You are right about the breaking of convential rules of filmmaking. And that is exactly what had been critizised by some people. It leaves you with an impression that it just slightly misses what you consider as being needed in an entertaining movie.
I watched it yesterday. And i have spent a lot of thought on this movie at this time. It is ingenious, if you are reflected enough to understand it correctly.
As i wrote, it does not seem to be perfectly entertaining. Once you begin to understand what it wants to show to the audience, you realize, that everything that you felt incomplete in this movie was designed this way intentionally.
These "rules" on what to expect in a movie are made by you as the audience but you never had been aware of that before. Many of these entertainment rules turn out to be unethical if you process them logically. Leaving you alone with what is shown and not fulfilling your subconscious expectations, the movie puts you in direct conflict with your own thoughts. When the movie is not doing like you expected, you have to come up with reasons why your expectations were wrong.
When you can reflect that neutrally, you have to admit to yourself, that it never really were some abstract unwritten rules, but actually it is more comparable to an expectation - or even stronger - a wish you had that appears to be unfulfilled here. Who is the real player in this "funny" game? Who really craves the sensation here to see other people suffer and enjoys it in a sadistical way? Who really would feel somehow betrayed, even disappointed if the torturing and pain ends too quickly here? How would you think in comparison in a real situation like this?
Imagine the movie would be completely different - imagine they just shot the people in the beginning and the rest of the movie would be about them watching TV, eating, then leaving with some stolen goods and thats it. While thinking about that - did you just admit to yourself that watching this movie made you think exactly like one of the psychopaths without realizing it? If this would be real, would you also be the very same person which is thinking: "It is just plainly boring to me if all the thrill ends that quickly and unspectacular. (It is not yet filling up standard movie length ;) ) I want to have some fun, thats the reason i am doing all of this. Show me something that is more fun. Like watching explicit violence, people being tortured, die slowly and suffer really hard."
You are desensitized by watching movies, you just dont realize it. Your expectations regarding a movie are perverted somehow. If you are honest to yourself, you draw your pleasure in movies from the very exact things you would expect just from the sickest psychopaths you could imagine in reality. You do not seem to be as far away from their way of thinking as you always wished to be. All you need to be in a similar state of mind obviously is just a feeling of emotional disconnection of what is happening - a TV screen for example, loss of your sense that it is "real". When you get deprived of the feeling of being connected to reality, your demands on what is necessary to get emotional stimulation and entertainment from it reach extreme levels - you would be completely bored by the same things that would be arousing (not necessarily in a sexual context) in reality.
Just lets suppose, you really were a robber as described in the above scenario, shot 3 people to get rid of the witnesses. (Of course) without any real experiences to compare with, i would assume everyone is conscious of the fact that this situation would not be experienced nearly as emotionally numb and boring as we would perceive a movie of this. You are totally emotionally disconnected from the events on the TV screen. You want to experience something that stirs up your emotions and compared to the reality, in a movie you only can achieve this with reaching emotional extremes.
From what i know on how sociopathy works, this could be a model for the way a serial killer is experiencing the world that is not really far off from real motivations driving a mass murderer. It is his own sick and twisted way to experience emotions he is not able to experience by normal means. This is so far off from our reality and so traumatizing that we tend to completely dissociate from that to be able to deal with it. We are dehumanizing them by calling them "monsters" so that we are not forced to accept them as being similar to us in any way. (Just to make that clear - i do not want to downplay the gravity of their crimes here, i just want to point at basic psychological mechanisms that you might not have recognized as such)
The movie asks you some questions. The answers are unpleasant enough that your subconscious mind seems to protect you by not allowing them to reach your conscious thoughts. You might fear them, they might challenge your social conditioning and the way you perceive your world. And because of that you tend to dissociate from all this by saying "it is just a movie". But this movie is different. It does not give you excuses like other movies. A big part of it is completely running in your mind only. And this part is the really disturbing one, once you start to realize that.
If you are open-minded enough to accept that thought at all. Still, your psychological repression is at work. In its simplest form you might think, the movie is flawed, not a good movie. You just did not enjoy it (should never have enjoyed watching a hostage-taking in the first place if you think of it). Bad script, bad movie. Case closed. Simple. Comfortable. And you dont realize that you are consequently reassuring your self it was just fiction - bad fiction you dont want to see again.
I do not know if you get right what i mean. I can imagine another form of this repressional rationalization, some of you even might think i have some unhealthy tendencies when reading all this. I dont. I am quite sure you experienced the movie the same way i did, maybe you just chose an interpretation for yourself that feels more comfortable than mine. I just would recommend open yourself a bit for these thoughts - that is what the movie actually is aiming at - making your personal access to them easier for you.
