Own the rights?
17 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!, 5 March 2004 Author: merva_somer from Istanbul, Turkey
In order to escape the complete alienation from his wealthy family,14 year-old Benny finds an emotional substitute in the world of video.Anything recorded on videotape is inherently better and more real than what he can see with his naked eyes.Barely noticed by his professional parents,he spends most of his time either viewing wild and violent films or looking at the view outside his bedroom window through his video camera.Gradually,without the people around him noticing,his values and his sense of reality begin to change.One weekend,on a whim,he invites a girl of about his age over.His parents have gone to the country and he has the house himself.What begins as innocent,young love soon turns into a tragedy.He first let the young girl watch a home video he made of a pig being butchered.To show her how a slaughter-house pistol works he wounds her badly.When she screams,he kills her in front of his relentless video camera lens...In the second part of his trilogy,Haneke analyses the terror brought about by human,coldness and the normal morality of a bourgeois family,with his unique chilling,almost clinical cinematic approach.
12 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :- Offbeat, dark and gritty film from Michael Haneke, 23 August 2006 Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England
Michael Haneke is a filmmaker that isn't afraid to go all out to shock his viewer. My only previous experience with the director was his later film 'Funny Games', which I enjoyed immensely for its pitch black humour and willingness to go that extra mile to ensure that the film shocks as it should. While I didn't enjoy Benny's Video as much as Funny Games on the whole, it is an overall more shocking film due to the youth of its main character and the matter-of-fact way that the story is presented. Michael Haneke affords his film a gritty atmosphere through cheap-looking film stock and constant cuts with material shot on a video camera. The film focuses on a young man named Benny. Benny has an obsession with violent horror, and his favourite tape appears to be footage of a pig being slaughtered. He takes it upon himself to steal the slaughter gun, and when his parents leave him at home unsupervised; he invites a young girl into his house. It's not long before the slaughter gun is being put to use again, and the murder of the girl is caught on Benny's video camera.On the one hand, this is a dark and gritty portrayal of a situation that no one would want to be in, and at its strong points; Benny's Video is an emotionally involving and even tormenting film. However, it would seem that the director wasn't really sure about where exactly to take it, and has unfortunately seen fit to pad the film out with drawn out and not entirely relevant sequences, which ultimately brings it down. All the main characters are well presented and believable, and the film benefits from a strong cast of actors that manage to get into their characters well. The best scene in the movie sees Benny's parents discussing what they do, and if the entire movie was as good as that scene; Haneke would have had a masterpiece on his hands. Michael Haneke's direction is very 'no frills', as while he uses tricks such as cutting the film with video camera footage, it's all done very calmly...which ultimately benefits the film, as the sober atmosphere really allows the audience to be dragged in. Overall, as mentioned; the film isn't as easy to get on with as the later 'Funny Games', but Benny's Video will no doubt appeal to those who enjoy dark and challenging films.
10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :- Should it be rated as a movie or as a Michael Haneke work?, 6 March 2004 Author: Vitor Cunha from Oporto, Portugal
If it is supposed to be a Haneke film, it does have a couple of pitfalls. It is not Haneke's best, perhaps because maybe he felt the pressure to top Der Siebente Kontinent. As someone said previously, it is rather heavyweight towards the end.As a film without regarding who directed it, it is very good. It provides you with a raw documentary vision of a boy and his voyeuristic trend towards violence. It is rather simple yet, an amazing idea. Benny could be the boy living next door and, in fact, he is. He is not frightning on a "I know what you did last Summer" fashion. He is _truly_ frightning because he is a normal kid. And I do know a few like him. The ones I know never actually murdered anyone but, perhaps they simply didn't do it because they are afraid. Benny hasn't come to terms with that moral feeling yet and perhaps he never will.On a metaphorical sense, it is the best portrait (along with Der Siebente Kontinent) of present day Austria, at least the Austria I see at some September rainy Vienna weekends...
9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :- Not very convincing., 7 August 2006 Author: vvvallaton from Finland
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
Michael Haneke is dealing a important issue here as a teenager boy Benny watches violent films and murders a girl at the same age as a result. The rest of the film tries to show how Benny and his parents are dealing with this situation but it fails to make an impact of any kind.The first part of the film works pretty OK. Haneke's very realistic directing works well and the scene where Benny kills the girl is shown through a video screen is very effective. But after that the film does not really go anywhere. Haneke tries to show here how Benny's parents tries to handle the situation after Benny has shown them the video where the killing happens. I can see what Haneke tries to say here but he gives a pretty black and white point of view about the issue. Characters don't show any motions here (except in one scene on the end where Benny's mother breaks) and while it is parentally meant to be that way it's also a problem of the film. Benny's cold and insensible presence is getting more and more irritating as he stays the same through the whole film and you don't really care what's happening to him. You don't really get into his parents either as their are not allowed to show their feelings either.While Benny's parents are clearly one of the main reasons for his behavior, the message is here a little too underlining. And the long period of Benny's and his mothers vacation in Egypt does not really do anything for the movie. It feels like Haneke tries to get something out from the characters and their relationships but he ends up nothing. Many scenes are shot through Benny's video camera and i think Haneke is trying to take the viewer into Benny's mind but he does not succeed there either. Benny's actions are quite mild and non-interesting.There is no reason either why Benny shows the video for police and gives his parents in. He says to police that "no reason". The same problem is in "Funny Games" also as Haneke does not really seem to know what he wants to say after all.I give a credit to Haneke for making a movie like this and i really like his realistic style and slow pace. But it's a shame that his skills for character study and storytelling lacks too much. It's all very shocking and everything but that's not enough to make a good movie.
