Movies, Violence, and Michael Haneke (Part IV of IV)
Posted on 11 April 2008 by Gary Karbon
As far as Michael Haneke's Funny Games (2007) is concerned, there is another and third level of analysis the basis of which I tried to establish in the second part of this meditation.
By stripping off the protective layer of redemption within which all crime thrillers and even slasher movies are wrapped, Haneke is actually denying us our human yearning for better tomorrows.
He is declaring that we have no RIGHT to HOPE for anything better in the future.
He assumes the DISCONNECT between his reality and our images is proof enough of our eternal guilt.
The worst point Haneke misses is this – denying us the right to maintain hope through symbols and narration is tantamount to saying that we have no right to ANY art, period.
Why? Because you do not even need any violence in a movie to raise the specter of a similar "bourgeois hypocrisy."
Imagine a couple falling in love and marrying after watching the delightful and non-violent When Harry Met Sally.
What if for the next 40 years this couple live through the hell of the worst marriage imaginable?
What if their REAL marriage turns out to have nothing in common with the ones depicted in these "silly" and "irresponsible" feel-good rom-coms?
Shall we thus "debunk" such comedies as well and never shoot them in the name of "honesty" and "consistency"? Where would that end?
At that point Haneke is committing an intellectual suicide but apparently he is not even aware of it.
In his adamant fundamentalism, Haneke cannot comprehend that the disconnect that he correctly detects between his reality and our images is actually our best effort to learn from our mistakes at as little a cost as possible, and lead humanly-better lives.
In trying to be holier than all of us he is committing the very same sin that all such characters commit at the end: Funny Games represents a fascism of spirit that tortures and kills the very same souls that it tries to "save" from themselves.
Did you know that "sin" is an old English archery term and it means to "miss the mark"?
Haneke is a bad archer aiming at his own inflamed Achilles' heel.
(The End)
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