Funny Games
Filed under: Philosphy
I haven't seen the movie Funny Games, don't know as I ever will, but I know that the New York Times doesn't like it, so odds are it's pretty good.
Their review states:
When asked by George -- his leg smashed, his hands tied, his eyes wide with terror -- "Why are you doing this?," Mr. Pitt's character responds with answers that parody the kind of facile back story usually applied in cases like this: unhappy childhood; sexual instability; class resentment; bad education. All of it is facetious, and none of it explains anything.
Its conclusion? "What a fraud." For a much different take on the film, check out Pajamas Media.
It's not surprising that a reviewer from the New York Times would be confused by a description of evil, for two reasons. First of all the paper itself, in many (but not all) aspects is evil, and it's hard to smell your own stink. Second, the paper's basic editorial attitude is that "misunderstanding" is the root of crime, not evil, in which it basically doesn't believe (except maybe in the case of Republicans generally, and George W. Bush specifically). So the idea of evil which can't be "explained" and "solved" but only fought is anathema to the liberal blockheads who operate and populate the paper.
The movie is apparently about two clean-cut, well-dressed, well-spoken, polite and well-educated young men who brutally terrorize an innocent, happy family of three. Evil is the only explanation for that, and if you don't believe evil exists, then such a movie really would boggle your poor little mind, frustrate the heck out of you, make it hard to sleep at night.
Might be well worth seeing. Substitute Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev for these two young men, the West for the family, and you might have a parable worthy of study.
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