13 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :- Your hair will stand on end.., 15 June 2003 Author: dbdumonteil
Caution!Caution! Michael Haneke 's "Benny 's video" is one of the most terrifying movies ever made.The link between it and "der Siebente Kontinent" is obvious:the latter ends with an empty TV screen.The 1992 effort is another way of tackling total destruction.Resuming a subject which a lot of directors have already broached -incommunicability between a teenager and his folks-,Haneke pushes it to its absolute limits :particularly if you do not know Haneke at all,you will not believe your eyes.SPOILERS In this work,there's before and after.So harsh is Haneke's screenplay ,so incredibly devoid of humanity are his characters that the viewer is left panting for breath. Benny films a lot a things ,his bedroom is full of TV screens -we could draw a parallel between "Benny" and the "Peeping Tom" s hero,whose apartment was full of screens as well;and although the latter was an English movie,the male lead,Karl Boehm ,was Austrian too.But Haneke 's got his own way to hoe ,so he does not stop here and goes where nobody dares.After murdering a girl (a senseless crime),Benny seems almost indifferent.By chance,the parents watch the horrible thing that happened on the video:a close shot of Angela Winkler shows her distraught face and her moist eyes.Then expect the unexpected:the parents want to conceal everything and to pick up the pieces as if nothing has occurred. The movie does not lose steam towards the end ,as an user claims:the trip to Egypt ,with its trite and amateurish -Benny's camera?- sequences,the mother enjoying an ice cream or relaxing at the swimming-pool or these exotic landscapes, just highlights the bourgeoisie's selfishness ,pushing people out of their way,in a way only Bunuel dared.A legend (or is it Stephan Zweig?)tells that Vienna is ,par excellence , the capital of the blues and they say suicide rate is higher there than anywhere in Europa.At any rate,Austria has found a director who ,like Ozon in France,Dardenne in Belgium or Amenabar in Spain is making the most modern inventive European cinema.
8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :- Another Strong Entry From Michael Haneke..., 8 June 2006 Author: EVOL666 from St. John's Abortion Clinic
Anyone that's seen any of Haneke's work knows that he typically leans towards confrontational and controversial subject matter, and BENNY'S VIDEO is no different. This film seems to strike people differently and on many different levels, as much of Haneke's work does. I must say, that it is not quite what I was expecting based on what I had read about it, and can honestly say I was slightly disappointed as I was expecting an extremely dark and nihilistic film (and that's not quite what I got...) - but it is still a good film that will be of interest to those that "enjoy" more thought provoking and "dark" cinema...Benny is a relatively average teenager, except for his penchant for watching and re-watching a homemade tape of the slaughter of a pig. He seems to be a relatively sociable child as he has friends that he hangs out with and doesn't seem to be particularly shy or reserved. He does rent a lot of videos and has a bunch of video equipment in his room - but this seems to be more of a serious hobby than an actual "obsession" for Benny. One day, he meets a girl around the same age outside the video store and invites her over to his family's apartment. His mother and father are out of town, so Benny hangs out with her, makes her some food, and shows her his pig-slaughter tape. When an "accident" in the apartment (which is inadvertently caught on Benny's video-camera)leaves the girl dead - Benny is at a loss for how to handle the situation - and decides to play the tape back for his parents to try to find a resolution to the situation. Benny's mother and father then have a discussion as to how to handle the problem, and come up with a "solution" that may turn out to either save or destroy their family...Again, BENNY'S VIDEO didn't turn out to be quite the film that I expected it to be. From what I had read, I thought that Benny (played by the same smarmy little bastard that played Paul in Haneke's FUNNY GAMES - though a few years younger in this film) was going to be some video-obsessed, anti-social nerd and that his family would be some sort of borderline-abusive emotional automatons - but that's really not the case here. What "I" saw, was a relatively normal (if somewhat "emotionally-absent") family that were thrust into an extremely unpleasant, yet believable situation. I think that the conversation that Benny's mother and father had after being made aware of the death of the girl held a lot of "truth" as to what lengths people will go to to protect themselves and their family, and Haneke's film shows one family's path in protecting themselves. I won't say that I necessarily agree or disagree with the decision that Benny's parents made - but I can understand them "covering" for him as much as I could understand if they had turned him in.Technically, the film is good on all ends - the acting is all believable and strong, and the cinematography is appropriately "cold" and somewhat voyeuristic (as is necessary given the subject-matter). My main gripe was with Benny's "change of heart" at the end - I feel personally that the film would have been stronger had the family just gotten on with their lives as though nothing happened. I feel this would have been even more "chilling", but apparently Haneke thought differently. Like FUNNY GAMES, I didn't find BENNY'S VIDEO particularly "disturbing" like many others apparently do - I found it to be a strong portrayal of cause-and-effect, actions-and-consequences, and a "case-study" of one family dealing with an "unfixable" situation. Personally, I found FUNNY GAMES to revel more in it's "mean-spiritedness", where as BENNY'S VIDEO was a much more "realistic" film. I can say that I'm a relative fan of Haneke's work - but I guess I just don't find his films as "shocking" and "disturbing" as others do - I find them to be well crafted stories that delve into the "darker" side of life...8/10
