AD: Opening Scene Analysis - Funny Games (Haneke, 1997)

Funny Games (Haneke, 1997)

Alexander D.

Genre

Funny Games belongs to the sub-genre of horror known as psychological horror. This is due to its breaking the common conventions of horror, as will be explained below.

Form and Style of opening

The style of the opening - as well as the film in general - is postmodernist. This can be seen in the title and credits, which contrasts the high-key lighting of the sequence, supporting the idea that post-modernism attempts to break from the mainstream conventions of narrative structures and character development.

It is this attempt to break with the mainstream that the audience gets a sense of foreboding, especially so when the non-diegetic sound of heavy metal followed by the title put an abrupt end to the tranquillity of the scene.


Introductory title

Film Language - Telling the Story

The mise-en-scene reveals a good deal of information about the three characters present in the sequence. Listed:

• Props: The collection of classical music CDs connote the idea that the mother and father in the film are both well educated, as seen in the picture above. The second prop to connote this is the large boat on the trailer of the car, which gives an insight into the social class of which the family is from.
• This is further explored in the dialogue, as the mother and father are guessing which classical music artist is playing - and guessing correctly. 
• The costumes of the characters are civilian, almost to the point where it draws on the stereotypical family: child wears denim dungarees, the mother a flower print dress and the father a blue shirt. This will be discussed further in Representation & Ideology.
• The high key lighting of the shots connotes that everything is fine and calm, and doesn't change when the discordant heavy metal song overpowers all dialogue and diegetic sound.
• With the placement of the camera from a high angle birds-eye view, slowly zooming in from an ultra long shot, finally reaching  down to a medium shot of the characters places the audience with the characters in the car, putting them into focus and thus sets them as being the protagonists of the story.

Narrative

One of the key method in which the director positions the audience in the narrative is the camera movement. As mentioned above, this is done by the camera starting from a birds-eye view, slowly positioning itself closer and closer to the family in the car, finally reaching a medium shot and introducing the three members. This shot is then followed by a few tracking shots, further emphasising the importance of the characters and positions the audience with them.

We, as the audience, position ourselves with the family. Therefore, the sudden impact of the non-diegetic sound is alien to the audience and brings a sudden chaos to the sequence. This could also mean the establishment of one of the themes in the film, as the sudden chaos that is injected into the otherwise tranquil scene could imply the same will happen later on. 

Representation & Ideology

In this opening sequence, the social group represented is the Caucasian nuclear family, as the family presented in this clip consists of  a mother, a father and a son, all of which are (as mentioned further above) wearing traditionally male and female clothing, representing the sexes in a what we would now consider a residual ideology. However, as the idea of the nuclear family has been around since 1947 and is still largely promoted in modern society, although much more as part of a conservative way of thinking. Therefore, the clip promotes a - perhaps - dominant ideology, as the family represented in the sequence is created from core values that are still common today.

Media Audiences

The target audience in this film is audiences from the age of 18 and over, as it is also certified by. The reason for this is due to the excessive violence later shown in the film, as well as the extremely mind-bending and manipulative narrative. Thus, it is not entirely possible to fully comprehend the possible audience readings, as it differs greatly from audience to audience. However, from the initial intro of the film, one would think that the reading of the scene would be that of the preferred or dominant interpretation, as the camera and dialogue places the audience with the characters in the car and thus promotes the above readings.

(It is key to note in general that Funny Games is convention-breaking in many ways, with the typical sense of narrative being distorted and manipulated by the antagonists, who are shown later in the film - for example, when one of the killers looks into the camera, breaking the fourth wall)