Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome back to the final girl on 6th Avenue podcast. My name is Carolyn Smith Hilmer and I'm very excited today to be talking to you about Benny's Video.
For those of you that are not familiar, this is quite the film.
And if you recall my episode or have seen the film Funny Games, then you might already be familiar with this director. Today we'll be talking about another Michael Henneke film, Benny's Video. Benny's Video. All of all of this director's films are disturbing, I would say, and I would say that confidently, but I would say that this one stands out pretty clearly among his other films. This is actually the second film in a trilogy of films that much like Lars von Trier does, where the films are somewhat related in theme or they just kind of fit together, but they're not actually related necessarily in terms of the characters or like the storyline continuing from one to the next.
So let's go to IMDb, our Bible, of course, and read the summary.
This is a 1992 film. It is considered to be unrated, which I agree with that. And the runtime is 1 hour and 50 minutes. A 14 year old video enthusiast obsessed with violent films decides to make one of his own and show it to his parents with tragic results.
Yep, I think that that is a great introduction.
This is, like I mentioned before, the second.
The second film in a trilogy. The first being the seventh continent and the second being 71 fragments. These, you know, films, much like the rest of this director's films, are largely based in, you know, philosophy, obviously, psychology and what it means to be a consumer of media in the world today. And even in 1992 when this film came out, that was, that was something that was, you know, present and something that was being noticed.
So without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to the absolute mindfuck that is Benny's video.
Let us begin.
Oh, and it is in the Criterion Collection, so, you know, it's legit.
Our film today opens up on what is clearly video footage of a pig being led to and ultimately slaughtered.
Yes, sorry to talk about animal stuff at the very beginning, but I promise that it is relevant. So the footage rewinds, right? We see it from start to finish and then it rewinds again so that we can see the, you know, the bolt pistol that's being used.
We see it in slow motion, shooting the pig in the head again because we totally needed to see it twice, especially in slow motion because I didn't get the picture the first time.
This is a video that Benny recorded.
Title screen tv, white noise in the background. Love it. Be bold. Put the title screen up front. They did not put the credits at the beginning. We all know how I feel about that.
Now onto a crowded elevator up to the family apartment where daughter Ava has invited tons of people over to a party. And they complete a logic tree scenario with pilots and passengers and money. And later, this is described in more detail. So just stick with me. But the dad comes home and busts the party and tells his daughter to, you know, next time if you're gonna have people over, just like, let me know and, like, maybe we can have catering organized.
Back at the apartment, Benny is watching footage that he had recorded earlier that day of the party. He videotapes literally everything.
So he switches from that on the TV down to a different input for TV channels. And then he watches a news segment about Neo Nazis while his mom asks him what he knows about this party.
And dad kind of pokes his head in the door to let Benny know that some fresh air would do him, you know, a lot of good, actually. And Benny pays absolutely no attention to his dad. So dad asks about the money, you know, at the party that was part of this pilots and passenger situation. And mom kind of tells him that, you know, how she acquired it. And the dad just seemed to, like, want to know, but he didn't actually really care. And he goes off to bed.
Benny goes to school like a pretty normal kid. He brings up the Pilots and Passengers game that he saw his sister playing at the party the previous night. He goes to McDonald's with the money he got from his most recent transaction involving this, you know, buy in for this game.
And then he watches a violent movie at a video store and goes on to actually rent it so that he can take it home and watch it again.
He does notice that there's a young blonde girl, roughly his age outside of the store, and she's watching One of the TVs in the window, although she never actually comes inside.
At home, he does his homework while listening to rock music while a video plays on the TV next to him with, like, little to no sound. So, you know, multiple inputs of media happening. And that night, he watches this, you know, violent movie rental before bed.
He at least has the nerve to turn the TV off before he falls asleep, so he's practicing good sleep hygiene.
The next morning, mom leaves Benny a note that says the fridge is full of food and some cash. His parents are away for the weekend, so Benny is. This is his time to shine.
Benny Heads to school and we find out that he's in the school choir singing and simultaneously practicing this pilots and passengers, you know, situation with his friends via passing a note back and forth.
This game is a type of pyramid scheme. So according to Wikipedia, this is how it works. Because I've never actually heard of this exact scenario, but this is what it says. It says the common version of the system involved joining an airplane by paying a pilot to become one of eight passengers already on the airplane. In this, you know, in an example, let's say there's four flight attendants who were a step ahead and two co pilots next in line behind the pilot. Thus, the new passenger is fourth in the hierarchy. Once a pilot collects, let's say, $12,000 from passengers to retire, the group split into two airplanes, with each co pilot becoming the pilot of the new airplane, taking half of the participants and promoting everyone up one level.
Bringing in new passengers speeds up everyone's progression towards retiring as a pilot. However, the structure of the scheme results in a participant losing the entire payment unless 14 new people join. So it's basically an example of a pyramid scheme and Benny and his friends are starting one where Benny is the pilot and the product they are selling is drugs.
This might be the one and only way that a pyramid scheme works, honestly. It's with a product that people really genuinely want and sometimes even need. So I'm not even mad at Benny for this one.