*spoiler alert*
I have to add a comment on the stripping scene here. While your explanations and thoughts on this are very interesting and have caused some thinking in me, i still have the feeling you are disregarding a bit of the "dirty" subtleties of this really ingenious scene and what it wants to show the audience in my opinion.
I know i will be running again at risk to be stigmatized by the reader into some kind of imaginative person that will make it easier to deal with what i am writing now. I often realize i have a good ability to think in a very reflected way on what is going on with myself emotionally and cognitively - where others often would have censored their thoughts, cutting out difficult scenes before the mind movie is having its final debut in thoughts.
I will give you the raw, uncut and unrated version of what my personal experience of this scene was like. I would have never thought about it and it would have been subject to censory for me as well - if this movie wouldnt do such a great job in preventing you from doing exactly this.
I saw this scene. They put an empty pillow over the boys head to take his sight. I remember wondering if i would see a raping now. Then they told her to undress.
And retrospectively i wanted to see her naked body at that moment. There was this crushed, humiliated woman. She was desperate, at the border to madness, apathic and her face exactly reflecting the mess her psyche must have been. She did not look like a woman anymore, she looked like a wreck. The sad, hollow shape a human leaves when you crush him mentally.
Still, i wanted to see her body. I even felt a bit disappointed that you did not see anything at all. The she was told to dress up again. What a disappointment following this dramatic buildup of the scene. I dissociated from these thoughts a bit by telling myself basically "Bad movie. They dont even dare to show a naked body." I reminded myself that it was just a movie without noticing why i did it. I shifted it into thoughts about how movies in contrast to reality will not let you see some things to maintain a respectful presentation.
This was confronted hard when you could see her breasts later. Nothing special was happening in this second scene, in safety her husband just told her to change clothes. She wore a transparent bra. She carelessly put on a completely revealing top, here breasts still were visible. And what did i figure out? It was nothing special to me anymore. I looked at it with some unimpressed thought like "Ah, okay. So i got to see it now." While i was really feeling a desire to see it in the other context, but under changed circumstances it was nothing special, no thrill involved at all.
But why is there this difference in how we perceive both scenes? Maybe it is just simply the fact you are deprived of the sensation that made you desire it in the first scene. That would be an easy explanation, comfortable so to say.
The alternative, unpleasant explanation would be different. Unpleasant would be if you think about that the scenes basically also differ in their presentation of humiliation. Your conscious mind is telling you such a setting of torture and humiliation of a woman is the last place to feel any kind of sexual tension. It would be sick, no healthy mind would feel that, only perverted minds of rapists and psychopaths work that way.
Retrospectically i have to see that the whole scene made me expect to witness a raping now. The way it was created by the director directly rubbed into my face that i not only expected to see it, but a part of me also felt disappointed when i did not. Did i actually wish to see a raping here?
The second scene made clear to me i can not simply base it on a desire to see her body. I did, it felt surprisingly unsatisfying then. Why was the first scene more sexually tensed, though it really shouldnt be?
In this scene the way this movie works becomes very obvious. As i said, the nasty parts of it are only shown in your mind. But the presentation makes clear to you, it is not just your thoughts on how you think it will turn out. Rather it disturbs you by pointing out that you secretly wish it to turn out this way - and leaves a strange feeling of disappointment when it doesnt.
That is, why i think the movie is really great. It makes you see yourself in a way you have not seen yourself before. Because you always tried to hide that to feel comfortable with what you are doing there.
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irenya
13 years ago
You are desensitized by watching movies, you just dont realize it. Your expectations regarding a movie are perverted somehow. If you are honest to yourself, you draw your pleasure in movies from the very exact things you would expect just from the sickest psychopaths you could imagine in reality. You do not seem to be as far away from their way of thinking as you always wished to be. All you need to be in a similar state of mind obviously is just a feeling of emotional disconnection of what is happening - a TV screen for example, loss of your sense that it is "real". When you get deprived of the feeling of being connected to reality, your demands on what is necessary to get emotional stimulation and entertainment from it reach extreme levels - you would be completely bored by the same things that would be arousing (not necessarily in a sexual context) in reality.
Just lets suppose, you really were a robber as described in the above scenario, shot 3 people to get rid of the witnesses. (Of course) without any real experiences to compare with, i would assume everyone is conscious of the fact that this situation would not be experienced nearly as emotionally numb and boring as we would perceive a movie of this. You are totally emotionally disconnected from the events on the TV screen. You want to experience something that stirs up your emotions and compared to the reality, in a movie you only can achieve this with reaching emotional extremes.
