Benny's Video

Plot synopsis:
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 fore-skull 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," 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.)

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
While I didn't enjoy Benny's Video as much as Funny Games on the whole, it is an overall more shocking film due to the youth of its main character and the matter-of-fact way that the story is presented.
It's not long before the slaughter gun is being put to use again, and the murder of the girl is caught on Benny's video camera.On the one hand, this is a dark and gritty portrayal of a situation that no one would want to be in, and at its strong points; Benny's Video is an emotionally involving and even tormenting film.
The best scene in the movie sees Benny's parents discussing what they do, and if the entire movie was as good as that scene; Haneke would have had a masterpiece on his hands.
Michael Haneke's direction is very 'no frills', as while he uses tricks such as cutting the film with video camera footage, it's all done very calmly...which ultimately benefits the film, as the sober atmosphere really allows the audience to be dragged in.
Overall, as mentioned; the film isn't as easy to get on with as the later 'Funny Games', but Benny's Video will no doubt appeal to those who enjoy dark and challenging films..
The central idea of Benny's Video is whether people in western society have become so desensitised to images of violence in film and the media that they become capable of committing acts of murder themselves.
Benny lives in an enclosed world of technology where he watches violent films and news feeds; it feels he was living a life that many others now do in the internet age.
Not that I personally think that the viewing of violent films makes a person violent themselves, I think the seed is in an individual irrespective of this but perhaps even Haneke thinks this too, as its quite obvious that Benny's parents are capable of repulsive acts while devoid of emotion.
Michael Haneke 's "Benny 's video" is one of the most terrifying movies ever made.The link between it and "der Siebente Kontinent" is obvious:the latter ends with an empty TV screen.The 1992 effort is another way of tackling total destruction.Resuming a subject which a lot of directors have already broached -incommunicability between a teenager and his folks-,Haneke pushes it to its absolute limits :particularly if you do not know Haneke at all,you will not believe your eyes.SPOILERS In this work,there's before and after.So harsh is Haneke's screenplay ,so incredibly devoid of humanity are his characters that the viewer is left panting for breath.
Benny films a lot a things ,his bedroom is full of TV screens -we could draw a parallel between "Benny" and the "Peeping Tom" s hero,whose apartment was full of screens as well;and although the latter was an English movie,the male lead,Karl Boehm ,was Austrian too.But Haneke 's got his own way to hoe ,so he does not stop here and goes where nobody dares.After murdering a girl (a senseless crime),Benny seems almost indifferent.By chance,the parents watch the horrible thing that happened on the video:a close shot of Angela Winkler shows her distraught face and her moist eyes.Then expect the unexpected:the parents want to conceal everything and to pick up the pieces as if nothing has occurred.
The movie does not lose steam towards the end ,as an user claims:the trip to Egypt ,with its trite and amateurish -Benny's camera?- sequences,the mother enjoying an ice cream or relaxing at the swimming-pool or these exotic landscapes, just highlights the bourgeoisie's selfishness ,pushing people out of their way,in a way only Bunuel dared.A legend (or is it Stephan Zweig?)tells that Vienna is ,par excellence , the capital of the blues and they say suicide rate is higher there than anywhere in Europa.At any rate,Austria has found a director who ,like Ozon in France,Dardenne in Belgium or Amenabar in Spain is making the most modern inventive European cinema..
Haneke wants to make discussions, and don't really care if he is controversial or even disgust people watching his films.Benny is a loner of a 14 year old boy, using so much time in his own room watching violent videos as well as making his own videos with his Video8 camera.
During a trip to the video store Benny meets a girl of his own age, and invites her home, to show her a video h has made about a pig being shot with a slaughter gun.
Arno Frisch is brilliantly portraying young Benny, as a boy who has lost his way due to some reason or another.After viewing this film the first time, back in 1993, we had one of the greatest discussions I ever experienced after a film.
The second film from the Austrian auteur Michael Haneke, Benny's Video is another look at the director's vision of our modern world and the societal problems he sees as rife within it.Benny's Video shows us a short period in the life of the eponymous character.
What follows is Haneke's take on the accustomisation of mankind to horrendous violence and the true capability of human cruelty.In many ways, not least of all Haneke's direct statement, Benny's Video acts as a spiritual successor to the earlier Der Siebente Kontinent, tackling much of the same thematic material and issues of morality.
Strong support comes from Angela Winkler and Ulrich Mühe as the parents, protective but no less horrified as we.Dark, disturbing and engaging, in Benny's Video Haneke again shows us the flaws of our species, effectively having us question what we never thought to before.
In a confusing blend of film and video images, Haneke creates a second level of reality, so to speak, where Benny's senseless "act" perfectly integrates in the horror pictures of the evening news and makes it open for question.
'Benny's Video' is a genuinely unsettling film whose premise concerns a scene that is particularly disturbing and visceral.
