Funny Games is the 2008 American remake of the Austrian version of the film produced in 1997; both were directed by German–born Michael Haneke. The American version is a shot-for-shot remake of the Austrian film; its sameness insisted upon by Haneke for an American audience, the film he said they ‘needed to see’. The film has variously been categorized as horror and psychological thriller.

There are many ways to analyse this film; the formalist approach with its distinction between plot and story (in this case, it is plot driven rather than character driven), the classical narrative approach which ensures the spectator control (or a belief of it), a psychoanalytic approach with the powerful ‘looked at’ woman who has to be dealt with, and the post-structural approach by using deconstruction, symbology and ‘points of crisis’ to understand the story. These are superficial descriptions. Parts of all of these approaches could have been used to analyse this film. However, I’ve decided to use a structuralist approach as I believe the film can be analysed more effectively and in more detail using theories within this approach. It fits the structuralist approach as it works on many different levels and is really a comment on Western culture and society, an aspect encapsulated by Barthes’ concepts.

There are several structural approaches to the analysis of film. ‘Structuralism attempts to interrogate the laws that govern narrative structure. It regards texts as organized systems of signs’. ‘”Structuralism” can be viewed as an extension of “formalism” in that both “structuralism” and “formalism” devoted their attention to matters of literary form (i.e. structure) rather than social or historical content; and that both bodies of thought were intended to put the study of literature on a scientific, objective basis’ (from http://www.iep.utm.edu/1/literary.htm).

Fiske (p 130) said that ‘character acts primarily as a function of the plot; only then is it given individualizing characteristics as an ideological hook for the audience. Even then these individualizing characteristics are best understood not in their uniqueness but in terms of the overall structure of social values that are embodied in the structure of characters (hero + heroine + villain + villainess)’. So in Funny Games, the characters do not represent themselves per se, but are representations of structured social values that provide the message of the story within our own knowledge of the world. The characters can be viewed as icons; Ann as mother/protector, George as power lost, the white-gloved men as an illogical manipulative political system or an uncontrollable virus.

I will analyse Funny Games using mainly the theories of the early structuralists, Propp and Barthes, with a few additional comments about Levi-Strauss and Fiske. The film does manage to follow the structures prescribed but in no way is it predictable in theme or discourse. It does not completely map to any one theorist’s views.

A well-heeled couple, their son and dog head off on holiday to their house by a lake. They are soon visited by two very polite white-gloved young men who, for no apparent reason, proceed to torture them physically and psychologically. The father is incapacitated early on, the child murdered and the wife, after attempting an escape, is brought back to the house to watch her husband murdered by the ‘game-players’. The young men bet the family that they will be dead by 9 am. They kidnap the wife, sail out on the yacht into the middle of the lake, and push her overboard by 9 am. The film ends with the white-gloved men moving on to another home on the lake to inflict the same crimes on another unsuspecting family.

Propp, an early structuralist, analysed text through structure. Propp’s analysis of the structure of 100 folk tales suggested that one single structure can represent a whole series for story in popular narrative (with his 32 narrative morpheme functions and eight character roles in seven spheres of action). Even though his research was done in 1928, many contemporary stories fit into this structure.

Not all of these functions are necessary to identify the story, and several characters can play different character roles or merge into one. I have attempted to map Propp’s structure against Funny Games (structure copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp): Preparation, complication, transference, struggle, return, recognition.

Propp concluded there were eight character roles placed into seven spheres of action:
The villain — struggles against the hero – The white-gloved men
The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object – The dead neighbours (through the rifle to Georgie)
The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest – The rifle
The princess and her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative – Ann
The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off –George, the husband
The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess – Ann or her son, Georgie
False hero/anti-hero/usurper — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

Barthes uses myth to ‘naturalise concepts in the interests of the bourgeoisie (myth works to preserve the status quo)’. So-called ‘myths’ in story, Barthes says, are presented as stereotypes, and, like stereotypes, myths are often based on preconceived ideas and thoughts developed over time. Unlike Levi-Strauss who based his theories on culture as a homogeneous concept and ignored the difference between cultures and classes, Barthes based his theories on the role of myth in industrialized capitalist societies with his theory of story based on class conflict rather than homogeneity.

