Benny's Video (1992)

Basically, I have started to get sick of Michael Haneke's torture. He is one of the most ruthless director as he only creates characters without sentiments. The Benny here is so hateful and I just can't help cursing him while I am watching the film. I get the point. It's a critique of bourgeois life. Oh my. But still. Haneke, get a life!

I can't believe that this film is so high rated here, I just couldn't stand it, it was a pain to get to the end of it. An hour and a half of pure nothing, the story can be summarized in 2 lines, the actual events could have been squeezed in a 10 minutes short film. All the rest is useless crap: a cup of coffee on a table filmed for about 10 seconds, 2 full minutes of annoying arabian music with mother and son on the bed without uttering a word, long, unbearably long scenes where NOTHING at all happens, unexisting dialogue, unexpressive characters, everything about this movie is pure bore, tedium, humdrum.The twist end doesn't save the failure of what could have been a good story, if only it were brought on film in a different way. Sorry herr Haneke, I did like Funny Games, but this crap is unwatchable.

I was truly hoping that this fascinatingly disturbing story would come to fruition in film, but this did not live up to my expectations. Besides a few exciting parts, the film quickly became boring to watch and did not have much movement. The parents' reaction to their son's actions was largely unbelievable at times and I think undermined the entire purpose of the movie. What parent remains completely calm when they see their son committing murder? Did the father really chop up the girl into small pieces to shove her down the drain? Was this seriously their brightest idea? With a plot line so horrific, you would think there would be a lot of emotion involved, but with regards to maybe one or two scenes, it was nothing but blank expressions and a sense of carelessness. I wanted more from this film, but did not receive.I do think this can serve as an exaggerated warning message to parents out there who do not have quality involvement with their children.

Fourteen year old Benny(Arno Frisch)seems to be totally neglected by his professional parents. The fridge is always full and he has a room full of electronic technology. His world has become warped with the idea somehow making anything recorded on video is better that anything he can see with his naked eyes. He loves watching violent videos and spends a lot of time watching outside his window by via his elaborate video recording setup. One particular day he notices a girl(Ingrid Stassner), who always seems to be looking through the window of the video store. Benny invites her home and lets her view a film of a pig being led to slaughter; actually watching the swine fall dead with a squeal. Benny ends up murdering the girl and drags her to a closet, all recorded for his viewing titillation. Reality in Benny's world is to rewind, replay, fast forward, pause, rewind.