I think it's a bit puerile to talk about being "desensitized" by watching movies, tbh. At least, in this context. We don't derive pleasure from fictional violence because we've become numb to it: We derive pleasure because it is somehow built into our psyche. The fact that you may enjoy, in a way, the doings of a psychopath, doesn't make us "closer than we think" to a psychopath: It makes us plain old neurotics who fantasize on being something we're not. That's the whole idea of it. Movies, and art in general, are a reflection of our fantasies: It is the passage to act what draws the line between us and the psychopath.
You're absolutely right when you say that "when you get deprived of the feeling of being connected to reality" you get an emotional high from the extremes. That's just it: Most of us would not be able to do a lot of what we fantasize about, that's what separates us from psychopaths, because unlike them, in reality we feel the connection, we feel empathy, we feel an emotional link to others.
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muellbittehier
13 years ago
Scientific facts can be read here:
http://www.bookrags.com/research/desensitization-and-media-effects-eci-01/
I agree with you on the fact that it can be inherent in the human psyche. I have a diploma in biology btw and i am quite aware, that mankind is closer to the animal kingdom in behaviour than may be comfortable.
If u should speak out of the view of a biologist, we seem to empathize violence when we subconsciously perceive it as protecting the security of the social envoronment we live in.
If you ask me, what that basically is, its just a primal drive to stop genes flowing into the gene pool of our social group, the instinct itself is basically sexual by its nature. There is an subcnscious inherent fear of being stripped of mates and concurrency in terms of sexual reproduction. We humans just tend to rationalize and reformulate the motivations behind with what we call "reasoning".
The most extreme form of this drive is racism. I am german so i learned a lot about the third reich in school and everywhere.
I do not think it is a coincidence, that violence against jews had been justified by said "reasoning" in terms of purifying blood and "reestablishing" territorial claims with a logic of heritance.
In fact this is just roughly translated "The horde we call "aryan" has fear of genes invading their gene pool by foreign genes owned by the horde we call "jews". The "final solution" therefore is: Genocide."
We still are humans though. What does separate us from animals, is that we should be able to use reasoning to look behind what makes us just acting like an animal. Sadly most people dont. Reasoning becomes justification of the right to be an animal.
So it seems reasonable to apply violence to a foreign group of people that threaten our nation, namely the "evil" guys. Because everyone supposes to be the "good" guys, obviously the others have to be confronted violently. Reasoning gives a reason for violence and leads to an unreasonable outcome for mankind: Animals fighting against each others for blood and territory.
Its not a problem of the US, its a problem of the whole world. Everyone thinks of good and evil and totally forgets, that the other side might think exactly the same, just the other way around.
Life is not a movie, there is no hero and no evil guy where the happy end has been achieved when the evil guys finally are dead. Since the beginning of mankind both sides have to lose a lot of people until they realize it may be the best to settle down these thoughts.
Of course politicians know that we are animals. And they know how to use it.
I dont want to claim that violence is bad, if it stays in movies. But it demands, that people at least understand life is not like in a movie (not just believe they do, but act otherwise).
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irenya
13 years ago
Hi muellbittehier,
Thanks for the reply and for the link. It's an interesting theory, one should probably see exactly under what conditions those tests were run, how random the selection of the groups was, in sum, all the details on how those studies were carried, to see how trustable the results are. I do agree that humans have a large capacity to adapt, and that things are less shocking or horrifying when we're more exposed to them.
I'm still not too sure about the basic claim that we're really becoming desensitized to violence. I like violent movies, TV shows and books. I like watching crime shows both documentary and fictional. I still cringe at violence and it still makes me incredibly sad when I read/see about the acts of violence people commit against one another.
But basically, I agree with all you say here, so I started wondering why we don't agree on our take on the movie, lol.
There's something here, I think:
If u should speak out of the view of a biologist, we seem to empathize violence when we subconsciously perceive it as protecting the security of the social envoronment we live in.
That, and what you mention afterwards, points to one dimension of violence, which happens to be the type of violence that has maybe caused the more damage in history. That's the root of all wars and major conflicts. Or rather, that's what politicians and world leaders use in order to get consent for the wars they carry for usually more greedy reasons.
And i think it is troubling and fascinating to see how, time after time, people fall into that trap, and how it is our capacity for reasoning which brings out the worse or our animal instincts.