This film could have been compressed into a lot shorter of a movie and come off as a way better performance but as it was I just can't say i enjoyed it overall.I was glad when it was over, it had great promise and I can see why people enjoyed it but personally for myself I just couldn't take it.
I never have seen a scene like the senseless death of the young girl, which happens in this movie; Haneke almost shows nothing but it is the most heart-breakening situation I've ever watched in a movie although I'm really not inexperienced in touching as well as violence presenting movies!Nothing for tender-hearted characters!!!.
For the past thirteen years it has been impossible to get anything other than a crappy VHS copy of Michael Haneke's brilliant and disturbing "Benny's Video".
He doesn't even look outside, but has a camera set up to play a constant, live "view" of the outside world on one of his TVs.The plot essentially takes off when Benny invites a young girl (and possible love interest) back to his parents house while they are away."Benny's Video" is one of the great commentaries on violence in the media and social apathy.
Benny's Video is an early film from one of the juggernauts of modern european cinema, Michael Haneke, and it contains many familiar director-trademarks.
Benny's Video shows a maladjusted 14-year-old boy whose bedroom looks more like a television studio with cameras scattered about catching every possible angle both inside of his room and out.
When he acts out this fantasy on an unsuspecting girl his age, the audience is left shocked by his parent's decision to cover-up Benny's crime, leaving us to wonder how isolated the entire family is from the world in which they live.Michael Haneke makes a frank commentary through Benny's Video about the constant media reporting of violent images and how such reporting leaves the audience desensitized to those images.
Haneke was judicious to see that a 24-hour news cycle brought with it an oversaturation of violence leaving people unable to empathize with those they see through a screen, as they are constantly replaced by the next barrage of victims.In addition to the assessment on violent imagery, Benny's Video also delivers a heavy critique of the economic system, as well.
Just as in his debut feature, Haneke criticizes money and the value placed upon it as he shows Benny, who obviously belongs to a wealthy family, and the flippant way he spends whatever money he comes into.
All the rest is useless crap: a cup of coffee on a table filmed for about 10 seconds, 2 full minutes of annoying arabian music with mother and son on the bed without uttering a word, long, unbearably long scenes where NOTHING at all happens, unexisting dialogue, unexpressive characters, everything about this movie is pure bore, tedium, humdrum.The twist end doesn't save the failure of what could have been a good story, if only it were brought on film in a different way.
Benny's Video was the fifth Haneke's creation I watched after "The piano teacher", "Funny games", "The hour of the wolf" and "Cache".
It is strong,allegorical,cynical and plain.With an actor's expression or line it offers you many thoughts and directions.This movie made me understand why Haneke refuses to comment on the meaning of his films.You have to try and play his game.To decode his pictures and words which isn't so hard, trust me.The ending is also powerful and summarizes the whole picture.It was one of the best films I have ever seen.It is amazingly coordinated with our times even though it was filmed about 15 years ago.
I thought that Bennys Video was quite a disturbed film, and violent at times.
Bennys Mother (Angela Winkler) seems to only be available to fill the fridge with microwaveable food, Bennys parents spend much time away leaving Benny on his own which the young boy fills with watching a documentary film he made of a pig being slaughtered beginning with being shot in the head with a butchers gun.
Benny shows the girl the butchers gun that he stole when he made the video of the pig slaughter.
If you watched John McNaughton's "Henry" before, "Benny's Video" will disturb you as no other movie did before!
There's not that much explicit violence in "Benny's Video" but the true horror comes from the devilish appearance of the boy that lets Damien look like Bugs Bunny.
In order to escape the complete alienation from his wealthy family,14 year-old Benny finds an emotional substitute in the world of video.Anything recorded on videotape is inherently better and more real than what he can see with his naked eyes.Barely noticed by his professional parents,he spends most of his time either viewing wild and violent films or looking at the view outside his bedroom window through his video camera.Gradually,without the people around him noticing,his values and his sense of reality begin to change.One weekend,on a whim,he invites a girl of about his age over.His parents have gone to the country and he has the house himself.What begins as innocent,young love soon turns into a tragedy.He first let the young girl watch a home video he made of a pig being butchered.To show her how a slaughter-house pistol works he wounds her badly.When she screams,he kills her in front of his relentless video camera lens...In the second part of his trilogy,Haneke analyses the terror brought about by human,coldness and the normal morality of a bourgeois family,with his unique chilling,almost clinical cinematic approach..
Michael Haneke is dealing a important issue here as a teenager boy Benny watches violent films and murders a girl at the same age as a result.
Haneke's very realistic directing works well and the scene where Benny kills the girl is shown through a video screen is very effective.
Haneke tries to show here how Benny's parents tries to handle the situation after Benny has shown them the video where the killing happens.
