Benny's Video

Infobox Film
name = Benny's Video


image_size =
caption =
director = Michael Haneke
producer = Veit Heiduschka
writer = Michael Haneke
narrator =
starring = Arno Frisch
Angela Winkler
Ulrich Mühe
music =
cinematography = Christian Berger
editing = Marie Homolkova
distributor =
released = 1992
runtime = 105 min.
country = Austria / Switzerland
language = German / English /
Arabic / French
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:145952
imdb_id = 0103793

"Benny's Video" is a 1992 horror-of-personality film directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke. The plot of the film centers on Benny (Arno Frisch), a teenager who views much of his life as distilled through video images, and his well-to-do parents (Anna (Angela Winkler) and Georg (Ulrich Mühe)), who enable Benny's focus on video cameras and images.

Plot summary

The film opens with a home video of the slaughter with a captive bolt pistol of a pig on a European farm. The video rewinds to play the slaughter in slow motion, which emphasizes the hand-held barrel against the pig's foreskull and the cartridge explosion. A party centered on a game called Pilot and Passengers is broken up by Georg and Anna, when they return home while the party is in progress. The host of the party, Eva, is their daughter who lives in another part of town and who has, it turns out in questioning of Benny after the incident, taken advantage of the planned absence of Georg and Anna to host the impromptu party in their home. While watching a newscast, Georg and Anna discuss the money Eva won in the pyramid scheme she was promoting at the party. In a locker room at school, Benny encourages his friends to take positions in his own Pilot and Passengers game.

While his parents are away for the weekend, Benny invites a girl (Ingrid Stassner) he has seen outside the local video store to his home. He shows her the video of the pig slaughter, and they talk about the film. She: "Did you make this film? How was it, with the pig? I mean, have you ever seen a dead person--a real one, I mean?" Benny: "No. I once saw a TV program about the tricks they use in action films. It's all ketchup and plastic," and then he unveils and loads the slaughtering gun. He holds it against his chest, and dares the girl to discharge it. When she refuses, he calls her a coward ("Feigling!"). He holds it against her chest, and when he hesitates, she calls him a "Feigling" also. He fires the gun, and she falls. Her falling reveals a video monitor, on which we see her crawling away from Benny and completely out of frame, Benny running to reload the gun and returning to shoot her a second time, the girl crawling back partially into frame, Benny again reloading and firing, this time apparently at her head, and, finally, her body remaining still.

During a choir practice of the Bach motet "Trotz dem alten Drachen," [http://www.answers.com/topic/jesu-meine-freude-motet-for-5-part-chorus-bwv-227-bc-c5 from "Jesu, meine Freude," BWV 227, J.S.Bach (between 1723-1735).] [(de) Jesu, meine Freude] Benny completes his pyramid scheme. Then at home again, with the weekend begun, Benny first covers the body, goes through her school bag, arranges an evening out with friends, eats snacks, moves the girl's body to a closet, and cleans up the blood. Some of the cleanup is seen through a video monitor, while Benny edits a video of the experience. Benny goes out to a dance club and stays overnight at his friend's home, and, on his way home, goes to a cinema, window shops, and gets his hair shorn to the scalp.

After his parents return, his father harangues Benny about his haircut, asking if Benny had any thought about how others would react to him now. Later on, while the family is watching the news in Benny's room, Benny switches the signal to the video he has made, to the game of dares and the ensuing three shots. Benny reveals the body in his closet, and Georg removes the videotape, asks if anyone else knows about this, and through careful grilling finds that there are no witnesses.

Clearly disturbed, the father and mother leave Benny's room, and Benny asks that the door be left open. In the living room, Georg lists--rather dispassionately--the options they have: either to alert the authorities, with a resulting judgment of parental neglect and placement of their son in a psychiatric institution, or to destroy the evidence. Anna urges--with understated passion after warnings from Georg not to fall apart--that any option chosen must be carefully followed to its end.

Anna takes Benny on vacation to Egypt, and the ever-present video camera captures them both in their hotel, in the village, touring ancient tombs, watching sail-gliders at the beach, even a private moment of Anna in the bathroom. There are several phone calls from a booth in the post office, with Benny and Anna separately taking the phone. Benny seems barely affected by any recent past, and he seems unable to fathom why his mother breaks down in sobs at one point during the vacation. When they return home after six days, the apartment is clean of any trace of the girl. Georg, who had stayed at home, succeeded in cutting the body into small enough pieces to be flushed down the toilet or otherwise inconspicuously removed. That evening, Georg asks Benny "Why did you do it?" and the reply is, "I don't know. ...I wanted to see what it's like, possibly." Benny has no answer to Georg's question, "And what was it like?"