So Benny, after school, after choir, he goes back to the video store and gets some new videos to rent. He sees the girl again and she's just like staring into this TV from outside of the store. And Benny leaves the store and talks to her, and the two actually make their way back to the family apartment. And he invites this girl into his room. And so she notices that there's a small screen, like a small TV in his room showing traffic on the highway from like an aerial viewpoint. And she's like, what is this? Is this outside? Like, is this live? And he's like, yeah, he would literally rather watch live footage of outside than actually look outside through a window. He'd rather watch it on a screen.
But he tells her that they can change the input of the tv, obviously. And he playfully, you know, has it hooked up to his camera that's in his room that's pretty much always recording.
And so on the tv, you know, he points the camera to her, and then on the tv she can see her face.
He then takes the camera and puts it back in its original position, which at this point, we can only see, like, his waist, and he's smoking a cigarette. I don't know. He's not, like, the greatest person with a camera, but he really thinks that he is.
So the two get to talking, and she's like, wow, did your parents buy all of this equipment in your room? And he's like, yeah, he's rich. Rich. So he asks her why she's always outside of the video store looking at the TV when the ones inside the store are better, and that, you know, he has loads of videos he could lend her if she ever wanted to watch one. And she reveals that she likes cartoons rather than, you know, film, like Benny likes, and that she has four siblings, but she doesn't want to talk about them. And it's funny, because Benny here actually tells her that he has no siblings at all, even though we know he has a sister.
She doubts that he understands, you know, the desire to not want to talk about her family. But we can kind of see that she's in a poorer class. She's not, you know, in the same socioeconomic standing as Benny's family.
And she stands up to leave, kind of feeling uncomfortable, and he asks her to stay. So he feeds her some dinner, like a true gentleman does before you get absolutely fucked, right?
And she says it takes her, like, a good hour or so to get into town.
And Benny literally has no idea how good he has it. Like, he lives in the city center, whereas she lives outside of the city because it's too expensive to live in the city. And so she has to take two forms of public transit. And it takes, like, an hour to get there. She does it every day. Benny just, like, walks outside, and he's like, exactly where he needs to be. So he stands up and illustrates what he believes as if he's playing charades. A man on the subway, which he does by standing up straight and putting his arm up to the side, like, as if he's holding a.
One of the little ropes that hangs down for your grip.
She's like, oh, I don't know. And he said, I'm a man on the subway.
Then he kneels down and demonstrates what he believes to be a dog on the subway. And finally wraps it up by putting the girl, pulling her up from her chair, like, grabbing her and putting her arms behind her back to demonstrate. A cop on the subway.
Funny, but he's overly aggressive and he frightens me. So they eat their dinner together, and he romantically follows up. This meal was showing her the video that he took of the pig Slaughter, which coincidentally features both of his parents because they own the farm.
He rewinds it so that she can see the shot a second time. So now we've seen it. The viewer. We have seen it four fucking times in total.
She asks him how it was with the pig and follows that up to, you know, clarify that she actually wants to know if he's seen a dead body.
He tells her, well, it was only a pig and the stuff in movies is fake, but that he was in the same vicinity as his dead grandpa in a casket, but wasn't actually big enough to see.
So, in essence, no, he's never seen a dead body.
Then he's like, oh, hey, you want to see something cool?
And pulls out the bolt pistol from the pig video.
He also stole some ammo. The farmer noticed that it was gone, but Benny says that it was a good thing that he stole it after the pig slaughter, otherwise the farmer would not have been able to give them any ham.
So he's a thief.
He hands her the bolt pistol and tells her to pull the trigger, but she sets it down.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: She, like, kind of playfully calls him a coward.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: But, you know, it's not.
It's not like she's being serious necessarily. Like, she's, like, almost, like, half kidding. I think she's so uncomfortable that she doesn't know what she's supposed to do.
Then this is where shit gets real.
So she sets it down on the desk.
And then he decides, okay, well, if I'm a coward, then I'll fucking show you. So he decides that he's gonna pick it up, push it against her body, and pull the trigger himself. Ultimately, this does not kill her.
So she tries to crawl away, but he tells her that he's gonna help her. And I just want you to know that this whole thing, this whole interaction is being videotaped, just so you know, by the way. And so we're actually watching all of this play out on the screen, like from the camera.
Kind of meta, right? Like we're videoing a video of someone doing something else.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Benny pulls her out of the frame so we actually can't see, but we get to hear, which is, you know, better, I guess. He pulls her out of the frame, and he's screaming at her to be quiet.
She screams and wails in pain. I can only imagine she's also, like, freaking the fuck out, which, again, totally understand.
And then he runs back into the frame, and then he grabs a bolt pistol again, reloads with ammo, runs back out of the frame to her body to shoot her again. And just in case you were wondering, that still doesn't do the trick. So she's actually still screaming while he's begging her to be quiet. So he comes back again for a third round of ammo, and that is the one that finally does the trick. And we don't actually see any of the blood. We only hear the noises. I think, honestly, I would rather see it than listen to it. Seeing it is, like one thing, but, like, listening to it and just imagining what's going on is totally different experience.
So then he sits down on the floor.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: He's like halfway out of the frame.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Halfway in the frame. And then he goes to the kitchen.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: To get a glass of water and.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: A snack for all of his hard work.
And he basically takes a blood splattered comforter off of his bed and just kind of like drapes it over her body.