4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- An unpleasant movie about an irretrievable psychopath... Recommended, 9 April 2006 Author: Elise S from United States
I flat-out give away the ending in the last paragraph of this comment. You've been warned. Many other plot points, some that many movie watcher's would care not to know before seeing this, are also peppered throughout.Director Michael Haneke typically makes movies with definite social targets in sight be it racism/xenophobia (Code Unknown), an unsuspecting audience's predilection for violence (Funny Games), a cycle of world violence and the personal stories that result (Hidden), or the tenuous nature of societal ethics (Time of the Wolf). Benny's Video is by far Haneke's weakest picture in that it's far too obtuse to take anything but a raw character study away, a problem that his film The Piano Teacher subverted by being about an interesting, damaged person.The plot here is simple: After watching, and listening to, endless exploits of violence (a great of it, not so curiously, being American) Benny murders an effectively anonymous girl with farm machinery. It's a brutal, grotesque scene that Haneke watches with a typically detached eye -- the girl screaming in pain, Benny repeatedly shooting her with a bolt gun, the girl uselessly attempting to get away from her murderer, and the use of the bolt gun on the girl's head. Benny, as calm as could possibly be, lives the next several days as if nothing has happened, living with the corpse of the girl in his closet. After impetuously having his head shaved, Benny shows his parents a videotape of the murder he has committed. Benny, in fact, is never far away from his video camera or video equipment. It is in this fashion that the value of the movie comes out: Benny isn't anything less than evil, showing sociopathy through and through.Haneke's career can be seen as studies of people with bad, sometimes awful, qualities that come to be defined by these qualities. In Funny Games, psychopathic characters are used to betray certain qualities of lust the audience, that is YOU the viewer, has regarding violence and indifference toward it. The horror element of Benny's Video is that there isn't any energy put forth by Benny's parents to protect a murderous teenager from himself or protect the growth of society by locking the boy up. Instead, his parents split duties: the mother will take Benny to Egypt while the father dismembers and disposes of the corpse.The film is maddening, at times, in its unwillingness to focus in any appreciable way on why Benny is as such and why his parents are so indifferent to his actions. Making a point about desensitization from violence is too simplistic; surely there are greater, more profound, reasons why the people we are watching behave so coldly. It's anyone's guess as the film doesn't offer a valid "Why" for anything, giving us naked action backed up by a half-baked polemic.In the end, as opposed to giving us justice in the form of Benny's death, we are treated to more psychopathy as Benny frames his parents for the murder he committed. Indeed, the last shot is of Benny's parents being arrested by the police. As a viewer the knows Michael Haneke has gone on to have one of the most brilliant careers I can think of it's a bit of a vague conclusion. The best we can take away is that we should avoid the Bennys of this world as we'll never fully appreciate just what makes a psychopath. It's an interesting failure, this film, and it deserves attention. If anything, it stands as a warning to the viewer: trust is a luxury and assumptions of love and respect can be grand wastes of time.
2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :- disturbing tale of alienation, 27 February 2008 Author: TheatreX from Louisville, KY
My first Michael Haneke film was "Funny Games" so this is actually somewhat of a let-down from that, but it's still powerful & rather disturbing. Benny is a teenage boy whose parents seem to barely pay attention to him, so he takes solace in the world of video...the more wild & violent, the better, plus he tapes lots of things too, including a pig being killed by a bolt gun. While his parents are away for the weekend he invites a young girl his age home, who he found lingering around his favorite video store, and after they share a pizza he shows her his pig film, and then shows her how the bolt gun works too, with tragic results. He then tries to hide the body but his mother sees the video and then his parents try to figure out what to do. Do they go to the police? Nope, they protect Benny, and mom takes him away while dad does the disposing. None of which is shown, thankfully, especially not after mom & dad's conversation about how they might get rid of the body. This is a rather chilling film at times, and it seems to portray a certain numbness as to what is right or wrong, that makes it quite disturbing. Also features somewhat of a twist ending that I didn't see coming. Worth seeing if you've liked other Haneke stuff or are in the mood to be disturbed. 7 out of 10.
3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- Negativeland, 22 November 2007 Author: zolaaar from Berlin, GER
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.
9 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :- Very disturbing, in a non graphic way., 10 September 1999 Author: floyd-27 from Australia
I found this movie to be very disturbing, though it is not a violent movie. Benny is a normal teenager, except for his rather horrid taste for gore and death. This is a very thought provoking movie stumbling through a couple of different immoral issues, the end of this movie was a bit different to what I was expecting and did sort of knock me off place. I give it an 8 out of 10.
Add another comment