But the movie deals with something that's even more basic: Sheer survival under an extremely stressful situation. These people aren't fighting an "alien other", but simply trying to stay alive in an impossible situation. Denying, or even doubting, their right to try to take back control, and objecting our pleasure in seeing them take back control (when Anna shoots Fatty, for example) is trying to deny our survival instinct, and I think survival instinct is something you just can't mess with, or judge. That's why I think that any attempt to analyze this in the context of how desensitized we are to violence is pointless. If what Haneke was trying to do when rewinding that scene was to tell us that we're wrong in applauding Anna's violence, i think he's off the mark. She's trying to survive, empathizing with her is only natural, regardless of whether you've seen a million violent movies or none.
[quote}I dont want to claim that violence is bad, if it stays in movies. But it demands, that people at least understand life is not like in a movie (not just believe they do, but act otherwise).[/quote]
I agree. But I don't think it's movies' fault if people don't understand the difference between fiction and reality. :)
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muellbittehier
12 years ago
I agree. But I don't think it's movies' fault if people don't understand the difference between fiction and reality. :)
As I understand the movie its more like an artists hint at how subtle our perception of violence is shaped in movies. I think it should show to us, how desensitized we already became in terms of movie violence and how we actually began to assume there are certain rules to follow in a movie about crime and/or violence that contradict our "public opinion" in some aspects.
you are completely right about that its not the fault of the movies.
But I really think this is one point here Haneke got, and i am afraid he is more right with judging media violence than feels comfortable.
The most you will experience in terms of violence today is fictional, it is in movies. Violence is committed as a mean to achieve justice by heroes - thats a movie plot.
A real plot in the past is:
Once upon a time a dictator built up a horrible regime which commited awful crimes against humanity. After winning a devastating war, the opposing american government decided NOT to be the same, but to be a better example by granting these crimininals an ordinary court in Nurnberg where they had the chance to defend their deeds in front of a jury. Some where sentenced to death, others received minor sentences depending on the gravity of their deeds. This was a great achievement of humanity.
Another real plot in more recent time is:
A kind of dictator managed to influence some people into committing terroristic attacks in the US. For a long time he was hidden. But then, some heroes of the Navy Seals finally found him in some hole in Afghanistan. They killed him immediately, it is questionable if he tried to defend himself or was just basically shot immediately. People cheered as this and the president who ordered this was watching a live broadcasting of the execution while it happened. He is considered to be a national hero for doing that.
So as you see, something has changed in recent times and i dont think its for the better. You cant plainly say, its the medias fault and the way how violence is shown today. But i think it is obvious that it is has become easier to sell this positively in public when the average image people have of violence is a guy wielding guns to shoot bad guys.
I think you`ll get my point...
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muellbittehier
13 years ago
Scientific facts can be read here:
http://www.bookrags.com/research/desensitization-and-media-effects-eci-01/
I agree with you on the fact that it can be inherent in the human psyche. I have a diploma in biology btw and i am quite aware, that mankind is closer to the animal kingdom in behaviour than may be comfortable.
If I should speak out of the view of a biologist, we seem to empathize violence when we subconsciously perceive it as protecting the security of the social environment we live in.
If you ask me, what that basically is, its just a primal drive to stop genes flowing into the gene pool of our social group, the instinct itself is basically sexual by its nature. There is an subconscious inherent fear of being stripped of mates and rivalry in terms of sexual reproduction. We humans just tend to rationalize and reformulate the motivations behind with what we call "reasoning".
The most extreme form of this drive is racism. I am german so i learned a lot about the third reich in school and everywhere.
I do not think it is a coincidence, that violence against jews had been justified by said "reasoning" in terms of purifying blood and "reestablishing" territorial claims with a logic of heritance.
In fact this is just roughly translated "The horde we call "aryan" has fear of genes invading their gene pool by foreign genes owned by the horde we call "jews". The "final solution" therefore is: Genocide."
We still are humans though. What does separate us from animals, is that we should be able to use reasoning to look behind what makes us just acting like an animal. Sadly most people dont. Reasoning becomes justification of the right to be an animal.
So it seems reasonable to apply violence to a foreign group of people that threaten our nation, namely the "evil" guys. Because everyone supposes to be the "good" guys, obviously the others have to be confronted violently. Reasoning gives a reason for violence and leads to an unreasonable outcome for mankind: Animals fighting against each others for blood and territory.
Its not a problem of the US, its a problem of the whole world. Everyone thinks of good and evil and totally forgets, that the other side might think exactly the same, just the other way around.
Life is not a movie, there is no hero and no evil guy where the happy end has been achieved when the evil guys finally are dead. Since the beginning of mankind both sides had to lose a lot of people until they realize it may be the best to settle down these thoughts. But of course each war is different, this time there is a real problem.
Of course politicians know that we still are animals. And they know how to use it.
