Great review, Jim.

And Herr Haneke - Thanks, but no thanks. The only Peter and Paul whose work I shall be enjoying this weekend will be accompanied by their friend Mary.

Spoilers and angry rebuttal ahead

I'm kind of flabbergasted by your analysis, and particularly your utterly ridiculous comparisons between the movie and the Abu Ghraib photographs.

It's funny, a month or so ago a documentary called "Taxi to the Dark Side" came out, and I saw it. Sitting in the theater, I was horrified, angry, disgusted, and I came out shaken. I didn't need the film. I'd read about what was happening to the detainees, but I saw it anyway. It added to my understanding of the situation, and though its a tough, gruelling watch, I was glad I saw it. I'd liken that to seeing the 1997 "Funny Games" in some ways. I think both are vital, important, very different, but brilliant films. Do I love them? No. Insomuch as its hard to love something you never want to see again. Does that make them any less vital? Or powerful? Or great? I don't think so. I didn't love the despair and confusion and anger and all of the emotions that come with seeing detainees being forced to strip and masturbate, piled on one another being beaten. I didn't love seeing the atrophied legs of a dead detainee. But these things are happening, and denying them helps nothing.

Maybe its a stretch, but in a way, the things in Haneke's self-consciously filmy FILM are happening too. They happen in the multiplexes every January, and October when scores of teenagers scream for blood and mutilation while munching on popcorn. I don't know if you've been in an audience whose shouted for blood, but it's like you've been transported back to the Coloseeum. I myself don't love watching people being tortured, but clearly people do. The reason I'd willingly go to something like "Taxi" or 'Funny Games" is because theirs a point to witnessing these acts, and it's not entertainment. The films do exist, and Haneke's statement isn't mixed or hypocritical at all. He made one of those "torture porn" films, and instead of leading it to its "normal" conclusion, he steps outside of the film and comments. When one of the torturers asks the audience if they're on the family's side, I don't think that's a condemnation of the audience on Haneke's part, its a legitimate question. The normal expectation for this kind of movie is that the family will be tortured for a while, one or two might get killed off, but eventually they'll get some kind of redemption, and probably kill the two boys.That way the audience gets the fun of torture with a tidy, unambiguous ending that superficially evens the moral keel. That doesn't happen in Haneke's film, and so it either makes the audience realize or acknowledge that deriving glee from the torture in those films makes you complicit.

Granted, it's much easier NOT to pay attention to the media coverage of Iraq and Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib, and its much easier to do as you suggest and NOT see "Funny Games" and think about what Haneke is expressing. I mean, how dare Haneke be so obnoxious as to mirror the torture trend and comment on it, right? How obnoxious of Alex Gibney for documenting actual torture, right? They gave an Oscar to that sadist? Right...

Do you have the same complaints with Gibney, Mr. Emerson? Or how about the makers of "The Bridge?" Or, if you think its unfair comparing Haneke to a documentarian, do you have the same problems with Gavin Hood for "Rendition?" Or Neil Marshall for keeping those poor women in the cave in "The Descent?" Why is it not okay for Haneke to have message take over his film rather than character or story, but it is okay for Gibney, or Charles Ferguson, or Michael Moore to? Is the overt falsity in Haneke's film what makes it so abhorrent? You can argue that Haneke could have made his point more eloquently, or maybe made a documentary, but the bluntness in the film is the same bluntness you find in "Cache," which you admire, and the rest of his work. "Cache" is certainly more entertaining, and most definitely a better, more complex film. It'd be a stretch to call "Funny Games" entertainment, but is that all film can be? You might not love it, but does it really only achieve half a stars worth of its goal?

And here I thought the "Contrarian Blogathan" had been over for months...

I couldn't agree more Jim. Even though I disagree with Ebert's criticism of Blue Velvet, I find that review strangely applicable to Funny Games. I don't like to feel jerked around in a movie, and that's basically what Haneke is doing here. Quite frankly I felt sorry for his actors. What do they get out of it? It's embarrassing to watch them strip their soul for such a pointless exercise.

Maybe I'm just past caring about clever commentaries on violence in the media. Any person intelligent enough to understand what this movie is about, is likely to have a more sensible attitude about violence in film anyway. Haneke says he likes to see/make movies that "destabilize" the audience, which is exactly what he has done here, but then I wonder to what end? Call me old fashioned but I like movies to either 1) entertain me or 2) achieve some sort of dramatic catharsis. I don't need happy endings or clichéd plot formulas, but there is nothing transformational about Funny Games. It's just an exercise.

Haneke is an intelligent man, and I would go so far as to call Caché and La Pianiste true masterpieces, but this is easily his most misguided film.

"[the captors] force Mom to strip (no actual nudity shown)"

That line proves you are going out of your way to drive people out of the theaters and destroy the movie in every front possible (inferring that it's not even a good exploitation film!). This is one of those reviews which make you think "the critic really hated the movie, in a personal way". (Was it maybe because the German version upset your dog?)

You may not agree with Haneke's goals, but I think it is interesting to see a film in which violence gets back the value it lost in those silly "home invasion" films, which are the obvious model for this one. Roger Ebert often quotes Godard like this: "The way to criticize a film is to make another film." So Haneke did just that in the most efficient way, and you don't seem to get it!