In this way, Barthes provides an appropriate avenue for analyzing Funny Games. It is a comment on class; the struggle between classes and the assumptions we, as the viewer, make about class constructs. At the beginning of the film, the viewer sees an upper crust, wealthy family on their way to their holiday. At this point, we are not aware where precisely they are going but the strong signifieds are the Landcruiser (or similar brand of four-wheel drive) towing the yacht. Music plays an interesting part in the diegesis of the story. This diegetic element introduces the couple, the parents of a child, as having intellectual pursuits. Most families would play ‘I Spy’ on a road trip rather than ‘Guess the classical composer and if that’s too easy, guess the composition?’ This immediately sets the class of the family. The trappings of wealth increase when they drive past stately homes with long driveways and grand gates, the inhabitants of one they obviously know. It soon becomes obvious that they are visiting their holiday home in ‘the Hamptons’ by a large lake. Suddenly the credits appear with the words ‘FUNNY GAMES’ in upper case red accompanied by discordant heavy metal music (‘Bonehead’ by Naked City), in total opposition to the introductory chords of Mozart indicating that all will not be well in this world.

Barthes defines a set of five narrative codes that denote meaning and intextuality of all narratives. I’ll attempt to analyse Funny Games using Barthes’ five narrative codes.

Symbolic code (voice of the symbol) – This code forms sets of antitheses against an organized cultural code or what Barthes calls binary oppositions. These oppositions are good versus evil, hero versus villain, male versus female, upper class (wealthy/established) versus lower class (poor/unestablished), innocence versus experience (or learner versus teacher), older person versus younger person (generations), family versus single male, passive versus active, controlled versus controller, thinking versus ‘object of look’, powerless versus powerful, imprisoned versus free (physically and emotionally), mind versus body, community versus isolation. These also work on the deep structural level cited by Fiske (p 132). The French structural anthropologist, Levi-Strauss, said that ‘myth is an anxiety-reducing mechanism that deals with unresolvable contradictions in a culture and provides imaginative ways of living with them’. Barthes’ binary oppositions have synergies with Levi-Strauss’s idea that myth consists of oppositions.

Connotative or semic code (voice of the person): This is the construction of character by semes, thoughts and traits. Ann appears to be the hero in the film. At the start she becomes aware much more quickly than her husband that things are going awry. As her husband is incapacitated, she becomes the able-bodied hero who can leave the prison to get help. Interestingly, it is Ann who has the aspects of herself slowly taken away: her dog is killed, she is stripped (metaphorically and physically made vulnerable), she plays their game, her husband is killed, until it is her physical self that is finally extinguished. This represents the slow psychological torture inflicted on communities who remain oblvious to the signs of degradation around them until it is too late. Signifiers that help to develop her role as protector are her floral dress (representing purity, womanliness, motherliness, propriety), she is in the kitchen organizing the dinner, directing movements when they reach the house. She is the capable mother and wife, protector of the family. The husband on the other hand, is incapacitated early in the story. The use of the phallic golf club (also a connotation of wealth) disabling his leg shows his castration at the hands of manipulative, powerful, illogical higher forces that cannot be stopped. His incapacitation enables her, the female, to enter her continuous yet pointless struggle against these same forces. The fact that George strikes the first blow (even though the spectator knows that this has had no bearing on the continuing trajectory of the white-gloved men), gives the perpetrators an unjustified reason for their attack, and makes George the scapegoat for their actions.

Cultural or referential code (voice of science or knowledge): This is the narrative of the cultural meanings outside the text/film that the viewer uses to interpret story. The perfect nuclear family is depicted as smiling, playing intellectually highbrow games (guessing the name of the classical composer and the composition on the way in the car). The trappings of wealth and power are illustrated with the four-wheel drive, the yacht, the house in the Hamptons (or similar), no need of a landline as this beautiful home is just a holiday house by the lake. The family is presented as having it all pitted against the two young men who for no reason, resent this establishment, and are intent on destroying the equilibrium of the wealthy. Peter and Paul inhabit a world of irreverence; it is a world of cartoon violence that they are playing out realistically. They constantly refer to each other and Tom and Jerry, Beavis and Butthead and use gaming techniques in the violent acting out of their aggression. This points to the assumption that Peter and Paul are products of a society that allows its children no discipline; they have no ability or desire to recognize fantasy from reality.