On video, we see another Pilot and Passengers party, this time being hosted by Georg and Anna. In "life," we see Anna and Georg at a concert of the choir Benny is in. The choir sings: "Despite the ancient dragon, despite the gaping jaws of death, despite the constant fear, let the world rage and toss. I stand here and sing in perfect calm." On video, we see from the door of Benny's darkened bedroom, standing slightly ajar, and we hear faint voices discussing what to do. In life, a voice-over asks, "Why did you come to us now?" We see Benny being interviewed by policemen, and he answers merely, "Because." With no following questions, Benny asks, "Can I go now?" After the questioning, Benny meets Georg and Anna in the hall and, after a long moment, says merely, "Entschuldigung"." (Excuse me, as it is used to apologize for brushing by a stranger in a crowded location.)

Analysis

The film's structure is at first a string of seemingly unconnected episodes, which gradually coalesce to center on Benny and his fascination for video and televised images. While "Benny's Video" may seem to be a subtle critique of the distancing society has come to accept through the pervasiveness of video and contemporary media, it is also--even more subtly--a commentary on the breakdown of the family unit and the moral codes that had held society together in earlier times. The viewers, though, are not encouraged to relate to any character, even though we are given access to many private moments with Benny in addition to the parents' quiet discussion of how to respond to the video and murder. We observe through the camera's dispassionate lens a lack of attachment in Benny as well as in Georg. It is only in analyzing the last moments of film that one realizes how strong a need Benny has had to be separated from his estranged-in-fact parents.

If this is indeed a horror-of-personality film, an obvious question to ask is: Who has the horrific personality? Certainly Benny's actions and apparent lack of emotional response qualify him for the role. Equally horrific is Georg's calm, dispassionate and reasoned decision to so dismember the girl beyond recognition. A first viewing of the film might leave Anna above judgment as horrific, but her lack of argument actually empowers Georg to take the course he does, and more than once a stifled sob might be read as a suppressed snicker. And it is Anna who evidences a certain envy of Eva's ability to profit from the Pilot and Passengers game. This interplay between monstrous plans and a voiceless acquiescence is key to understanding the film as a commentary on how the citizenry of the Third Reich enabled the Final Solution, through a "lack" of impassioned, effective resistance. This theme was to receive similar use in Haneke's 1997 Funny Games, where two youths politely terrorize a family, much like Brownshirts in pre-war Germany.

One should note that, although the director Michael Haneke had at first said that his first three films show the "Vergletscherung der Gefühle" (sometimes translated as "emotional glaciation") of highly industrialized countries, [http://www.ce-review.org/kinoeye/kinoeye5old.html Andrew J Horton, "De-icing the Emotions" in Central Europe Review; 1999.] [http://arabfilm.blogspot.com/search/label/Portrait sarah, "Der Mann mit den Augen" in (Arab) film; 2006.] Haneke has since eschewed such a description. [Haneke/Toubiana, "Benny's Vidéo : Entretien avec Michael Haneke par Serge Toubiana" in DVD features packaged with Benny's Video; 2005, Les Films du Losange.] This film evidences Haneke's restraint in showing only an event's occurrence and its surrounding incidents, and his elimination of any attempt to provide psychology or motive. Such reserve stands clearly in opposition to conventions typical to the horror-of-personality film that include a full explication of why or how a person might become a monster, often based in Freudian analysis. The three primary actors in Benny's Video masterfully present their characters as though finely-polished busts of marble, in whose undulating, shiny surfaces the viewer's own psychology is reflected.

Violence

The version of "Benny's Video" most widely available on DVD in the United States is not rated by the MPAA. Despite being unrated, the film depicts graphic violence on screen only against the slaughtered pig. The shots to the girl occur just off-screen. Although the slaughter occurs without blood, the girl's blood on the floor is an important image that is echoed later, when Benny incompletely wipes up spilled milk on a kitchen counter.

