Postmodern Warfare

Is "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" the video game equivalent of a Michael Haneke movie?

It takes a genre cliché — shooting machine guns and lobbing grenades at enemies from a FPS viewpoint — and strips it of its traditional detached fantasy perspective. It makes an incisive point about the actual nastiness of violence, and of gaming’s commitment to perpetuating entertainment that treats such violence as fun. There’s no escapism here, only harrowing viciousness, and the decision to join in the carnage or not furthers the moral quandary raised about your own role in seeking enjoyment not just from this particular unpleasant sequence, but from the many other options of mindlessly violent games that crowd Best Buy shelves and help fuel the industry’s bottom line.

The absence of Haneke-ish finger-wagging during “Modern Warfare 2″‘s signature episode is refreshing. And yet, at the same time, a more hard-edged critique of interactive violence could have served it well. After making it through the airport and a firefight with opposing military squads, you’re asked to resume your comfortable role as heroes tasked with killing hordes of faceless enemies.

This back-to-business shift is predictable for an AAA game aiming to sell as many units as possible, but it does undercut the lasting impact of the terrorist sequence. At heart dedicated to a presentation of violence that’s pleasurable rather than prickly, “Modern Warfare 2″ — whose director, Keith Arem, will soon make his cinematic behind-the-camera debut with an action-thriller titled “Frost Road” — briefly challenges its own composition before simply embracing its more questionable elements.

But even if the gesture proves only half-hearted, the game nonetheless manages to investigate itself, and the nature of many like-minded titles, in a way that’s invigorating and thought-provoking. Here’s hoping the level isn’t just a shock-for-shock’s-sake anomaly, but the first step on gaming’s long road into a postmodern future.

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