There’s nothing funny about Michael Haneke’s FUNNY GAMES
FUNNY GAMES (Michael Haneke, 1997)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, April 7, 5:00
Series runs through April 10
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a harrowing home invasion movie that is as brutal as it is ultimately frustrating. Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Cache) manipulates the audience nearly as much as he does the characters on-screen, even breaking the fourth wall by having one of the villains address the viewer several times. When Anna (Susanne Lothar), Georg (Ulrich Mühe from The Lives of Others), and their son, Schorschi (Stefan Clapczynski), head to their summer vacation home on a lake, they have no idea what lies in store for them. A man (Arno Frisch) claiming to be a friend of their neighbors’ shows up asking for some eggs, but there is a subtle malevolence behind his odd demeanor. He is soon joined by a companion (Frank Giering) who insists on trying out one of Georg’s golf clubs. It’s not long before the two men, who alternately call each other Peter and Paul, Tom and Jerry, and Beavis and Butt-Head, have severely broken Georg’s leg, sexually harass Anna, and put a bag over Schorschi’s head, all for no apparent reason except that they are bored and want to play some games, the more dangerous the better. It’s a tense, frightening film that never lets up, even when it appears to be over. The soundtrack juices up the horror, with classical music by Mozart and Handel offset by screeching punk by John Zorn and Naked City. Mühe and Lothar later reunited for Nicole Mosleh’s Nemesis, which was completed shortly before Mühe’s sudden death from stomach cancer in 2007. Haneke made an American remake of Funny Games in 2008, with Tim Roth as George, Naomi Watts as Anna, Brady Corbet as Peter, and Michael Pitt as Paul, with an appearance by Frisch as well. The original Funny Games is screening April 7 as part of MoMA’s “Carte Blanche: Cindy Sherman” series, a collection of films curated by photographer Cindy Sherman in conjunction with her glorious retrospective at the museum, which features many of her untitled film stills. Other works in the series include David Lynch’s Inland Empire, John Frankenheimer’s Seconds, John Cassavetes’s Shadows, John Waters’s Desperate Living, and Sherman’s own Doll Clothes and Office Killer.