Not Funny "Ha HA"

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:54:37 -0700

So,I heard about this movie Funny Games, that's been remade frame-by-frame with new actors for an American audience. In a nutshell, the story is this: a wealthy family goes on vacation, but is captured by a pair of bad men who torture them, humiliate them, and then, kill them. The "arty" methodology is supposed to make you think, however, in that one of the killers frequently breaks the fourth wall, making the audience complicit, or victimized depending upon your perspective.

Clearly, this film is a piece of garbage, and I've got no desire to see it. Honestly, though I've liked Tim Roth in earlier films, and found Naomi Watts passable, I hope this movie signals the ends of their careers as actors. It's one thing to be involved in a piece of garbage, but it's another to be a marionette in a slavish remake of a piece of garbage.

Here's my beef, part one: I don't believe that Art is what the Artist makes it. I believe that Art is what communicates best with the audience. I've watched a ton of violent movies, including slasher flicks, exploitation films, and so on. I've seen films with extremely dubious moral perspectives, like Cannibal Holocaust and Videodrome and Salo and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (Please note that saying I've seen them does not mean I've enjoyed them, or thought they were "good". Of these, the only one I thought was a genuinely good film was Henry, and the only one I found even somewhat enjoyable was Videodrome). I am aware of deeply disturbing films being made, especially in the Nazi Exploitation and Mondo sub-genres. Any and all art house philosophy concerning voyeurism and complicity in atrocity is old news to me. The communication that almost all of them make is one of condescension. It's the Philosopher-king looking down on all of us plebes, and haughtily declaring that we content ourselves with bread and circuses. You're soaking in it, is my reply. Haneke is simply an emotionally distant sadist, who is trying to disguise his contempt as both politics and art. But, rather than stick with what could be called an Ad hominem attack, let me also point out an alternate view on violent films: the ones that appeal to a larger subset of audiences invariably have a decent protagonist who triumphs in the end. This is because why an audience will watch a film, or view any Art at all is to be edified, in some fashion. In a violent movie, the edification, as often as not, is "take courage". The odds may be stacked against you in a seemingly endless, brutal and sadistic fashion, but take courage because it is still possible to survive. Think about a generic slasher film; young teens are preyed upon by a relentless and heartless killer, usually with a white, female protagonist who survives by being indomitable. Ultimately, the message is that if you refuse to give in, you will survive. This is what Haneke, and other Art-house failures are spitting on: the very notion of courage. I'm fully aware of the 'satires" and the exceptions, and of the recent "torture porn' movies, but even these movies do not insult the audience in the same fashion, in that, by making the audience identify with the villains, they're at least affirming some humanity, even if they've got it all wrong.

But, that brings me to the second part of my beef: Why would we want to cover the same ground, again and again? The questions of why would anyone want to see something horrible go all the way back to the ancient greeks. There are only two answers: either because life has its horrors, or because we are horrible. I'm firmly in the "life has its horrors" camp. But, the thing is, I don't want to see horrible things. As a punk rocker, I loathed the confusion in "underground" circles of the merely shocking, and the perverse for genuine rebellion. I don't think swastikas look cool, I don't think that porn is a legitimate art form, I don't think that falling outside of behavioral norms is anything other than poor taste. I like to think that a revolution is where you actually change something in a radical fashion, and I don't much care for rebellion where all you do is degrade yourself. In other words, I don't see the point in staying "outside of society" in Patti Smith's words, when you can instead shift society just that little bit. Back when I first got into all the Punk/radical/underground stuff, a guy who called himself "Geza X" explained it this way; we need to make an evolutionary leap. It's as simple as that: the reason to explore the deep end is to learn how to swim. The reason to go down the dark alley is to put up a lamp post. So, Why go back to the question of why unless you're not happy with the answer, or you're ignorant of both the question and the answer. Given that this is now a remake, I think Haneke is aware of both question and answer. So, that just leaves that he doesn't like the answer. He still is looking for some way that he's better, more evolved than us, and we're just cretins awaiting his golden wisdom. I've seen that hundreds of times before, and it's still just wrong. I believe in progression, and I believe in people. I think that humans are perfectible: not perfect, yet, but working on it. So, why would I want to see something horrible? So I can make it better. Otherwise, I'm just G G Allin, rolling in my own filth, accomplishing nothing. In other words, I'm about self-improvement, not self-destruction.

Now, I've got a million more beefs with the whole notion of post-modernist critique. Suffice it to say that I disagree with Foucalt, Debord, and Barthes (who at least is funny, so I'll read his stuff, every once in awhile) because I think they're self-defeating slugs. I think this movie falls right in with them, but that will have to be another rant.

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How much longer must we tolerate mass culture?

Not Funny "Ha HA"