Loonville

If you think Yashraj movies with rahuls, rohits, riyas and tinas; the song-dance routine and the mindless inanity are just perfect, don’t even bother reading ahead.While my movie quotient is just about average, I thought I had seen all that there was to be seen, atleast most of them. Then came along Michael Haneke and his brand of repugnant(?) films.

Funny Games, the latest from the Haneke stable, is intriguing. I don’t know what to make of it. The Newyork Times calls it “a vicious attack on innocent people, on the screen and in the theater.” Yet the MOMA retrospective calls him a blend of Dostoevsky and Turgenev. He picks the Cannes grand jury award yet the festival audience boos him.

Funny Games (2007) is a shot-by-shot remake of the 1997 version in German, a watershed moment for Haneke. Then came along other films, including Cache and The Piano teacher, brilliant movies a touch disturbing albeit.Funny games is no different though his brand of film-making requires a lot of stomach.

A family of three, Ann (Naomi Watts), George and Georgie settle into their vacation home where they meet a couple of suave young men (Michael Pitt’s one of them) who methodically get into torturing them over the course of the night. Motive ? Pitt gives a long discourse on unhappy childhood, sexual proclivities and the usual wisdom. That’s where Haneke gets you by the balls. The entire monologue is meant to be a parody, superficial. There is no motive, no cause-effect explanation offered. Pitt as the cold, icy murderer excels and Watts gives yet an another stellar performance. But Haneke takes the cake, pushes you well over the edge.

Mindless gore and blood, I can understand that. But the treatment in all the three Haneke movies I have seen is far too subtle and chilling. The camera just stays there and captures the gory details with disinterested objectivity. At times, it just goes over to a passive observer and the gory details escape the frame. None of the ostentatious zooms and pans.The result, it gets really creepy. If one had any brains, the realization that Haneke is having your own head fuck with your mind dawns. In fact you get an insight into your own repressive tendencies. And then the defence mechanism kicks in, we cry foul and cavil at Haneke, the “perverted filmmaker” Yet one endures it for reasons I cannot fathom.

Haneke proclaims it to be a reaction to American cinema, its violence and naivety. One can’t help but wonder if his movies are nothing but an extension of the same. However there is an element of Dostoevskian purity to the movies and that keeps you wondering if you have missed a certain undertone. I have racked my brains yet have failed to understand. I have barely scratched at the surface. Is Haneke mocking us ? Or am I looking for meaning where no reason is possible? Are there multiple layers of understanding? I suggest you find out for yourself; if you can digest it. There is no denying the brilliance, though the nature of it is open to question. Sadism/perversion or is it genius ahead of its time ? I wouldn’t dare take a guess. If you have an insight into how this works, I would be more than glad to hear from you.

Update: I suggest you watch the movies in the chronological order. The latter movies seem to make more sense that way. Too bad I have only seen the Cache and The Piano Teacher.