things I've learned from Funny Games

"Don't put your trust in anyone other than yourself. Not everyone thinks a situation through the same as you would yourself. And not everyone holds the same moral code as yourself."

I actually think that if the film has any "message" to carry forward apart from its static commentary on visual violence stripped of the usual embellishments, that may be it. In fact, I kept thinking of 9-11 and how so much of the extent of the death and destruction might have been prevented had people not been so completely unprepared for murderous, remorseless intent that was utterly outside their common experience. Aside from the multiple procedural problems that opened the door for the 9-11 killers (poor coordination between agencies, security that could be beaten by anybody with serious intent, etc.), any good psychologist (particularly a social psych) can tell you that part of the paralysis that occurs in such a situation is fed by how insulated people in the West, maybe even more so in the U.S. in particular, feel from such events, and therefore how unreal they seem even as they're unfolding, making it unlikely that anybody will take appropriate action in time. It's hard to believe people will do this either individually or collectively (in some ways, there are more common mechanisms by which it can happen collectively), that they will stand by and even comply actively with instruction after instruction, participating in their own step-by-step capture and demise or at least failing to stop it, and yet it happens all the time and always has. As a study of that kind of psychology, the kind of immovable assumption that nothing like this could happen to me--I mean, watch the complete ineffectuality of the husband, for instance, and his slowness to realize just how much trouble they were in--I think the film is really worth a look, even though there's something tremendously sick about it.

I'm thinking, for instance, about how security experts like Gavin de Becker (sp?) stress so much that recognizing these situations as early as possible is the difference between life and death sometimes. If you climb into the abductor's car complicitly while you're on a public street, your odds of survival go down by something like 400-500% or more. That kind of thing. But for most victims, it takes a while for the situation to register. It's not that they really believe these are reasonable people and that they're going to get a good outcome; it's that the dire nature of their situation just doesn't hit them until they've complied with the first couple of steps, and by then it's too late.

Maybe I should start a thread on this. But I guess I should take some time at least to skim through some thread titles and see if somebody's already done something.

if a Skinny,preppy boy comes to your door asking for eggs, say HELLL NO and slam the door in his face.


I think it should be if a Skinny,preppy boy comes to your door asking for eggs, go get a shotgun and blast his head off.

[deleted]

Now that was funny. (And true.)