"Fun Game" is a German thriller filmed by Haneke in 1997 (and the American version was filmed in 2007). Although it is a thriller, there is only one positive violent scene in the film, but it still reaches the level of horror Effect.
The story of this movie takes place one day and night. George and Anna (Haneke's movie protagonists are always named after George and Anna) take their son to their villa by the lake for a vacation, but they encounter two unaccomplished people. Li's interlopers, and a series of violent things happens to them.
There will be spoilers below
Movies don't test humanity
Although the family in the movie was in danger, the director did not test humanity. The family of three in the film maintains a good "image" from beginning to end. They do not turn against each other and blame each other in extreme circumstances. It can be said that the audience's emotions are on the side of the family of three from beginning to end. For example, when the wife was forced to undress in public, she did not accuse her husband of being "incompetent", which reflected the wife's niceness; another example was before the wife fled, the husband whispered "forgive me", the wife came back and gave the husband a kiss and said "I I love you"; even the son was not cowardly, he escaped with wisdom and courage, and although he was caught in the end, as a child, he behaved well enough.
In the film, when the child was bullied, her husband George just prayed to "let him go", no foul language, no resistance. His wife Anna also maintained a friendly image until the little fat man provoked her to the point where she had to get angry; even when her son died, Anna was able to remain calm enough.
It can be concluded that the wealthy class in the film has always maintained a good image: friendly, polite, intelligent, brave, loving each other, and never giving up. Although they are not strong, they are all good people. Unlike some movies, the rich class is set up as hypocritical, narcissistic, embarrassing, marital crisis, such as this year's Palme d'Or "The Rubik's Cube."
audience empathy
So Nice's family was treated so badly in "Fun Game", two bad guys first angered them, then humiliated them, plundered them, beat them, and finally killed them. And there is really only one starting point: "Our ordinary life is really not fun."
The roles of the villains in the film are somewhat mysterious, and their identities and backgrounds are not explained. Both of them wear white clothes, and they can't tell what class they are, and they even give people a "tall" feeling. The little fat man always looks harmless to humans and animals, but he does not show mercy; the thin man is more talkative. While making fun of the little fat man's figure, he kept talking to the mirror, as if he was "communicating" with the audience.
It can be said that the good guys in the film are completely "good"; the bad guys are completely "bad". The director makes the audience's emotions shift to the side of the good guys, but let the bad guys win.
What are the rules of the game?
In the film, the bad guys set some rules of the game for the good guys, such as betting on whether they will survive until the next morning, such as reporting a number, and the person who counts to the last number is killed, etc.
And the rule that the bad guy secretly follows is "I hit you, but you can't have emotions yet, and you have to continue to cooperate with me. If you have emotions and don't cooperate, I will continue to hit you." For example, the little fat man broke George's leg, but later offered to treat the wound for him and asked him to cooperate. But when Anna ignored him, he beat Anna violently on the grounds that "when I don't exist".
The director seems to be venting his dissatisfaction with reality
In the movie, George asks "why" again and again and gets no answer. Deliberately making the kind and friendly elites beaten, depriving them of the right to be angry, and playing with their lives, the director seems to be venting some dissatisfaction, and the subtext behind it seems to be: I just want to beat you.
Breaking the Rules of Thriller
In my opinion, the movie is called "Fun Game", but in fact the director keeps breaking the "movie rules". First of all, the director makes the audience empathize with the good guys, but let the bad guys win; secondly, there is violence everywhere in the movie, but there is only one positive scene of violence. The director skillfully used the technique of shifting viewpoints to keep the violence off-camera. When the skinny guy kills the dog, the director shifts his point of view to the boat; when the fat guy kills the child, the point of view is shifted to the kitchen. It can be said that the director can "anti-violence" and "anti-genre".
The success of the film is that it still maintains a strong impact after avoiding violent scenes. After the death of the son, the director gave a fixed long shot of 1 minute. In the shot, the body of the son was lying next to the TV, Anna sat on the sofa with her head bowed, and George was lying on the ground. The three characters are still, but the picture is very shocking. There are also many terrifying details in the movie, such as the two villains wearing white gloves all the time, such as the dog barking when it first saw the villain.
The only positive violent scene in the film is the scene where Anna picks up the gun and kills the little fat man, but the "naughty" Haneke actually "rewinds" the film and "replays" this scene again, the new result is of course It's the little fat man who didn't die. Originally, people were very happy to be rewritten.
In addition to "anti-violence", the director also "reversed the fold", Anna escaped and was caught again, the knife originally left on the boat didn't come in handy, and so on. The director even provoked the audience by speaking in front of the mirror, "You don't want to see the complete and fascinating ending of the story?" But the director gave us a pessimistic and hopeless ending. At the end of the movie, the villain comes to another villa, ready to start a new "game".
The entire film feels like a threatening letter to the elite.
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