And that's the extent of the cleanup, pretty much. I mean, he does proceed to go through her backpack.
He empties all of the contents out of it onto the floor and opens up her wallet, where the only thing he finds is a photo of a cat.
Normally you would keep. You know, it's common at this time to keep a photo of your family inside of your wallet. But since she said she didn't want to talk about her family earlier, we, you know, we have no idea what exactly it is that is going on at home. But, you know, it's telling that she would rather keep a photo of a cat instead of her family.
He loses interest in the backpack. There's no money in it or anything cool. And goes back into his room to listen to more rock music while doing homework with the TV muted. And again, he's just constantly recording his room and everything that takes place in it. He leaves out the dirty dishes and food on the counter and the girl's body on the floor. Until finally he decides, oh, well, maybe I should just try to clean up at least something.
So he washes one of the sheets on his bed in the shower and tries to, like, get the blood out of it, which, like, maybe tmi. But if you're a girl and you've ever, you know, bled through your clothes from your period, you know, and you're trying to get the blood out, it doesn't really come out that well. Okay, like. Like blood, like, doesn't come out of stuff. Like, it is stained, and that's okay.
For Benny, that is not okay. But he does as good of a job as he thinks he can and then just kind of gives up.
Then he tries to wipe up, like.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: As much of the blood on the.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Floor as he can, which kind of works. But then he'll, like, wipe it up.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: And then pull her body so then more blood will smear. And then he has to do it again. And he just keeps doing it over and over again. Because I guess he didn't learn the first time. Cause he's a fucking d ass.
Then he takes off all of his clothes.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: And the phone is ringing.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: His friend is on the other line.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: They make plans to meet up. And Benny notices some of the girl's blood on his side.
And records himself kind of, like smearing it onto his skin. It's not a lot of blood, and it's, like, kind of dried. But he's, like, pulling at it and, you know, looking at himself do it.
He goes to meet up with his friend. They go to a nightclub. I have no idea how they're old enough to get into it, but that's a separate discussion. And Benny stays the night with his friend.
He comes home the next morning with a shaved head. Now, at this point, mom and dad are home.
And obviously his parents, being the wealthy people that they are. Are overly concerned with their image as a family. And are angry that he has shaved his head. Regardless of the reason as to why.
Maybe he really wanted to. Maybe, you know, he really wanted some attention from his parents.
[00:20:34] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: His parents are MIA all the time. They never seem to be around or interact with their kids. So who's to say, of course, mom and dad could never watch the news.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Anywhere in the fucking apartment.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Except for in Benny's bedroom. I don't understand the dynamic of this family at all.
So during the news program, Benny takes it upon himself to show his parents what he really wants them to see.
So he switches the TV input to the video of him killing the girl.
And when I tell you that the look on mom and Dad's faces while this is happening is like.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: Like this is the greatest movie they've ever seen in their whole entire life.
Like, they're so captivated by almost looks.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Like they're in so much shock that this is real.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Because, like, they give this kid all.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Of this equipment, right? For video and sound and stuff.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: And, like.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Maybe at first it's kind.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Of seeming to them like maybe this is staged or like this is acting. But, like, no, this is very real.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: And.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: It is revealed shortly thereafter the. The bolt pistol. He takes it from his desk.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: And the body of the girl is being stored in his closet. His parents are made aware of all of this. His dad takes the tape out of the VCR and then starts to question Benny, like, did you know her? Did she go to your school? And he's like, I don't know her. I don't think she went to my school.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: It's like, just.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: He's asking questions that lead you and me to believe that he's not actually concerned in any form or fashion that his son took the life of another person. He's actually concerned that someone's going to find out that Benny did this.
That is the state of the parents that we're dealing with. Mom is, like, kind of, you know, upset and just shocked and, like, she's just kind of hanging out there just in her own mental state. And dad is very pragmatic.
Did anybody see you guys together? Did anybody see you in the lobby? Did you mention this to anybody? Has anybody else seen this? Like, he's very, you know, much trying to fix the problem or figure out a solution to the problem. And Benny is just giving him yes or no answers, not really taking part in the conversation because he really, at this point, just doesn't care anymore, you know?
And dad is, like, super frustrated at this point, okay? Like, he's trying to keep his cool to, you know, figure the situation out, but, like, you could tell he's boiling inside. He's also getting, you know, more information from his son than he maybe ever has before, because typically the conversations between the two of them involve dad talking and son saying nothing. So this time they're actually speaking.
He, you know, Benny lets his dad know that he was involved in some or implicated in a situation in which he had his friend's notebook and stole his computer science homework, which is actually true when his friend ratted it out to the teacher. He punched his friend, you know, in the side and got sent to the principal's office. But he didn't actually go to the principal's office. He just went home and tells his dad that they're gonna need to see him or mom, you know, later. At some point.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Dad is just fed up with it, and he's like, okay, get the fuck out of my face.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Eat something and go to bed. I don't want to talk to you about this anymore.
Benny dismisses himself. Mom and dad in the living room are now trying to come up with a game plan. What are we gonna do?
Mom is nervous and shocked, and she's kind of laughing in a way because it's, like, so absurd. The situation that they found themselves in. And dad, again, is still trying to think pragmatically. He's talking about things that are in his favor and things that are not in his favor. And what are they going to do about it? Well, I will tell you what they're going to do about it.
They believe that they are going to be charged with parental neglect for allowing, you know, a circumstance for Benny to obtain this bolt pistol. And they also think that if they take the blame for this by accepting this charge for parental neglect, that they are, you know, Benny's going to be in an institution and his life is going to be ruined. And they actually make the comment, what about our reputation?
They are literally only focused on their reputation as a family. They literally do not care that their son did this.
So here's a game plan. They're gonna take her stuff, the girl's stuff, they're gonna take it to the farm and burn it. Because they live in the middle of the city, and there's no fucking way they're gonna be able to burn anything there without it being suspicious. That's number one. Number two, because they have to remove the entire body, you know, from the apartment, they have decided they're going to dismember it and cut it up so that it can be in smaller pieces.
Now, dad here in this situation is, like, pretty confident that he can do this.
He's not certain that mom is going to be able to do this. So he's asking her questions like, hey, is this something you think you're going to be able to stomach? Because, like, when I say we're going to cut this girl up, like I'm saying, the pieces are going to have to be so small that this is gonna take a long time because, you know, we're gonna to flush these pieces, and otherwise if it's too big, like, it'll. It'll clog the drains and block them. And then, like, now we're fucked. And he gets her to agree. Like, you know, she said, you realize what you're saying? And he said, well, I realize what we are saying.
So he is implicating her in this as well. Even though she's just kind of like in this state of, you know, shock, surprise, somewhat panic. Dad is like, no, I got a plan. And we should think about, you know, what to do with Benny. Maybe we send him away or say that he's sick or something. And if anybody comes to the door, we just won't let them in.
Now, they don't have a lot of Time. Remember, it's already been two days since this body's been in the apartment, so they're gonna have to act pretty fast.
Now, what do you think that you would do to your kid if this happened?
I think I would kill my kid.
That's me.
Benny's parents decide. Nay, nay, no. We are going to take a trip.
So we're gonna go on down to the travel agent's office and we're gonna pick a place to go. And we need to pick somewhere that we can leave as soon as possible. There's other options of places to go. One will be in four days. They can't wait four days. The closest option for departure is Egypt. So Benny gets a fucking free trip to Egypt with his mom to get out of the consequences of his own actions.
They go to school to make sure they cross T's, dot I's and make sure that nobody's suspicious. And mom goes in to talk to the principal. They do talk about a, you know, a missing girl.
Benny returns all of his outstanding video rentals to the video store. And now everything is good. Done. We don't have to worry anymore.
Benny comes home, he packs his bags, but not before dad comes into his room to scold him to say, your sister called.
Did you see her on Sunday?
And Benny's like, yeah, but she's my sister.
And dad is like, but you said you didn't talk to anybody. So if you didn't talk to anybody.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: Then that's a lie, because she said.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: You went to her, you saw her.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: You saw her friends.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: He's just so frustrated. Like, how am I gonna help you if you won't let me help you?
I get it.
So then he goes to bed, and, you know, bags are packed, he's sleeping peacefully. He's, you know, things. Things are good in Benny's hood right now. He can fuck up whatever he wants. Parents will clean up the mess. Doesn't have to worry about law enforcement, and he gets a free trip to Egypt.
I mean, God, if every consequence for my actions involved this, I mean, I would never do anything right?
So they go to Egypt. Cool.
[00:30:55] Speaker C: So for six days.
Okay, six days.
Benny and mom are in Egypt on tours, guided tours, going to all of these incredible, like, ancient places. This is a bucket list trip for me. Like, I. I'm dying to see these places in the world and all that little shit does. The whole time they're there. He's staying in hotels, you know, nice hotels. Going on all these guided tours, seeing things that I can only dream of seeing in my life and eating out at nice restaurants for dinner. And he complains that it's hot.
There's too much light coming in through the window.
He complains that it's hot. And, like, he's, like, literally shoving the video camera in the faces of the people that live there. Straight up. They're trying to survive, okay? And here comes this rich Austrian boy with a video camera, and he's shoving it in faces of little kids. Enough people. He's videoing everything. He's being a brat about the weather.
And, like, his mom is just, like, getting, you know, kind of worn down at this point.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: And.
[00:32:27] Speaker C: Yeah, he's ungrateful. He really has no remorse at all for the action that he has committed. He really, truly doesn't care.
He's just, like, living life like normal. And even his mom has, like, gotten annoyed with the video camera to the point where, like, he's videoing her while she's in the bathroom. And, like, it just never fucking stops. He's making video diaries of himself. Like, the dude is obsessed with the camera.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: Obsessed.
[00:33:04] Speaker C: In one of the video diaries he makes, he comments about how they haven't read anything about this in any of the papers, right, that are in that they're getting. And if there is, his mom is not telling him about it.
And he makes comment that he hopes that his dad will be able to pull this off because a week is plenty long.
The entitlement is actually astonishing.
On, you know, the last day of their trip, Benny and his mom are hanging out in the hotel room watching tv, when Benny's mom finally just has a breakdown. Like, an absolute breakdown. This is when she finally cries and, like, comes to terms with what it is that is happening, why they're there, what it is that her son did. And it could just be because, you know, they were, you know, in there playing around and not doing anything, so there was nothing to, like, occupy her mind with.
