Benny's Video

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Year:	1992
Country of origin:	Austria / Switzerland
Director:	Michael Haneke
Genre:	Haneke lecture
Starring:	Arno Frisch, Angela Winkler, Ulrich Mühe, Ingrid Stassner
Rating:	5/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103793/
Tagline:	No tagline
Favourite line:	N/A - Subtitled

An early lecture from Michael Haneke.

The plot:
Benny is a lonely boy. An only child, he lives in a house with little communication, his parents cold, distant figures, who show their love by buying him electronic goods.
Fascinated by a video he filmed himself, depicting the slaughter of a pig on his father’s farm, Benny watches the images over and over again.
Inviting a girl back to his house, he first cooks her pizza, then shows her the video. Surprisingly, she is not too disturbed, nor is she moved when Benny produces the mechanical bolt used to kill the pig.
Placing the bolt against his chest, he challenges the girl to pull the trigger. She can’t, so he calls her a coward.
Annoyed, she places the bolt against her own chest and calls Benny a coward.
Then Benny pulls the trigger…..

A haunting movie, this, filled with grainy footage of news broadcasts, war reports and mundane TV shows, intercut with Benny’s video, and the ‘normal’ scenes of his life.
Arno Frisch, as Benny, is suitably detached and aloof, showing no emotion regarding his violent act, seeming even to forget about it on occasion: when asked by his father why he did it, he is compelled to ask “Did what?”
Comparable in tone to Haneke’s later movie, the excellent Funny Games, this has a similar lecturing tone, Haneke seeming to challenge the viewer: well, what do you expect? With violent imagery on TV, in the news and in movies, surely this kind of thing is bound to happen?
An intelligent, thought-provoking and deliberately unbiased glimpse into the mind of a killer, Haneke’s aim appears to be to make you ask the obvious question yourself – what makes a killer? – whilst at no time providing any clear answers of his own.
An important movie from an important director, this is certainly one for the thinkers out there.
Very, very good.