Chilean director Sebastián Lelio has pulled a Michael Haneke with his latest film, Gloria Bell. In 2007, Haneke, an Austrian filmmaker, made an English-language version of his 1997 movie Funny Games that was a shot for shot remake. Lelio is calling Gloria Bell a “reimagining” of his own 2013 hit Chilean-set movie, called Gloria. I’ve seen both versions, and while they aren’t as exactingly identical as Haneke’s films apparently are (I’ve only seen the 2007 version of Funny Games), it’s pretty damn close. A few lines of dialog have been changed, one minor character is swapped out for another, and obviously the actors have their own unique take on the material, but otherwise the two movies are strikingly similar. Where Haneke used both versions of Funny Games as a sadistic (arguably hypocritical) critique of mindless violence in the media, Lelio’s films are a warm, ultimately soaring character study of one woman.