The film is, in a way, a 'lesson about violence'. Is there anything wrong with that? Why shouldn't a mature filmgoer face a film like this? Because it's unpleasant? Ebert also wrote, about the tough "The War Game":

They should string up bedsheets between the trees and show "The War Game" in every public park. It should be shown on television, perhaps right after one of those half-witted war series in which none of the stars ever gets killed.

Well, this film presents the audience once more with a 'reality check'. I'm fed up with the usual Hollywood tripe, so the few rare films like this are priceless to me.

James Tiberius Kirk would know how to deal with Funny Games. He'd 'Kobayashi Maru' Haneke's pasty, provocateur ass out of the theater and into the parking lot for an old school 'Fight Club' beat down.

Nick: Excellent argument, and you raise some important questions. "Funny Games" is a film designed to elicit outrage. But I think the experiment has design flaws that prevent it from working the way its designer says he intends. If it's supposed to be a critique of American Cinema (see quote from Haneke in review), then it would have to use the techniques of American Cinema ("Rear Window," "Psycho," "Hi, Mom!," just to name a few examples) to pull us into the film, and then turn it around on us. That's where I think it fails.

Giving the film 1/2 star is part of the game. It helps create outrage (as you see in comments) and inspires comments as thought-provoking as yours!

Alex: That's Haneke's goal: To present an audience with what promises to be an exploitation film and then not deliver the expected nudity or gore -- at least in any way that they could vicariously enjoy. To respond in the same spirit, why shouldn't a review that's really engaging the movie on its own terms mention the nature of the tease? Some people will read that scene as another example of sexual sadism in "the usual tripe": It uses a sadistic, humiliating context to lead you to expect nudity, and then slaps you for expecting what the film set you up to expect. I don't think it works, because it dehumanizes its characters. Rather, it never humanizes them, or places them in a movie story that would draw you into the characters' dilemma. Instead, it has characters wink at the audience and remind them they're just watching a movie. I think I understand what Haneke was trying to do with that (to deny the satisfaction of involvement with the movie), but I think it's a serious flaw in his experiment.

Jim
As a science major who happens to love film but has no time for film classes, I rely on a few blogs, yours among them, to glean some insight into movies. I am afraid your review really intrigued me; with an assist by alex, it seems to me that this movie is film criticism equating itself with a (flawed?)experiment. Right up my alley.

Jim: I think a combination of lack of sleep and having just taken in a half an hour of Colbert's mock-reactionary rage made me rant like that. Anyway, thanks for the intentionally provoking review because before I read it and wrote the response I'd started to doubt what I'd thought about the film since I saw it. Your experiment is clearly a sucess, and I can't think of a better context to see the remake in now, after all this discussion. (It'll probably change after this weekend, but the side-by-side of your half-star rating, and the four-star user rating I think says it all.)

On a quick sidenote, it seems like it wasn't screened for critics, but I'd be interested in hearing your take on Neil Marshall's new film "Doomsday." Your review for "The Descent" got me and a friend to see it and I was grateful for your reccomendation of that very fine film in a very barren genre.

But for now, I look forward to seeing what others have to say here about "Funny Games."

Couldn't one just look into who rented "Faces of Death" and accomplish the same goal of this film without being a sanctimonious, pompous, windbag about it all? Is there a bipedal organism that thinks that any of this is new? I am a lawyer and any lawyer will tell you that a "mock" or fake trial where you hire a service that procures a "jury" to give your case a dry run is of very limited value. The reason is that the people in the mock jury know it's a mock jury.
In a film, we know that no one is going to really kill Tim Roth (although he might consider agenticide) or molest Noami Watts. Therefore, the film is just about taste. John Waters, David Lynch come to mind. Who cares? Does it make you feel better about yourself if you get it? Okay then I pronounce that you get it. It doesn't make the film good or original which it isn't.

Mike: YES!!! I'm so glad you mentioned "Faces of Death," which is something I was talking about with friends last week (who were too young to remember how movies like that were marketed and exhibited). If the film had been made to look like the kinds of films Haneke says he's critiquing (instead of a European art film in English), then it might have worked better.

I have very mixed feelings about Funny Games. Unfortunately, I spoiled the plot and the conceit for myself before I saw the movie, and the movie proved to be no more or less than what I was expecting. I sympathize with Jim's declaration that "it's not really a movie; it's a thesis," but I'm not sure that the charge is entirely fair. Still, I wonder, "Is it even a movie?"

I have nothing against Haneke's intentions here. In fact, I would be inclined to feel that a movie built from such intentions would be brilliant, if the execution were strong. But here, he deliberately goes for Brechtian alienation, which works against his intentions. He would've been far better served by Artaudian hyper-involvement, which would've been a stronger way to provoke the audience's guilt from vicarious sadism.

The one thing that Haneke has in his favor, which Eli Roth doesn't, is that his movie is demonstrably more honest in its subversive anti-violence message than Hostel is. But then of course, charges of the hypocrisy of Funny Games are well-founded, if a bit naive (ever heard of culture jamming?).

A storyteller can be Brechtian and offer a nuanced message wrapped in an effective story. Indeed, I am huge fan Brechtian theory. But whether or not a particular execution of a theory works is determined by the experience that it creates. Brechtian alienation can make for a greater experience, but it doesn't work when the alienation effect is the only significant part of the experience (in other words, the audience doesn't gain much from critiquing what they see if what they see is flimsy), as in the case of Funny Games. