Like Ice Cubes in My Sternum: Funny Games

This might technically be a review. But I can't call it a review. Because I can't talk about it with you yet.

I spoke a few posts back about my attitude about the flinch; about getting up and walking around, about being so upset that one had to turn away. I spoke about my unwillingness to do so.

There is now, officially, a film that made me wish I could. And just as I was wishing I could this movie prevented me from doing so.

There is a movie. A remake, really, by the same director, shot for shot. The movie is called Funny Games. It stars Naomi Watts. It stars Tim Roth. It stars Michael Pitt. And it stars your stomach being punched as hard as it can by the Abominable Snowman.

I cannot explain this movie. I cannot explain this movie because to explain this movie is to rob it of some of its power over you. Though that isn't saying much; I went in with a skull full of lit theory and some vague idea of what the film was about, and I was still skewered through the brainstem and anchored to my chair.

This movie is, as best I can describe it, Brechtian horror. It is a movie about violence, and about what violence really does to someone, and about what we'd really do when faced with a monster. And this movie will never make facing that easy for you.

This movie conquers you. This movie plays with the medium, and this movie plays with you. This movie molests you; it makes you watch, and it makes you feel bad for watching. This movie is about how easy it is now to watch someone be disemboweled; and when you're done this movie will make you wish that was all it was. But it doesn't need special effects do it; it really doesn't. Everything about this movie is here to make you uncomfortable; viscerally, spiritually, deeply uncomfortable. This movie makes you question the media in a way you never considered.

Carpenter. Hooper. Craven. These men are great filmmakers, and they make classic films. They made horror films.

But the director of Funny Games made horror.

Watch it. Or rather, don't watch it. Because you don't watch Funny Games. You survive it.

The gauntlet is thrown. Pick it up.