by Derek Smith 7/15/06
SPOILER WARNING: Important events occurring in the second
and third acts will be
mentioned in this review. In this particular case, I don't feel
that knowing
the outcome beforehand would, in any way, effect how one views the
film, but if you'd rather not know, please do not read until after
seeing it.
The
second film of Michael Haneke's trilogy of "emotional glaciation", Benny's Video, begins with shocking
home video footage of a pig being pulled around violently before
getting shot in the head by a high-powered pellet gun. The grainy
image gives the execution an immediacy in its emotional impact which is
surprisingly heightened when it rewinded and replayed multiple
times. We discover that the 14-year old Benny has not only been
watching this video, but that he filmed it himself while visiting a
farm with his parents. Haneke is less concerned with the impulse
to film such a violent event than the cumulative effect watching and
rewatching them has on us. Benny's room has no connection to the
outside world, remaining an alternate reality filled with video's,
multiple televisions and a video camera he uses to, amongst other
things, get a live feed of the activity happening outside his
window. While the film makes no value judgements, it remains
clear that his attachment to violent films and obsession with
videotaping have, in part, caused him to attach more importance to
the video image than to the real world outside his room. This
shift in thinking causes a disconnection from his parents and
schoolmates that can be felt in the emotionless, almost monotonous way
he talks.
Similar
to The Seventh Continent,
this film's objective is to analyze and deconstruct the effects rather
than senselessly guess their causes - an approach that is
effectively distancing, but which creates horrific undertones to the
events
that follow. After seemingly connecting with a young girl
outside the video store he frequents, the two go back to his house,
have a snack and begin videotaping one another during their
conversation. For reasons left unexplained, and most likely
unknown to even Benny himself, he pulls out the pellet gun and shoots
her in the chest. Haneke's framing of this scene is crucial -
Benny pushes the girl back a step so the video camera captures them and
Haneke's camera pushes in showing the murder on the television where it
is being recorded. He literally inserts himself into one of the
violent digital narratives to which he has become addicted, yet his
response seems almost inhuman. He expresses concern for the girl,
but after failing to calm her down, finishes the execution and cleans
up the blood with the same robotic precision with which he cleans up
spilt milk in a later scene. Like the pyramid scheme (something
he
learned about while filming his parents party) he instigates in school
with several of his classmates, Benny uses videotaping as a way of
filtering his own experience of reality, ultimately eliminating
responsibility for his actions along the way. Each step - from
reality to filming reality to viewing filmed reality to distorting it
through fast-forwarding, rewinding and pausing - empowers Benny with
the video image yet pulls him further away from the very world he is
filming. When going through the belongings of the young girl, he
finds a plastic egg containing a series of smaller eggs that, when
opened, ultimately lead to nothing. This progression stands as a
clear metaphor for Benny's own existence, where each level of
engagement
with the digital leaves him with something bearing even less
resemblence to the real, until he takes that last step, unpeeling the
final layer, only to be left completely alone. The televisual
experience
replaces the real and in the end (I won't spoil the conclusion), Benny
betrays everyone including himself, seeming content to live on as a
digital representation of his former self.
Cinematic
Reflections
