Funny Games

Trigger warning: Michael Haneke’s film “Funny Games” contains extremely disturbing depictions of explicit physical and psychological violence, sadism, and a home invasion as its central narrative. Georg (Ulrich Mühe) and Anna Schober (Susanne Lothar) drive to their lake house with their ten-year-old son Schorschi (Stefan Clapczynski) and their German shepherd Rolfi to relax for a few days. Two exceedingly polite young men (Arno Frisch, Frank Giering) intrude on the Schober family’s idyll under a pretext and begin their perfidious game... By deliberately breaking the “fourth wall” several times, the film robs its audience of any hope that the victims will be saved and denies them the typical Hollywood catharsis (no redeeming justice). The famous scene with the remote control (rewinding a movie scene) radically shatters the illusion of escape and shows that the victims’ fate is sealed. With this film, Michael Haneke deliberately deconstructed audience habits to question the uncritical consumption of depictions of violence for entertainment purposes: Instead of a classic thriller, “Funny Games” turns out to be a brutal, philosophical essay on media violence and the audience’s moral complicity. This makes “Funny Games” a radical milestone in film history—a violent anti-violence film that is, however, difficult to watch. The goal is: “To show violence for what it is: something that cannot be consumed.” (Michael Haneke)