I dont want to claim that violence is bad, if it stays in movies. But it demands, that people at least understand life is not like in a movie (not just believe they do, but acting different in real life). I totally understand, that it is too optimistic to hope this will change globally at some point in time.
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
"Its not a problem of the US, its a problem of the whole world. Everyone thinks of good and evil and totally forgets, that the other side might think exactly the same, just the other way around."
With that in mind also, what do you think of action movies and fairy-tales where for the most part, it is good and innocent people fighting bad and evil guys and winning, and then there being a happy ending and everyone is happy? And is it a surprise that real life doesn't work this way?
Also, a lot of what you said can be perhaps attributed to ignorance and stupidity in humanity, or is it not all that simple?
And politicians often start wars that affect and even kill millions of innocents in the process. And do they really KNOW we are animals and act on it, or just don't know or care and don't know better?
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
"Everyone thinks of good and evil and totally forgets, that the other side might think exactly the same, just the other way around."
And what if we DO remember it but we just don't AGREE to it and think their opinions hold VALUES here?
BESIDES, in CERTAIN cases, where you say have people who want to violate us or kill us and we haven't done anything to them, why should it even remotely matter what THEY think and why can't we see ourselves as the good here? To name one example of such a scenario?
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
Although the complexity here lies more with global and mass scale conflicts like wars and invasions of certain, and often even sovereign, countries and nations rather than local and basic ones however serious here.
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
2 muellbittehier- my my my, you sure DO seem to know a hell of a LOT in here about, well, like the main gritty truths of human nature, and even more than that, you don't seem to separate people into good and bad alone based on their deeds like that and you seem to realize the world is complex and complicated too and never simply "good and bad people, good guys fighting bad guys etc" and happy endings full stop.
You even had to go out of your way to comment on one stripping scene and start to controversially debate about not even a few but like the basic general wanting, and for personal perverse reasons, to see sexual violence like that leaving nothing to hide and writing long texts even with statistical evidence.
And I notice you don't seem personally that bothered or surprised by it all, and it seems like, you also feel like THIS movie is trying to say something MORE complex than on its surface and in terms of what the director intended with regards to making a comment on "violence and the media" and you also feel that this movie is aware of it all but you know obviously more about those things and not from movies.
ALSO, FINAL QUESTION. EVEN WITH STATISTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC FACTS, on "desensitization" or otherwise... With GENERAL people and audiences - Does it really matter MUCH? Can we not just watch, appreciate and admire (if not "enjoy") the cinematic experience whilst remaining our NORMAL SELVES, and even if WE DO crave violence or, according to your facts, "perversely crave" sexual violence etc (by the way, "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) for instance DID show those things that this movie "hinted at" - BUT, I was NOT "turned on" or "perversely personally craving it at all", from a distance, I saw it, even if in more intimate and extreme ways, and DIFFERENT too, as that of OTHER FORMS OF VIOLENCE that was ALSO DEPICTED IN THAT MOVIE including murder and physical beatings etc), does it really matter overall or even a little bit THAT strongly and matter much, or i
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
or is it just a MOVIE even if MORE serious than standard say entertainment fare like violent action and horror and thriller movies and we should see it and treat it as such, obvious wrongs etc known and notwithstanding? Cheers. (And "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) also had similar themes explored and was also an influence on this movie even though HANEKE ALSO criticized and didn't like that movie much.)
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
Or do you Mr Mueller think we should panic and worry or just really THINK about it all including films we watch and what, even in adult ages, they may be, if at all, "doing to us"? Etc? :) Inquiring minds mildly and curiously want to know. :)
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
"I totally understand, that it is too optimistic to hope this will change globally at some point in time."
Realistically, it will only "change" when HUMAN NATURE changes completely, which may involve special EVOLUTION that would allow to eradicate the many massive human flaws including that of sociopathy and psychopathy and generally "lesser" ones like greed, stupidity, desire for power via abuse, ignorance etc and maybe realizing on top that it is as pleasant and preferable for us as it is necessary including for our basic survival and existence.
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TheMan18 (13052)
a year ago
Also, worth mentioning, and I'm a bit of a sensitive and impressionable guy so I kind of know...
Some of us have CONSCIENCE over these matters, and we even remember, and often vividly, us being told off by folks who do have morality and even strong ways of expressing as such, and these people by the way often did have compassion for innocent victims and strongly despised guilty perpetrators in some or other areas.
For them desensitization like that wasn't an issue. But they also had different interests in life than violent films of various varieties here and there.
So with that in mind, of course I am generally on the positive side of things because of upbringing and influence from experienced and serious in general moral relatives.
And I come from Russia too if that's any indication generally.
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