Funny Games

Have you ever seen the movie Funny Games (1997)? (Not the Hollywood frame-by-frame remake, I hope, but the German original.) This is another one of those weird movies, like Man Bites Dog and Delicatessen... I’ve been meaning to check this one out for quite some time, too... The title refers to the sadistic “funny games (komische Spiele)” that these two charming-looking lads unleash onto two completely unsuspecting vacationers and their kid. It’s the most awkward and uncomfortable movie experience, yet I couldn’t stop watching ... I had to see what inhumanely humiliating hoax these guys come up with next! None of the more gory, torturous scenes actually happen on-screen. That’s left to our imagination... But it’s already enough. Michael Haneke is clearly a director who enjoys long single shots in which the camera moves little or not at all, and he enjoys long awkward silences... The most charming of the two torturers keeps addressing the audience, winking and talking to us, even using a remote to rewind the action, thus breaking the fourth-wall, alienating us from the narrative, forcing us to realize we are only watching a movie ... making us wonder why on earth we are actually watching such a tediously torturous movie about random violence... Best not to watch this on your own at night if you’re skittish about going to sleep alone in the dark...