Benny's Video (1992)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Michael Haneke

Writer:

Michael Haneke (writer)

Release Date:

4 March 1993 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A story about a boy called Benny, who watches violent movies, including a home-made video of a pig being slaughtered. Soon after, Benny loses his mind and kills a girl and films the murder with his video camera. |

Plot Keywords:

Video | Pig | Murder | Video Camera | Beach

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Arno Frisch	...	Benny
Angela Winkler	...	Mother
Ulrich Mühe	...	Father
Ingrid Stassner	...	Young Girl
Stephanie Brehme
Stefan Polasek
Christian Pundy
Max Berner
Hanspeter Müller
Shelley Kästner
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Wolfgang Böck
Cecile Gordon
Alfred Köberler
Paulus Manker
Gerhard Schmiepeter
Susanne Schneider
Dietrich Siegl	...	(voice)

Also Known As:

Benny's Video (France) [fr]
Bennyn video (Finland) [fi]
El vídeo de Benny (Spain) [es]
To video tou Benny (Greece) (TV title) [el]

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

Austria | Switzerland

Language:

German | English | Arabic | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 (re-rating) (2006) | Australia:MA | New Zealand:R18 | Germany:16 (f) | Finland:K-16 | France:-16 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Vienna, Austria

Company:

Bernard Lang

Trivia:

Second part of Michael Haneke's "Glaciation Trilogy" also including Der siebente Kontinent (1989) and 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls (1994).

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Benny leaves the phone booth in Egypt, the cameraman is visible in multiple window reflections.

Movie Connections:

References Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Negativeland

In his second film of the "glaciation trilogy", Haneke once more hauntingly draws a torpid affluent society where the people live at cross purposes, where conservations are rare and toilsome, where communication is alienated to a technical process. Accordingly to that, the emotional life of the protagonists became stunted: Benny, after his "act", shows concernment only through surrogate actions, just like letting his hair cropped. The father immediately slyly pushes to damage mitigation, whereas only the mother indicates rudiments of emotion, though somehow tense. In a confusing blend of film and video images, Haneke creates a second level of reality, so to speak, where Benny's senseless "act" perfectly integrates in the horror pictures of the evening news and makes it open for question. At the same time, Haneke commits himself to no specific answer and denies any absolution. That is what makes this film so horrifying - there simply is no telling argument that makes a murderer out of a young boy.