Michael Haneke to remake Funny Games (1 Viewer)

[SteveGon]

Michael Haneke (Cache) is remaking his disturbing thriller Funny Games in English, with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.

Funny Games (2007)

Thoughts? Hopefully this won't end up like George Sluzier's remake of his film The Vanishing.

 

[Elizabeth S]

The original is amazing. Hopefully, Haneke will have a stronger backbone than Sluzier when it comes to sticking to the tone and content of the original. Unless, of course, he personally has some tweaks he wants to make this time. . .which will likely be hated by fans of the original, but who are we to say the creator shouldn't modify his vision? Oh well. . .I'll be seeing the remake.

 

[Patrick Sun]

While never seeing the original German version of "Funny Games", I've read that the American remake is a shot-for-shot remake effort.

Having seen this American remake version of "Funny Games", it's tough to 'review' because, let's face it, director Michael Haneke is more interested in manipulating his audience and prodding them with little regards to the characters he uses for such provocation in this film. Upon first glance, it does feel like torture porn (a la "Saw" franchise), but that's only half the equation to his film-making process, it's just the means to get where he wants to go. It's like he gets off by making a movie that elicit emotional responses from the audience to show them the 'truth' about where the viewer stands on the issue/theme at hand.

In other words, his movies are not about the characters in the film, but more about the viewers response to the film's thematic manipulations to procure whatever audience reactions that bubble to the surface during the viewing, like a cinematic litmus test of sorts. In this case, it's about innocent people (mom, dad, and young son) being pushed to their limits by 2 reprehensible young men who spend an evening terrorizing them at a summer home by the sea. What would you do to survive, and do the ends always justify the means? Unfortunately, the situation set up by Haneke just isn't as grey as it should be when going for the big carthartic moment for the viewer towards the end of the film.

Some may enjoy this sort of movie-making, but others will be turned off by it. You watch, you decide.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

 

[Brook K]

Funny Games (2008) - A-

Can't capture lightning in a bottle twice. This is a difficult film to rate. I still find it fascinating, and the power of the base story is intact, but much of the subtext doesn't survive the translation and the 4th wall stuff just didn't have the same effect. Almost feels like Haneke wasn't fully involved in the editing. It doesn't have that mastery of pacing his films always exhibit and there's one moment in particular where the editing really cuts off one of the film's more important lines without letting it impact the audience. Plus as I feared Michael Pitt wasn't up to the challenge of creating a performance as riveting and deliciously layered with malice as the original actor. The secondary bad guy isn't heavy enough either, he isn't much thicker than Pitt making all the "tubby" lines come off a bit odd. Watts was excellent though I can't really say she topped the original performance.

I wrote the above before reading Patrick's review. It's interesting, because I feel this version of the film IS much more about the characters and their situation while the original was much more about movie audience's (and society by extension) appetite for violence and watching people trapped in extreme experiences. The manipulation of the audience is much less pronounced here then in Cache or The Seventh Continent for example. Of course this could be because I know the original so well, the new version just isn't pushing the same buttons that it did for Patrick.

Also, it isn't a total shot for shot remake. There are a few small differences in where certain scenes take place and there are several scenes that are shot at different angles or distances from the camera. The new version pulls a few punches in showing violence as well.

I noticed Lodge Kerrigan had a "script consultant" credit. Wonder what was up with that?