A few weeks ago, I blogged about Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. After seeing the Americanized version this past thursday, I am at a loss of words. It was excellently executed, but I can’t help feeling overly manipulated while watching it. The killers break the fourth wall and speak to the camera/audience, which is extremely unsettling. Also, the film ends with a freeze frame, totally in medias res with absolutely no clear resolution.

Haneke refuses to explain the motives of the killers, and appears to be questioning the entertainment value of violence itself in movies. But he never clearly chooses a side. As Pajiba explains it: There is an “inherent duplicity of Haneke’s work and raises the question of whether he’s attacking American viewers for being such avid consumers of violence, as seen in his aversion to actually showing any, or whether he’s just a bit hypocritical, since it would be possible to discuss the flaws in modern American culture without making a film that’s terrifying and unable to avoid catering to those very desires Haneke seems to find so repugnant. Faced with the choice of taking the high or very low road, Haneke replies: Sure.”

Thus, I don’t know if I can call it a good film. Especially, when I knew going in that this was a shot by shot remake. If there was a hidden camcorder in the theater, you could definitely see how uncomfortable this film makes the audience. I understand horror movies are supposed to be a visceral experience, but if your movie makes people literally sick, something’s going on there. I suppose the jokes on the American viewing audience, since we have created a climate of people so afraid of subtitles that it’s a viable business decision to remake a film in English.

Would you remake your own film? Michael Haneke already has with his US version of his film Funny Games. The psychological horror stars Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, and Michael Pitt.

-In theaters, April 5th-

Since the plot and mise-en-scene of the original was very meticulous, a new director could easily misinterpret the original and botch up a remake. Thus, Haneke can preserve the ideas of his film by directing the new version. It has been said that some auteur filmmakers are ultimately making the same film over and over again with each new project. Films by Brian DePalma, Hitchcock, and Kubrick have been used to study this post-modernist concept. I suppose Haneke is just taking it to the next level.

To an extent, I get it where he’s coming from, especially when I think about my student films. I would love to remake some of them, especially with better actors and a Canon GL2. Maybe a remake doesn’t have to have such a bad connotation if you look at it as a second chance to make a better film.