Benny's Video

Le film central de la trilogie de Haneke est le plus cinématographique dans le sens traditionnel du terme. Il a une idée et une structure dramaturgique narrative croissante. Il a une mise en scène sophistiquée à la manière de Haneke, avec des événements hors-cadre et un personnage principal marquant. Et une conclusion écrasante, que peut-être aucun autre scénariste n'aurait jamais imaginée. Bravo. (02/06/2017)

Haneke’s movies are constantly declining towards a depressive disaster. Just like White Ribbon and just like Funny Games, it’s definitely true about Benny’s Video, too, which already looks disgusting from its movie description. Briefly put, perfect for ruining your mood. Haneke films this in his favorite style which is boring and boring… and boring and boring… then it focuses on the brutal scene that is properly raw and then he goes back to the sleeping state, only to finish this badly written joke with another brutal shock. I don’t know if I’m capable to eat this up anymore. Funny Games were probably the most acceptable, White Ribbonhas lulled me with an absolutely hypnotic atmosphere, which is something I didn’t get at all, but Benny’s Video is one big disaster. Benny is your classic jackass and his jackass family sends him to Egypt for a murder so that he could get his head together. This in itself isn’t really okay and even though the director knows that, he does everything he can to make everyone in the movie feel like it is okay. That raises some questions and scars my soul because it made me extremely uncomfortable. I’d much rather leave him out to the wolves, which didn’t happen, not even in the end. After this movie, I probably won’t watch any other Haneke movie. I watched this for the Challenge Tour 2015. (03/04/2015)

Slightly weaker than Haneke's best works... the radicality and precision of the surgical method of vision somewhat gives way to a more traditional concept and a chronological and clearly causal narrative. The film lacks gradation and the absorbing vagueness of The Seventh Continent, but on the other hand, the study of the individual characters is all the more detailed. More than in the debut and the subsequent 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, in the film there is a certain conservatism and direct accusation against modern society. The more Haneke lets his method involuntarily eat away reality and does not try to use it as an active communication tool, the more his works affect me. This means that Benny's Video was about 50% impactful for me. (04/02/2010)

Il est très difficile d’évaluer ce film et encore plus délicat de le critiquer. J’ai bien saisi l’idée principale, mais j’ai malgré tout l’impression que certaines scènes sont incompréhensibles, voire inutiles. Une bonne étude psychosociologique ? Peut-être… (24/07/2011)

Michael Haneke – an extraordinary figure not only in European but of course global cinema. A filmmaker who doesn't mince his words and makes controversial works (the question is how controversial in relation to today's world and the principles on which it is based) that have not only artistic but above all communicative and critical value. Benny's Video is not a flat, devastating portrait of one cruel and inhumane act by a 14-year-old boy, but rather a film mapping (critiquing) today's system and a portrait of contemporary society as a whole (most of the specific motivations and mission of this film can be seen very clearly in the parental dialogue when Benny's door is left ajar). Again, it's the raw Haneke who chooses themes unacceptable to most other filmmakers and who, while criticizing, holds up a mirror, but in no way judges. He "merely" states. The fact that the film doesn't try to shock in any explicit way (except perhaps in one or two scenes at most) gives room for more psychological and sociological questions that you'll want to ask yourself the entire time you're watching Benny's video. My five hundredth film that I'm reviewing here on FilmBooster. But I certainly won't remember it just for being the five hundredth. (25/09/2011)