Fun and Games

I recently watched Funny Games US, the shot-for-shot remake of the original Michael Haneke film from 1997. What makes this unique is that it was the same director who made this virtual replica, albeit in English language with Hollywood actors like Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.

Haneke has suggested that the reason for making this film is that he saw the target audience as the American society that has notably been consuming "torture-porn" style movies like Hostel and Saw. With his earlier version being in foreign language, he argued that in order to get the film out to this audience, he had to remake it in English.

Unfortunately, this wasn't a success. Mainly due to its limited distribution across America, the wider audience that the remake was aiming at was simply not penetrated. If anything, the film was watched mainly by people who had already seen the original version or who had enjoyed Haneke's recent successes with Hidden (Cache) or the Piano Teacher.

The teen audience that attends multiplex showings of Hostel-like films were not there and the stats back this up - Funny Games US opened to 274 screens in the USA and took a total of $1.2million dollars in the month it played. To put this into context, Hostel Part II took seven times that amount on its opening weekend in 2007 ($8.2million) and grossed fourteen times the amount ($17.5million) in total.

The figure that most stands out is that it cost $15million to make and as such, even taking into account DVD sales, makes for a low level of profit overall. All things considered, surely it would have made more sense to just re-release the original film in the USA and spend a bit of money on marketing it?

While it is an interesting concept to remake his own film for such a reason, Haneke fundamentally failed. What's more, the actual films themselves are so identical that they is nothing to differentiate them. It is neither better nor worse than the original; they are identical in shots and dialogue and the performance from the cast is just as strong, especially from Naomi Watts. What's more - and this is perhaps testament to Haneke's skills as a director - the same repulsion and horror are impinged upon you and it maintains the same psychological bite as the original.

Based upon this, the conundrum that I keep contemplating is this: Which version would I recommend to a friend to watch over the other?

My gut reaction is that if I watched the two of them side by side, and independent of thought, that I would prefer the remake. Most of this is probably due to the familiarity of it - not in just the language but also the fact that the cast is known and with it comes a certain extra intimacy and connection. For example, I have watched a large number of Naomi Watts films purely on the basis of her participation and it is this warmth and familiarity that draws me to the remake.

There is an obvious cultural distaste for remakes, especially those of foreign language films into English language. This is invariably due to the inferior quality but there is often a more snobbish element at play. Why watch the remake when you can watch the original? Ultimately, I think Haneke's response would be that it doesn't matter which version you watch, as long as you watch it.

With Funny Games US, I think I can comfortably say that it is a great film, like the original. The logic behind making it however does not quite befit the same genius.