But that's when she finally breaks down. And he. He kind of at first is like, oh, wow, like, let me be empathetic. And then pulls away. And he somehow looks both annoyed and annoyed.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Question mark.
[00:34:37] Speaker C: And panicked at the same time.
They leave Egypt, they fly home. Dad picks them up from the airport. And, you know, they talk about life like it's normal. Like, this was a normal vacation that moms and sons take and that, you know, dad is talking about work and what's waiting for him, and, you know, he asks about the trip, and it's a whole thing. They talk about the choir Concert on Friday, like nothing happened.
They lay down for bed that night, obviously exhausted.
Mom comes in, tells Benny goodnight. Dad comes in, and for the first time, we see him say, I love you, son.
And Benny is, like, absolutely, positively perplexed by this concept of his father saying I love you to him. I don't know if this is cultural, but I. I don't know.
I would hate to speculate.
His dad lets him know that he thinks everything's okay, everything's cleared up, like, we should be all good to go.
And he says, I just want to know one thing. And Benny's like, okay.
So his dad is like, well, why did you do this?
And Benny's like, I don't know.
I guess I probably just wanted to see what it was like.
His dad asks him to elaborate, but he does not. So that is that, I guess his answer is extraordinarily nonchalant for something that is absolutely an offense to society.
Wakes up the next morning, you know, the closet's clear, everything is where it's supposed to be. In the apartment, he eats breakfast.
Honestly, for this family. Life moves on.
It just does.
Now Benny's parents are acting different, right?
And he is eating breakfast.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: And then.
[00:37:20] Speaker C: His mom is also eating breakfast. And he's like, aren't you supposed to be going to the shop? Like, aren't you? You know, don't you have to go to work?
And she's basically just like, no, I can, like, open the shop later. And I think it's important if, you know, that we have breakfast together. And I just want to say that that is why the shit in Europe is never open at the time that it says it's gonna be open, because they take their time. I appreciate it, okay? I appreciate it and I understand it.
But then just, like, give a roundabout.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Time of when you might be open.
[00:38:06] Speaker C: And don't just, like, give a firm time. You know what I'm saying?
So anyhow, Benny meets up with his friend. They go to McDonald's, and they, you know, talk about his trip. And he's like, you can't imagine how hot it is there. Like, no shit, it's hot. It's a desert. Like, are you dumb? How dumb are you?
Anyway, he answers the door, there's a catering service arriving.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: More video footage of, you know, this pilots and passengers arrangement that his sister has going on. And there's money being exchanged and thrown around, and it's just kind of one of those things, right?
Pyramid schemes are cool.
If somebody asks you to join one, you totally should.
And now his parents are like, you know, super sold on this. And, like, they're like, oh, yeah. Like, I can't believe she would be such an entrepreneur. Like, how could this happen? I mean, maybe I should do that soon. Like, this is cool. There's lots of money to be made. Like, oh, my God, everybody in this family is fucking dumb.
They go to the choir concert and then. Remember how I said that the camera in Benny's bedroom is recording all the time?
Yeah, when I said that. I mean, all the time.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: While his parents. Remember when they were sitting in the.
[00:39:42] Speaker C: Living room plotting how to dispose of this girl's body and how they were gonna help their kid out by taking care of this.
That's all on tape.
He has a recording of the entire thing.
Their plot, how they're gonna do it, what are the plans, everything.
They literally are on video.
So we're watching this, you know, footage. Well, it's really. It's a. It's a static camera, but we're here, the conversation, and then it pulls away the camera, does the director's camera, like the viewers camera.
And we're looking at a tv.
And we cut to Benny in the same room, and he's talking to a police officer. He literally took this footage that he had of the conversation that his parents were having with, took it to the police station so that he could blame the murder and the subsequent cleanup on his parents.
Straight up, he walks out of that room from questioning, looks at mom and dad and says, sorry, walks away. And then mom and dad get to go into that same room. And we already know what their fate is. That, my friends, is Benny's video.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: So now that I have absolutely destroyed all hopes and dreams that you may have had for the film, we must ask ourselves, what does it all mean?
Benny's video is obviously a chilling window through which many of us, you know, view ourselves, view others, view society. We would be, you know, remiss if we did not discuss the importance of Gilles Deleuze, French philosopher, with regard to this film. In particular, because Delouse wrote on the Philosophy of Art and film. And in the essay Super Modernity, Capital and the French Connection to Michael Henneke's Benny's Video by Matthias Frey. It is argued that the very essence of Deleuze's time image is captured by the use of the video camera.
Time images, simply put, are, you know, images that are infused and function with time and allows for us, you know, those that are looking at it to recognize and even recall.
And these images allow for the audience to view a recorded past and provide meaning to the present image by way of creating like a virtual future, if that makes sense.
And there's a great subreddit called Ask Philosophy, which I do frequently spend time on.
I've linked a particular discussion thread in the show Notes because it's actually really insightful with regard to this topic. So please feel free to nerd out with me and poke around in there.
So the setting, as is, you know, always important in this director's films, is highly important.
And Frey presents the idea of Benny's world being one of non places, right?
Referencing really the work of Mark Auge.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Which this work is titled Non Places.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: Introduction to an Anthropology of Super Modernity.