Production credits

* Other actors in the film:
** Stephanie Brehme
** Stefan Polasek
** Christian Pundy
** Max Berner
** Hanspeter Müller
** Shelley Kästner
* Production credits:
** Veit Heiduschka
* Producer:
** Christian Berger
* Cinematographer:
** Marie Homolkova
* Film editor
** Christoph Kanter
* Production designer
** Christian Schuster
* Set decor:
** Erika Navas
* Costume designer:
** Karl Schlifelner
* Sound:
** Willi Neuner

Footnotes

Further reading

The following links are reviews and plot descriptions:

A
* [http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006-06-22/movies2.shtml Sam Adams, "The Michael Haneke Collection is the work of a brilliant manipulator." in Philadelphia CityPaper.Net.] June 22, 2006
* [http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=59013 Anonymous, "Benny's Video" in DVD Times.] October 28, 2005
* [http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/haneke.html Anonymous, "Bennys' Video, 1992" in Aquarello.] (2005)
* [http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/PROD/3-/1120303/The_Michael_Haneke_Trilogy/Product.html Anonymous, "The Michael Haneke Trilogy" in Play.com.]
* [http://www.xenix.ch/1_programm/filmdetail.php?movieID=818 Anonymous, "Benny's Video" in Kino Xenix.]
* [http://www.telerama.fr/cine/film.php?id=25722 Anonymous, "Benny's Video" in Cinéma.] (2005)
* [http://www.horreur.com/critique-1077-bennys-video.html Stéphanie Aveline, "Bennys Video" in horreur.com.] B
* [http://www.contactmusic.com/new/film.nsf/reviews/bennysvideo Keith Breese, "Benny's Video" in contactmusic.com.]
* [http://www.moviemail-online.co.uk/films/18691/Michael_Haneke_Trilogy/ Michael Brooke "Reviews & Articles" in Movie Mail.] November 06, 2006
* [http://www.bffsscotland.co.uk/print.php?sid=93 Keith H. Brown, "Haneke Trilogy (The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video, 72 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance)- DVD" in BFFS Scotland.] January 07, 2007
* [http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?film_id=12088 Keith Hennessey Brown, "The Michael Haneke Trilogy" in Eye for Film.] The text of the "Benny's Video" section is the same as the German translation in (January 2007)C
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2006/11/09/ramseyreviews_feature.shtml Ramsey Campbell, "Ramsey's Reviews" in BBC Liverpool.]
* [http://www.resonance-online.com/article.php?fiche=1492 Christophe, "Benny's video - Michael Haneke - 1992: Un film-choc par le réalisateur de 'La pianiste'" in Resonance-Online.] December 03, 2002
* [http://www.filmexposed.co.uk/?file=dvd&id=329 Phil Concannon, "Michael Haneke Trilogy: Benny's Video (15)" in FilmExposed.] (2007)D
* [http://www.cinephelia.com/movie_detail.asp?PK=81 C Dempsey, "Benny's Video" in cinephelia.com.] (2006)F
* [http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_04.20.00/film/haneke.php Gemma Files, "Austrian fare hard to stomach" in Eye Weekly.] April 20, 2000
* [http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=145952 Clarke Fountain, (plot description) in New York Times: All Movie Guide. Undated.]
* [http://cinetext.philo.at/magazine/frey/bennysvideo.html Mattias Frey, "Supermodernity, Capital, and Narcissus: The French Connection to Michael Haneke's Benny's Video" in Cinetext Film & Philosophy.] September 27, 2002
* [http://glenfuller.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_glenfuller_archive.html Glen Fuller, " Sorry to be a Deleuze n3rd" in blog desire-in-uneasiness.] November 30, 2004G
* [http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A63984 Lance Goldenberg, "Shock Treatment" in Creative Loafing.com.] June 21, 2006H
* [http://www.dvdactive.com/reviews/dvd/michael-haneke-trilogy.html Kat Halstead, "Michael Haneke Trilogy" in Dudactive.]
* [http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/19/34/Ent/film.html John Harkness, "Beautiful negativity" in Now on film.] April 20, 2000
* [http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=2224 Eric Henderson, "Benny's Video" in Slant magazine.com.] (2006)
* [http://www.videovista.net/reviews/jan07/benvideo.html Paul Higson, "Benny's Video" in VideoVista. ]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DE133CF93BA1575AC0A964958260 Stephen Holden, "Benny's Video" review in New York Times.] September 28, 1992
