Whether it is his best "White Ribbon" or this "Fun Game", all the violence happens outside the painting. Violence spreads through the medium of sound, but instead realizes the presence of violence everywhere through absent violence.
In this regard, Hanek may have a good chat with Zizek. Zizek believes that we have not yet fully realized the traumatic dimension of sound. Although the sound has been domesticated by human subjectivity consciousness, let the sound become the expression of thought. But the truth is that the sound keeps revealing our unconscious side, and thus becomes an alien form within us, ready to break out at any time. Thus, Zizek said, the voice is no longer the voice of sublime subjectivity, but the voice of foreign invaders.
Thoughtful directors always try to make the sound not a vassal of the picture (not to mention the picture as a vassal of the sound). Sound constitutes an intrusive and subversive element to the picture. For example, at the beginning of "Fun Game", it suddenly changed from melodious classical music to manic death rock (or heavy metal? I don't know much about music, I don't know much about music), and from sound sourced music to silent music. Therefore, the invasion of violence into this middle-class family started in the form of voice from the very beginning.
The above is nonsense (I find that I always say too many nonsense at the beginning).
What I really want to discuss is such a problem. Someone told me that director Haneke used this film to reflect on violence. Because of the subversive use of the horror film’s bridges and the artificiality in the film’s narrative, the film criticizes the entertainment violence in the horror film as the watched entertainment, and exposes the audience and this violence (in order to be There is a collusion relationship between watching and violence for the purpose of entertaining the audience.
I doubt it deeply.
As a fan of horror films, I often think about why horror films can be accepted by the audience as a kind of entertainment. The answer I can think of may lie in the hypothetical nature of the horror film.
The world of horror movies is a taboo domain completely separated from the outside world. The opening of the film always starts with the protagonists entering this domain (hometown, old mansion, cave, deep sea, outer space, crystal lake, Texas, forest , A shortcut on a highway), or the protagonists themselves live in a forbidden territory (Elms Street, of course, the real forbidden territory in "Men Ghost Street" actually starts when the protagonists enter the dream state). Or maybe the protagonists receive a forbidden thing, which turns the original real world of life into a forbidden realm (ghost baby, video tape).
In other words, the basis for viewing horror films requires a certain degree of alienation from the beginning. Once entering this taboo domain, the audience will quickly mobilize their own movie-watching experience (rather than actual experience).
As a result, clearly trapped in a crisis-ridden secret room, isolated island, and forest, the protagonists have to act illogically, causing them to be hunted one by one. The audience can also accept that the policemen in horror movies are often stupid to death and are easily killed. It is not surprising that no matter how fast the protagonists run, the stumbling homicides, monsters, and cannibals can always suddenly appear behind the protagonists when they think they are safe.
Because once you enter this forbidden domain, the presumption of the horror film is higher than its reality, regardless of whether the horror film is about ghosts in fantasy or serial killers in reality.
And it is precisely based on the audience's knowledge of this hypothesis that the display of violence, death, blood, and torture will be regarded as a spectacle hunting performance. The audience will not feel guilty in the process of watching, because the stylization of Hollywood horror films makes this assumption so obvious that the audience can comfortably watch the horror show from a safe distance without having to Worry about the characters in the story. Because the audience knows that no one will really get hurt.
Therefore, we found that in horror films, if the audience and the murderer in the film have a conspiracy relationship between the viewer and the performer, then this conspiracy relationship is also caused by the audience’s recognition of the presumption in the film. . The mature horror genre of Hollywood will definitely make this hypothesis stand out deliberately.
When we look back at Haneke's "Fun Game", the film uses murderous maniac blinking on the screen, dialogue with the audience, and rewinding with the remote control. Perhaps it is indeed full of imagination. But therefore, these bridges can prompt viewers to reflect on the responsibility of modern media for violence, and I think it is entirely taken for granted by the critics.
Hanek exposes the artificiality in the horror film, so what? Every Hollywood horror film does not shy away from its own assumptions. If only from the joking of the horror film, "Scream" and "House in the Woods" are no worse than "Fun Games".
Of course, artificiality and hypothesis are two concepts. Hollywood horror films use their presumptions to tell the audience that this is a story and don’t have to take it seriously, so the audience can appreciate violence and death with peace of mind. And Haneke’s "Fun Game" is artificially emphasized, this is a deliberate display, in order to cater to your (audience) expectations.
This is also reflected in another difference: Hollywood horror films pursue reality in the form of expression, because if the form of expression is not true enough, the horror effect will not be achieved, like those horror B-level movies that are a bit funny; but on the story level, Pursue hypothesis, because the story is obviously false, the audience can be alienated and appreciate the horror film with peace of mind. Haneke, on the contrary, pursues humanity in form of expression, including the use of sound to indirectly express violence; but at the story level, "Fun Game" renders and portrays the desperate emotions of a family of three facing death, on the contrary Extremely real, this makes the audience feel depressed.
From these two points, perhaps "Fun Game" does have a critique of horror films in it.
Think while writing, anyway, let's do this first.
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