Non places are meant to be passed through rather than like a place of rest or a place to stop or even a place of any particular significance.
So they would be described as the.
If a peace can be defined as relational, historical, concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational or historical or concerned with identity will be a non place.
Super modernity produces non places, meaning spaces which are not themselves anthropological places and which, unlike Baudelaire and modernity, do not integrate the earlier places. Instead, these are listed, classified, promoted to the status of places of memory and assigned to a circumscribed and specific position.
Okay, that's a lot, right? But really, it's kind of what we already said.
For example, when Benny is in Egypt, right?
All of the things that he is looking at are historical and concerned with identity. So that would not be a non place when we're talking about when he's at home, right?
He's just in random places, like they have no significance or relation to anything at all.
There are hundreds of thousands of cities around the world, all with the same exact things that are in the city that Benny lives in. So it's not really a significant space. I would even consider the fact that there's a McDonald's in this as not being a significant space, even though it has a name, right? Like it has a title. So it does have like identity. But it's still a non place because it really doesn't have any significance in the broader mean of things. It's. There's McDonald's all over the world. So it's not like anything special. There's only those, you know, couple pyramids in Egypt. There's only the Sphinx in Egypt. Like, that has significance and has a lot of history. There's really no history concerned with a barber shop in, you know, Austria.
It's Not a cultural significance. Like it's a place where people get their haircut.
So that is kind of what I'm describing. And with this in mind, Frey goes on to argue that super modernity must then function as a collective of three paradoxes.
One, we experience a superabundance of time and history. There are too many events going on and too much news and information about them. Yet we find ourselves semiotically overloaded and unable to make sense of the past and experience the relationship of the past to the future in terms of an eternal disappointment.
Yeah, that's a heavy one to sit with. I think the news is a very, you know, hot topic in this film. They're watching the news a lot. They watch the news together. They watch the news in Benny's bedroom.
They are so over involved in all of these inputs of media all the time. We even see it when he is, you know, listening to music with the TV on. Like, in what world would that be something that you need to do? You would never need to do that. Yet he's doing it. We're overloaded with everything to the point that we can't even begin to make sense of the past or whatever events happened in the past as they relate to the current day.
Number two, we experience an increasing sense of vastness of the spaces we inhabit as these spaces expand and interpenetrate each other. And yet at the same time, our urban spaces are increasingly homogenized and increasingly filling up.
New York City is a great example of that, right?
It feels vast. You know what? You know, the island is not that big, right? It's about 13 miles or so. That's not very big.
The fact that I inhabit, you know, New York City, the. This place expands like it never stops growing. But to me, somehow it always stays the same size and it always fills up. It's never not filling up. There's never a point where I look around and I'm like, oh, that apartment looks nice. Maybe I'll like, keep it on my list. No, that apartment's going to be gone in two days.
And all of you know, I'm not gonna say all to say 100%, but a lot. An overwhelming majority of urban spaces are the fucking same. They have tall buildings and apartments and fast food and restaurants and bars.
I bet when I said that you could think of 800 different cities off the top of your head.
Number three, we experience a simultaneous excess and deficiency of personal identity, such that we have more and more ways of differentiating ourselves from others and identifying ourselves while at the same time, personal identities become increasingly rigidified and formally interchangeable.
Great example of this.
How do I identify myself to differentiate myself from someone else? Well, I have a passport.
My passport shows who I am and that I'm not the same as the other blonde, 5 foot 10 girl that stands next to me.
Otherwise, just looking at us on the surface, we're the same. We're both blonde, we're both 5 foot 10, and that's it. But no, I have a name, I have an eye color, I have all of these things about me. I have an address, I have all of this personal information.
Where it becomes more interesting is that everyone else has the same thing. Everyone else has an ID card or a driver's license or a passport or a global entry card or a debit card. Everything that we have used or could use in the past is no different that the person next to me is also using.
So these paradoxes are kind of what define these super modern paradoxes.
And Benny's world is this to a T. He wanders throughout the world through spaces that are not new, they're not unique in literally almost any way, and they're anonymous in nature, such as a video store.
Okay, that's not the only video store in the world. Transit points. That's not the only airport, that's not the only train station.
School.
Yeah, a lot of schools look like that. There's nothing special or cool about that school. So when you sit back and really think about it, Benny could literally be anywhere in the world and experience all of the same things. And that is why when he and his mom go to Egypt, he is still virtually functioning in a non place.
He's in hotels, they eat at restaurants, they have a tour guide. Nothing about his experience is uniquely identifiable. The obviously Egypt itself. Yes, there are things there that are not anywhere else.
Same as in Austria. There are things in Austria that are not anywhere else. But in order for that to be the case, you have to transport yourself through all of these non spaces because really none of that makes, you know, a difference. At the end of the day, a hotel is a hotel. There are so many hotels. I literally am looking at three out of my window right now.
How is that different from the hotel in Egypt? Like, it's just not. He's really creating this ideal or this perception of the world to where he doesn't see the world as the world. He sees it as a sort of like virtual reality in which he himself is not seen.
Right. Like he's kind of constructing this world in which, like, he plays no part in it. He really, like, is uninvolved. You could plug and play any establishment in any one of those cities or any one of those shots or any, you know, any of the people, really, and it would still be the same to him.
