The second panel in Haneke's trilogy (preceded by Seventh Continent and followed by 71 Fragments) offers a chilling and haunting postmodern look at isolation, alienation and violence, with a critique of mass media effects on actual behavior.
Benny's Video (1992)
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Reviews Counted:6
Fresh:3
Rotten:3
Average Rating:5.7/10
Synopsis: One of the most inscrutable, alarming, frustrating, and fascinating contemporary film directors, Michael Haneke (THE PIANO TEACHER, CACHE) has created a name for himself by examining disturbing... One of the most inscrutable, alarming, frustrating, and fascinating contemporary film directors, Michael Haneke (THE PIANO TEACHER, CACHE) has created a name for himself by examining disturbing issues (sadism, violence, suicide, racism, voyeurism, alienation, nihilism, and misguided faith) with a cold cerebral eye. BENNY'S VIDEO opens with disturbing images of a pig being slaughtered; it is one of the many images obsessively viewed and reviewed by Benny, the 14-year old son of a wealthy Viennese family. Detached and ignored, Benny seems only able to experience life through his video camera. When he kills a young girl on tape, his parents go about covering up the murder, and Haneke draws everyone--Benny, his parents, and the viewers themselves--into a web of complicity and postmodern dysfunction. Though his films are difficult to watch and invariably leave the viewer with more questions than answers, Haneke's unswerving films are some of the most compelling examples of the new European cinema. [More]
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Reviews for Benny's Video
To Benny, and to us, too (at least for the duration of the film) the mediated image - blinkered, manipulable, vicarious - is the 'reality' of choice.
[Makes] arguments that Haneke delivers with frosty menace but, alas, an also typically pedantic, haranguing tenor.
Similar to The Seventh Continent, this film's objective is to analyze and deconstruct the effects rather than senselessly guess their causes
in the end, with a character that repellent and a message so heavy handed, there is no need to commit ourselves to this bitter, merciless film.
A smug, contemptuous, passive-aggressive attack on the dehumanizing effects of media.
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| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 24% 24% | G-Force |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
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|---|---|
| 90% 90% | District 9 |
| 86% 86% | 500 Days of Summer |
| 63% 63% | Extract |
| 06% 06% | All About Steve |
| 78% 78% | It Might Get Loud |
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