Bloodtype Online

    With the upcoming remake of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games on the way, I thought now was the perfect opportunity to go back and take a look at some of the older films produced by this challenging Austrian director.  Released in 1992, Benny’s Video is a stark, but often belabored, look at the severe emotional detachment within one affluent Viennese family.  14-year-old Benny seems to be a normal rich kid with absent, disinterested parents.  He has friends, does well in school, and even has a nifty little pyramid scheme going.  There is nothing overtly odd about the way he has a camcorder pointed out his bedroom window, providing constant surveillance of the world outside.  One small red flag is his obsession with a video of a pig being killed.  A farmer uses a slaughter gun, as Benny’s father watches.  The pig twitches, squeals, and the video ends.  Benny always rewinds and watches it again. 

His parents leave him alone for the weekend and Benny brings a girl home.  She’s not a classmate, just some girl he would see outside the video store he frequents.  It’s an odd date, expectedly awkward.  Benny pops in a movie, lights up a smoke, makes a pizza, grabs at her jokingly and recovers from this social error.  Then he shows her the pig video.  Surprisingly, she doesn’t run out screaming.  She asks questions and they talk about death.  It also turns out that Benny stole the gun.  Then, the daring begins.  She won’t fire it at Benny, but she still dares him to fire it at her—which he does.  All of this is captured on video.  It’s now that you begin to realize that this is not a bratty rich kid stuck in a bad situation, but rather that Benny is some sort of budding psychopath. 

    See, it doesn’t seem that he methodically planned to kill this girl, but it does feel like an orchestrated accident.  Benny also seems pretty bored with the whole thing.  He cleans up, plays with her blood, shoves her in a closet and goes out.  His parents return and he doesn’t even try to hide what he’s done.  He shows them the video.  It’s meaningless to him.  In one of the film’s most provoking scenes, the parents discuss what they need to do if they should choose to cover up Benny’s crime.  Their motivation does not stem from a need to protect the son they love.  There is no emotion…none.  His father repeatedly tells his mother to put all of that aside; it won’t do any good.  They plot and strategize.  How will they dispose of the body?  Does anyone know?  What will they do if they are caught?  You should be repelled, but it’s only human, isn’t it?  Only human to wonder, “how do we get out of this?”  Their whole conversation seems normal, but it’s wrong and it’s also wrong to see them as parents making a normal, expected decision.  This is what we are supposed to think, right?  It’s wrong to kill an innocent girl and it’s wrong to cover up her death, even if the killer is your son, even if it’s likely no one else knows.  But…

    Benny’s Video offers up difficult questions.  It’s confrontational and interesting. These are mechanical people who are calm and collected to the point that it is wholly inappropriate.  They are the perfect detached creations of the director.  Yet, I don’t know how many different ways I needed to see that made clear.  I found myself wishing it would move a bit faster in the last half of the film. The conclusion is amazing, yet far too abrupt.  I have mixed feelings.  One part of the story’s development bored me to tears and delivered just a tiny little payoff.  However, I still found Haneke to be a challenging and provocative filmmaker.  Just make sure you are in the mood to really think about what you are watching.   

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-Jennie Milojevic