It's no secret that this director is obviously highly critical of the media and of the Internet and violence on film, and goes as far as to say that visual media is creating a dangerous situation. And that dangerous situation is one in which there's no difference between a product, like a commercial product or news footage.
Literally no different. They are the same virtually in terms of, you know, how desensitized we've become to watching these things on our TV screens. And Benny goes so far down this rabbit hole, and the film is obviously like a bit of hyperbole, like, yes, these things do happen, but they don't happen every single day to every single person.
He literally becomes so engulfed with viewing media, visual media, and watching things and images on a screen or through a lens that he can no longer differentiate between reality and what is being captured by a camera. It's almost like it appears to be that literally anything that Benny watches simply can't be real because he's not actually experiencing it. He's watching it on a screen. He almost feels more connected to the things that are on the screen than he does to the things that happen in real life.
For example, he's completely disconnected and unconcerned by the fact that when he's flipping through TV channels, he sees a news report on Neo Nazis, a documentary on Bosnia, a gory film. There's never a point in which he stops to be like, oh, well, like, that's interesting, or, oh, wow, that's horrifying. I can't believe they would show this.
It doesn't matter to him. It's all the same.
And this leads us to the very central, you know, question of the film, which is, what exactly is Benny's video?
Is it the murder of his, you know, fellow video store enthusiast?
Is it the pig slaughter? Is he so far gone that he cannot possibly distinguish reality versus the virtual? Are both of these Benny's videos? Are we meant to understand that he truly cannot understand that there are consequences to actions and that there is no rewind button on life that can erase your mistakes?
This becomes, like, slightly confusing, honestly, when we think about the fact that he wanted to kill the girl to see how it felt.
What he doesn't want to say or admit is that he did it so that he could see how it felt to kill.
But is it because he believes that all the deaths he sees on screen are real?
Because he tells the girl that everything on the screen is not real. So was he insinuating somehow that by, you know, doing this and having it captured on video somehow meant that it was never real in the first place?
It's very strange to think about. It's one of those things that you have to sit back and go, okay, I mean, is this really how he feels? Is this what he thinks? Or is this just how we're perceiving him? I don't know. But Frey goes on to discuss Baudrillard, who argues that in the post modern world, people become preoccupied with authenticity.
So when Benny says that he wants to see how it is when referring to the girl, I don't think he's actually saying that he wants to see how it is to take the life of someone else.
I think he's saying that he wants to see how it is to be the person on the screen doing the killing so that he can focus on watching and re watching the footage over and over again, rather than taking any actual effort at all to, you know, come up with an idea or creative idea where, like he, I don't know, sets up a film set. I don't know.
And perhaps he truly doesn't believe that he killed that girl because when he watches and rewinds the video of the pig slaughter, the pig dies.
But then once you rewind the tape, boom, the pig is alive again.
Maybe he thought that the same thing would happen with this girl.
Okay, we've talked about super modernity and now let's touch on capital.
This family would actually rather succumb to and allow capital and capitalism as a mindset to parent their child than they would to actually put in the work to parent their kid.
That is where we're at. In their apartment, for example, each space has its own sort of private ownership. Benny's room belongs to him and only him, to the point that his father will not even cross over the threshold into the room until the very end.
His dad allows his capitalistic principle of private property to take control rather than going into Benny's room whenever he good and goddamn well pleases to beat the shit out of his stupid ass kid. And maybe if he spent some time doing that, he might have discovered that that bolt pistol was in there the whole time. But no, he doesn't ever go in there. All he does is pop his head in and say, wow, you should go outside. And then that's it that's not parenting.
This family rather reminds me actually of Cruel Intentions, which if you have had the pleasure of viewing the greatest film of all time, know that the parents are completely absent to the point that we don't even see them until the very end when something bad happens. I'm not going to away the ending for those of you that are uncultured, but that is exactly where we're at here. His parents are mia. They got no idea about anything until their son commits murder. And then they're like, oh my God, we gotta be there for our kid. We're gonna have to, you know, help him clean up this problem because we're the best parents ever.
We hardly see his parents at all, you know, until the end or after the murder, really. And the interactions between them, like ton. A lot of interactions with them involve like, leaving notes or cash or like popping their head in to say a word or two, or like not caring when their son doesn't acknowledge their presence. And it really does seem like his dad really, truly does not care at all about the hero horrific act of murder that he committed. He seems to be annoyed and irritated and sees this as more of an inconvenience than the horror of what it actually is.
His mom is slightly different to me. This shows that dad feels like human life is not valuable at all and that humans can be replaced like plug and play Legos. And it removes the sentimental and importance of life of the girl to her family and her friends. And both parents show their emotions to demonstrate how they feel about their son being a murderer, which would mean that their image as a family would likely be compromised.
The perfect family. A family like theirs does not have problems like this. These problems are meant for those that are underneath them socially and economically. These are not problems that their family has.
And it's also very telling that instead of killing their own son out of anger and spite for creating this problem in the first place, they decide to help him by dismembering the body and taking him on a trip to Egypt.
They would rather help him clean up his own literal and metaphorical mess than teach him a lesson about right and wrong. And capitalism has allowed them to take a backseat to parenting in such a way that they even remove Benny from the country.
[01:03:36] Speaker A: Right?
