Over the course of September, The Cinematheque has been screening a number of films of brutal, graphic content in a series entitled “This is Going to Hurt: A Cinema of Cruelty.” The final weekend of the series featured a double bill of Michael Haneke’s controversial 90’s works Benny’s Video (1992) and Funny Games (1997). It is a series which served to provoke, amongst other things, contemplation over the representation, meaning, and significance of cruelty in film.
Concluding such a series with Haneke seems very fitting, as his disgust with the portrayal of violence in the media is one of the most striking themes throughout his filmography, and this is perhaps never more central than in these two films. Both Benny’s Video and Funny Games aggressively question the glorification of violence in the media and it’s desensitising effects, and how this shapes contemporary views of violence. UBC associate professor of film studies Lisa Coulthard introduced the film, concluding by wishing the audience “a disturbing evening.” And it certainly was disturbing.
Benny’s Video features the superb debut performance from Arno Frisch (equally fantastic leading in Funny Games), who portrays the titular young adolescent, who has an obsession with video, and especially videos violence, his favourite being one that he shot himself of a pig being slaughtered with a cattle gun, which he rewinds and replays over and over throughout the film. Benny interacts with the world through video, not reality, leaving him completely emotionally detached from others. Off-putting, jarring cuts between what Benny is watching and Benny’s actual setting frequently emphasize this distance. He invites a girl over and shows her the video of the pig, revealing that he stole the gun used in the slaughter. He uses it to murder her, with his camera set up on a tripod capturing the entire sequence.
Benny is left shockingly unaffected by this event, a feeling that is perfectly captured through Haneke’s distant, voyeuristic cinematography. After eventually showing the footage of the murder to his parents, his father asks him why he did it, to which he simply replies “to know what it felt like.” After some debate between themselves, his parents decide to conceal what their son has done. Their cold pragmatism in doing so is perhaps even more troubling than Benny himself.
The film succeeds in creating an experience that is both captivating and chilling. It is thematically intriguing, though some themes feel overly heavy-handed, with virtually no subtlety in terms of its criticism of screen violence. Additionally, the second half does not live up to the first, with the plot waning at times and lacking the same focus and thematic force that the film begins with.
Benny’s Video in many ways feels like a companion piece to the much more gruesome and at times almost unwatchable standout Funny Games. It is thematically similar in many ways, but is on the whole a much tighter, more focused, and more challenging film. The plot consists of two young men who take a wealthy family hostage in their lake home, playing a series of “games” with them that involve intense brutality that is both physically and psychologically punishing.
Coulthard noted in her introduction that Haneke seeks to portray violence as more than mere entertainment, and this is done with great force in Funny Games. The violence is detailed with excruciating realism and impact. It is portrayed as something absolutely horrifying, rather than something exciting and easily palpable. Funny Games forces the audience to confront the issue of violence further by subverting many common elements of violent films to become even more disturbing. The casual and often joking nature of the two young men while they commit acts of brutality might be seen as totally normal, badass, or even humorous in another film (see: Quentin Tarantino), but here it is the exact opposite.
These two early Haneke cuts are certainly difficult to watch and unsettling on many levels, but they are essential counterpoints to what we have grown accustomed to from the media. While these films, and in particular Benny’s Video, may not exhibit quite the same depth and mastery that Haneke would later display, they are still crucial works showcasing one of the greatest filmmakers working today coming into his own.