Proairetic code (voice of empirics): This is the meaning of any action in relation to our experience of similar actions in other narratives. Any actions started must be completed and as a whole, constitute the plot events of the narrative. When the film begins, everything is perfect, setting the scene for things to go horribly wrong. The action differs from most films in that the perpetrators are dressed in white (for good and pure), and are so polite to be almost obsequious until their true motives are known. The major action signifier is that in most narratives, the suspense is brought about by the hope (and most often correct knowledge) that the hero will escape and the villains will be overcome (the viewer is continually tricked into believing that good will prevail, for example the planting of the knife in the yacht which eventually leads to nihilistic failure). In this film, every hope is dashed insidiously until the final push of Ann overboard, when the spectator realizes that all is hopeless; violence has won.

Hermeneutic code (voice of truth): This is the pattern of narrative, how the story unfolds and the code of enigmas or puzzles. The linear plot line follows the canonic format: equilibrium, disequilibrium, renewed equilibrium (in a manner of speaking) but does not provide an ‘overall trajectory of enigma resolution’. There is equilibrium at the start with the family happily on their way to their perfect holiday hideaway. They are the picture of the perfect nuclear family above everyday concerns in most other people’s reach. Very soon disequilibrium is achieved and continues throughout most of the film. After the husband and son are killed, there is still hope for Ann. When she is finally pushed overboard, the spectator knows that the forces of evil have won and are in power. Even still, in some sick way, we as viewers are drawn into the psychotic journey of the two young men. A kind of equilibrium is again achieved at the end of the film when Peter makes his way to the next neighbour’s house to start the violent process all over again. We, the spectator and equally the bourgeoisie that both Barthes and Haneke criticize, are implicit in their violence, albeit against our will. After all, we were just following Haneke’s orders.

Marx’s view of the bourgeoisie concluded with agreement that this Barthesian myth narrative confirms particular ideologies, and that by constant use it enables these ideas to be made natural, and seem the correct order of things. The bourgeoisie have privilege and power over others most often seen as negative; the term has come to be used pejoratively. ‘Barthes believes…all myth is bourgeois, that is, it always promotes the interests of the dominant classes by making the meanings that serve these interests appear natural and universal’ (Fiske, p 134). In Funny Games, then, is the spectator required to question this privilege and power (somehow equally embodied by the white-gloved men as by the family) so that we believe that in this society, the perpetrators are from the same class as the victims? Might we think that this violent society, however polite and insidious, overtakes and humiliates its own society by some quirk of fate, like National Socialists in the Austria of the director’s parents? Haneke, as director, is criticising the oblivious, unaware bourgeoisie for their insistence on ignoring the world around them, e.g. the acquiescence to Hitler in the 1930s, the plight of the Bosnians in the 1990s, even perhaps the world’s blindness to the carnage in Rwanda. Basically the message is Haneke has shocked us; we are the bourgeoisie he is trying to awaken out of our blissful ignorance and smugness. The violence is without reason or malice; it is merely a tool to shock.

The film works on simple and complex levels and within many structures only one of which I have discussed here. And while Peter purports to speak the truth many times in the film (‘Truth is…), Michael Haneke has the final word:

‘There is never just one truth; there is only personal truth.’ (from http://en.widipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Haneke)

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‘Funny Games’: Last Laughs, by Kurt Loder, viewed 15 October 2008, <http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1583404/story.jhtml>.
Fiske, J 1987, ‘Narrative’, in Television culture, Methuen, London, pp. 128-148.
Funny Games (2008 film), viewed 15 October 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funny_Games_%282008_film%29>.
Michael Haneke, viewed 15 October 2008.
Roland Barthes and the coding of discourse, viewed 15 October 2008, <http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/5codes.htm>.
S/Z, viewed 15 October 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/Z>.
Senses of cinema, Funny Games by Chris Justice, viewed 15 October 2008, <http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/05/34/funny_games.html>.
The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Literary Theory, viewed 15 October 2008, <http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/literary.htm>.