[01:03:38] Speaker B: He gets rewarded for committing a crime. He's such a thankless little shit that he even lets his parents take the blame. Who else gets to pin crimes on their parents? Who else just gets to go out of the country on a luxury vacation after murder?
Rich people that's who. And I'm not mad at you for being rich. What I am mad about is how the concern of image and private property and ownership and making money takes precedence over being there and being involved in the life of your child. I'm sorry, it's something that I don't understand and I don't agree with and I vehemently resentment parents like that.
But finally.
But finally we should comment on Narcissus.
Frey discussed this film, discusses this film as being part of a trilogy, right. Like I mentioned earlier, sandwiched in between the seventh continent and 71 fragments. Fragments. Which is to say that like, the climax of these films and their similarities includes a murder or a crime.
[01:04:55] Speaker C: Right.
[01:04:56] Speaker B: And.
Or death. I could say I really don't want.
[01:05:01] Speaker A: To give away too much.
[01:05:02] Speaker B: Sorry, it's hard to talk about this director's films without giving anything away.
But that's not like. That's not the only thing that makes them similar.
But I would like to do a future episode on the seventh continent. So I'm going to refrain from saying more specifically, but for those of you that are unfamiliar with the mythology of the Greek Narcissus, I will now entertain you briefly.
Narcissus was destined from the very beginning to be destroyed. It was, you know, said that he would live a long and happy life only if he never knew himself. And as he grew older, he found that he actually never found any potential partners or loves and that he found, you know, he basically didn't find anybody attractive or interesting and let those around him that were into him have their hearts broken.
And after many, many, many long years, he finally stumbled upon his own reflection in a pool of water and literally stared at himself from. For so long, for so long that he died of starvation and dehydration.
Coincidentally, this is where the term narcissism comes from. But that's a side and like, separate conversation.
But not only is Benny so obsessed with himself that he wants to video himself so that he can watch himself over and over and over again and stare at himself in the mirror so that he can rub this girl's blood all over himself, but he refuses to engage with this girl in any sexual way. At first, it appears as if we're about to watch a boy's first sexual encounter.
Boy meets girl, boy takes girl home when parents are gone, boy is home alone with girl. And then instead of engaging in what teenagers tend to engage in, he kills her. And not only that, but he goes as far as to cover her up to, you know, allow her to maintain some sense of respect and decency while he walks around naked.
He pulls down her skirt, right? He, like, readjusts her clothes on her dead body. Because, you know, he's not interested. He wasn't interested in the first place. He's not interested in her in any way other than to fulfill his own desire. He selfishly wanted to create something for himself where he could watch himself over and over and over again so that he could experience what it felt like to be the one on the screen doing something like that.
She was nothing to him more than a vessel to execute this plan. There is no other. That was it. He wasn't interested in really getting to know her. He barely asked her any questions about herself. He didn't, you know, see her multiple times. He really only, like. He didn't, like, take her home multiple times, you know, to get to know her. He took her home. Just that one day.
There is nothing in Benny's mind or that anyone could say to him that would change this situation.
He wanted it, so he did it.
There is no other way around it.
So all of this is to say that violence in media, violence in what we consume, the fact that we become increasingly desensitized to violence, the fact that in films were, you know, if it's already gory, we're like, oh, well, that wasn't gory enough. It could have been more. We could have seen more. We're sick.
We're. We're sick in the head. We are fucking sick.
That should not be a thing.
But here we are. It's. Because every day we're pushing the limit of what it means to be able to tolerate what we're seeing, what we're listening to, what we're hearing, what we're discussing, that there is no.
There's no stopping it. And these are the dangers that films like Benny's video shows us. It distorts our reality in such a way that we, to a point, can't differentiate reality from what's on the tv.
And there's also other things that play like class and money and how, you know, Benny's parents really can't. They just can't seem to understand that, like, having breakfast with your son is probably something you should do a long time. You should have done a long time ago. Like, you should have been doing that this whole time.
Or maybe, I don't know, doing more than buying your son a bunch of shit and then to, like, distract him and then being like, oh, my God, like, how could this happen? We know everything that happens in your life when really you know nothing at all.
So this film is about selfishness, parenthood, the economy class and violence in media.
So I quite enjoy this film. I hate it while I'm watching it, but that's my problem, not yours.
It's phenomenal.
I like it more, I think, than the Piano Teacher, which is another film that I absolutely love from this director. And I definitely like it more than Funny Games.
With all that being said, I want to thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope I gave you something to think about, something profound, something that you can sit with at night and think, wow, is this relevant to me in any way?
I bet the more you think about it, the more you'll uncover that we are not all too dissimilar to Benny.
So thank you so much for listening. I, as always, post all of the sources and information in the show notes of course I have to remind you that you can find my show and many others like it all related to horror on Morbidly beautiful dot com. Check out the Morbidly Beautiful Network. We have merch, we have games, we have podcasts, we have blogs, we have everything to meet your heart's desire. And wherever you get your podcasts. It would be incredible and would mean the world to me if you left me a five star review and subscribed to the show. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions or requests, you can email me at finalgirl on6mail.com or send me a message on Instagram finalgirlon6.
Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will talk to you again very shortly. Never forget that I am 6th Avenue's.
[01:12:17] Speaker A: Very own final Girl Cross.