Characters don't show any motions here (except in one scene on the end where Benny's mother breaks) and while it is parentally meant to be that way it's also a problem of the film.
Many scenes are shot through Benny's video camera and i think Haneke is trying to take the viewer into Benny's mind but he does not succeed there either.
Anyone that's seen any of Haneke's work knows that he typically leans towards confrontational and controversial subject matter, and BENNY'S VIDEO is no different.
When an "accident" in the apartment (which is inadvertently caught on Benny's video-camera)leaves the girl dead - Benny is at a loss for how to handle the situation - and decides to play the tape back for his parents to try to find a resolution to the situation.
Benny's mother and father then have a discussion as to how to handle the problem, and come up with a "solution" that may turn out to either save or destroy their family...Again, BENNY'S VIDEO didn't turn out to be quite the film that I expected it to be.
From what I had read, I thought that Benny (played by the same smarmy little bastard that played Paul in Haneke's FUNNY GAMES - though a few years younger in this film) was going to be some video-obsessed, anti-social nerd and that his family would be some sort of borderline-abusive emotional automatons - but that's really not the case here.
I think that the conversation that Benny's mother and father had after being made aware of the death of the girl held a lot of "truth" as to what lengths people will go to to protect themselves and their family, and Haneke's film shows one family's path in protecting themselves.
I won't say that I necessarily agree or disagree with the decision that Benny's parents made - but I can understand them "covering" for him as much as I could understand if they had turned him in.Technically, the film is good on all ends - the acting is all believable and strong, and the cinematography is appropriately "cold" and somewhat voyeuristic (as is necessary given the subject-matter).
My main gripe was with Benny's "change of heart" at the end - I feel personally that the film would have been stronger had the family just gotten on with their lives as though nothing happened.
Like FUNNY GAMES, I didn't find BENNY'S VIDEO particularly "disturbing" like many others apparently do - I found it to be a strong portrayal of cause-and-effect, actions-and-consequences, and a "case-study" of one family dealing with an "unfixable" situation.
Personally, I found FUNNY GAMES to revel more in it's "mean-spiritedness", where as BENNY'S VIDEO was a much more "realistic" film.
Michael Haneke's Benny's Video is a film with a lot to say.
The film is about a young boy named Benny who has an obsession with videos and violence.
Benny throughout the film continues to watch this video along with news clips of war and violent movies.
The film progresses as Benny meets a young girl at the video store and takes her to his home while his parents are away.
Instead Benny takes this as an opportunity to use the bolt pistol that he stole after he filmed the pig slaughter to kill the young girl.
Benny and his mother then go on holiday to the Red Sea, where Benny films everything.The films pans out to its end matter-of-factly with the family going off to bury the girl's body and Haneke makes a bold and sweeping statement simply by having us watching them through the bank of monitors that show what all the surveillance cameras dotted about the house show.Though Benny's Video was made exactly 20 years ago, it still is as important and pertinent now as it was then.
In "Benny's Video" director Michael Haneke argues about our hunger for violence, a hunger that seem to be everywhere, it follows us all the time and we can't deny our impression with it (that's why violent films are more popular than artistic films).
It's present in the films Benny rents, on the news he watches with his parents, everywhere.
And we could say that he could go on killing more people given the fact his parents haven't turned him to the police but he saw that what he did was too much.Played by an always impressive Arno Frisch (way before of making of us his accomplices with his disturbing and violent experiences in "Funny Games"), Benny is quite a figure and his deadly obsessions and the murder makes Macaulay Culkin's pranks in "The Good Son" something funny.
Not a single emotion appears right after that, except when they travel to Egypt (while the father arranges a way to disappear with the girl's body) the mother shows some reaction by crying but even that crying seems so doubtful, we can't know for sure why she's doing that.Haneke impresses us by showing how Benny committed the crime but without appealing to the Hollywood formula of gore, yet it is a disturbing moment.
Benny, an Austrian teenager likes to sit in his darkened room and watch videos.
A teenage boy (Arno Frisch) who watches violent videos brings a girl back to his parent's apartment whilst they are away and films his murder of her.
Michael Haneke's disturbing film suggests that violent videos may not only desensitize, but influence some to commit violent acts.
Would he murder a girl because he wanted to know how it feels?When Benny shows the video to their parents, they don't even flinch.
Another person had said: "Michael Haneke's disturbing film suggests that violent videos may not only desensitize, but influence some to commit violent acts"OK...
Isn't Benny's video (written and directed by Michael Haneke) a movie about a murder?
"Benny's Video" is an Austrain German-language movie from over 25 years ago written and directed by Michael Haneke.
As for "Benny's Video", it is the second installment from a trilogy by Haneke, called "Glaciation".
Benny invites her home and lets her view a film of a pig being led to slaughter; actually watching the swine fall dead with a squeal.