that we’d be brought to understanding through laughter. Unfortunately, Bamboozled is too goofy to be taken seriously as drama and in no way funny enough to be considered a comedy. All we’re left with is a reminder of a painful experience through a direct recreation of that experience.
Storytelling
Todd Solodnz is a director of films about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other and themselves. His debut, Welcome to the Dollhouse, was about a nerdy 13-year-old girl whose only friend is a boy she hopes will follow through on his promise to rape her, although neither seems to understand what that word means. This is Solondz’ most watchable film. His follow-up, Happiness, brings us an Altmanesque array of horrible people we don’t want to know, personified by a friendly child molester.
Storytelling is not one, but two tales of misery. The first subtitled “Fiction” and the second, “Non-Fiction.” Between them no racial, religious or sexual taboo is left unexplored. Take Selma Blair’s college English student in “Fiction” whose boyfriend has cerebral palsy and who proceeds to seduce her African-American English professor. Not that he needs much convincing.
Two things are notable about the sex scene that follows. One is that, because its kinda rough sex, it had to be censored to get an R rating. The director’s solution is to put a GIANT red box over both bodies to hit home the point that this film hasn’t just been censored, it’s been CENSORED. (Points for Solondz.) The other bit you can’t miss is that the professor humiliates his student by forcing her to yell racial slurs that made me think I was back to watching Bamboozled. (Points deducted.)
In “Non-fiction,” Paul Giamatti is a documentary filmmaker whose wants to study the ideal American family. It was not a surprise when all are revealed to be petty, cruel, hypocritical and generally unpleasant (including the kids!) Most notable is the young boy who treats their Hispanic maid as slave labor.
The bonus to Storytelling is that it acts as its own critic. The Giamatti character’s film is criticized for the same sins that Solondz himself is accused of, namely that he hates his characters. In both the film within a film and the movie itself, these accusations are true. Should the director get points because he’s willing to state openly exactly why his film is bad? I’d say no.
Instead watch…
So as not to end on too sour a note, I would like to recommend three films that also tackle unpleasant and controversial issues. They’re not fun, but they will make you ponder some very dark questions. The differences to those reviewed above come down to one thing, respect for the audience.
In the Company of Men – A very disturbing look at misogyny. Most guys know and many women suspect that there is a darker side to sexual power (that’s power, not prowess) than mainstream romances are willing to recognize. Sometimes psychological brutality can look as ugly as the physical.
Bad Lieutenant – Misogyny is only one of Harvey Keitel’s many vices in this look at a drug dealing, perverse police officer. Keitel is both literally and figuratively naked in a performance of devastating sorrow. How this ends up being one of the most religious movies ever made, I will leave you to discover
Manderlay – Lars Von Trier’s sequel to Dogville is part of this American Trilogy (the third has not yet been released.) Von Trier, who has never been the U.S. is openly hostile towards America, but his attacks are precise and thought provoking. Manderlay is a small town where slavery was never abolished. You may think you know where he’s going with this. You don’t.