* [http://www.ce-review.org/kinoeye/kinoeye5old.html Andrew J Horton, "De-icing the Emotions" in Central Europe Review. V0, 5] October 26, 1998J
* [http://www.notcoming.com/reviews.php?id=651 Ian Johnston, "Benny's Video" in Not Coming to a Theater Near You.] (2006)K
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060130/klawans Stuart Klawans, "Cruel and Unusual Punishment" in The Nation.] January 11, 2006
* [http://www.filmzentrale.com/rezis/bennysvideo.htm Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, "Benny's Video" originally in epd film (Evangelischer Pressedienst).] L
* [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/26/haneke.html Maximilian Le Cain, "Do the Right Thing: the Films of Michael Haneke" in Senses of Cinema.] (May 2003)M
* [http://www.effettonotteonline.com/enol/archivi/articoli/focus-on/200511/200511fo01.htm Livio Marchese, "L'etica dell'immagine nel cinema di Michael Haneke" in effettonotteonline.com.] (November 2005)
* [http://www.nachdemfilm.de/no3/met01dts.html Jörg Metelmann, "Living on Video. Mediale Kontrolle und humanistischer Kontrollverlust: Eine Relektüre von Michael Hanekes Benny’s Video" in Nach dem Film] . Metelmann, in fairly great detail, raises the following observant points, among others:
** He compares the hand-to-hand exchange of cash and pills is counterposed to the overarching sense of the Bach cantata, although the film presents only a portion of one motet from the cantata.
** He contrasts the tightly-hung gallery of prints, simultaneously post-modern and yet bourgeois in its selection, at the family table with Benny's fascination with Donald Duck cartoons and video imagery.
** He relates the film to the Zygmunt Bauman essay "Modernity and Ambivalence: The End of Unambiguity."
** He analyzes the Arno Frisch performance as "almost irritatingly monotonous, ...as if behind the visible gaze is the eye of a camera, which scans reality for its ability to be transferred to film."
** He considers how Benny's parents are also perpetrators, or at least ennablers, of the murder and how Benny embodies the fundamental difference between the perpetrator and victim.N
* [http://vincentducat.blogs.allocine.fr/vincentducat-43136-bennys_video.htm NandoAlly125, "Benny's Video" in Mon Cinéma au Jour le Jour.] July 21, 2006
* [http://citypages.com/databank/20/953/article7319.asp Rob Nelson, "Killing Joke" in City Pages; V20, 953.] March 10, 1999O
* [http://oliblog.blogg.de/eintrag.php?id=1206 Oliver, "Filmkritik: Benny's Video" in Film und Buch - Oliblog.] February 03, 2007P
* [http://www.kinoeye.org/04/01/peucker01.php Brigitte Peucker, "Effects of the real" in Kinoeye: New Perspectives on European Film. V4, 1;] March 08, 2004
* [http://cineuropa.org/ffocusarticle.aspx?lang=en&treeID=1064&documentID=55292 Bénédicte Prot, "My films are intended as a slap in the face" in Cineuropa.] September 28, 2005R
* [http://www.nysun.com/article/36033 Nicolas Rapold, "Getting Under Your Skin" in Arts & Letters.] July 14, 2006
* [http://www.filmfestivals.com/cannes97/cintd5.htm Nick Roddick, Interview in The Film Festivals Server.] (1997)S
* [http://www.filmdeculte.com/video/video.php?id=36 Anthony Sitruk, "Coffret Haneke - Benny's video" in Film de Culte.] October 05, 2005
* [http://www.dvdoutsider.co.uk/dvd/reviews/b/bennys_video.html Slarek, "To see what it was like" in DVD Outsider.] December 17, 2006
* [http://www.cinematicreflections.com/BennysVideo.html Derek Smith, "Benny's Video" in Cinematic Reflections.] July 15, 2006T
* [http://www.avclub.com/content/node/48606 Scott Tobias, "Four Films By Michael Haneke" in The A.V. Club. ] May 16, 2006V
* [http://cinecon.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html Victor, "The world's greatest pure director comes to DC" in Rightwing film geek.] August 03, 2006W
* [http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49266 Catherine Wheatley, "Secrets, Lies & Videotape" in Sight & Sound.] (February 2006)
* [http://www.dvdmaniacs.net/Reviews/M-P/michael_haneke_trilogy.html John White, "Michael Haneke Trilogy" in DVD Maniacs.] December 15, 2006

External links

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