The world though Benny's video camera is a disjointed, skewed and dangerous one. Played back through his VCR, along with the countless video nasties he seems to be able to rent without his age (14) being questioned from his local video rental store, that distortion is multiplied indefinitely.
At times, this film is repulsive and sickening, as we start with a pig that the family want to slaughter for meat is filmed having a bolt shot through its head. "It's only a pig", Benny says, as he rewinds, again and again and repeats the animal's death and subsequent squirming in slo-mo.
His parents are involved in the travel business and go away whilst Benny stays at home with all his high-tech gizmos, all that his parents had bought for him, presumably to make him happy. Getting a girl into this ivory tower of his, he plays her the pig vid and then shows the instrument used on the animal that he had stolen for a souvenir. In a game of dare, she gets shot with it and this is where it all goes horribly strange and ugly. Most folks - all folks, actually - would phone for an ambulance. He doesn't, he re-loads it with bolts and does so again and again. We see a TV with this being filmed, with only the periphery showing. He then films himself streaking her blood on his naked body.
I hope that this hasn't spoiled things too much but the main thrust of the film is the aftermath of all this. Parents come home, Benny gets a skinhead haircut and then replays the vids of the "accident" over and again, just when the parents are going past the open door of his room.
What we make of Haneke's matter of fact portrayal of the parents colluding to and discussing what to do with her body is one of open debate. Their emotionless disdain for what has happened appals, and so it should. 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. Uncompromising and powerful, if largely unlikeable.
I watched this as part of the Michael Haneke 10 DVD anthology.
At times, this film is repulsive and sickening, as we start with a pig that the family want to slaughter for meat is filmed having a bolt shot through its head. "It's only a pig", Benny says, as he rewinds, again and again and repeats the animal's death and subsequent squirming in slo-mo.
His parents are involved in the travel business and go away whilst Benny stays at home with all his high-tech gizmos, all that his parents had bought for him, presumably to make him happy. Getting a girl into this ivory tower of his, he plays her the pig vid and then shows the instrument used on the animal that he had stolen for a souvenir. In a game of dare, she gets shot with it and this is where it all goes horribly strange and ugly. Most folks - all folks, actually - would phone for an ambulance. He doesn't, he re-loads it with bolts and does so again and again. We see a TV with this being filmed, with only the periphery showing. He then films himself streaking her blood on his naked body.
I hope that this hasn't spoiled things too much but the main thrust of the film is the aftermath of all this. Parents come home, Benny gets a skinhead haircut and then replays the vids of the "accident" over and again, just when the parents are going past the open door of his room.
What we make of Haneke's matter of fact portrayal of the parents colluding to and discussing what to do with her body is one of open debate. Their emotionless disdain for what has happened appals, and so it should. 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. Uncompromising and powerful, if largely unlikeable.
I watched this as part of the Michael Haneke 10 DVD anthology.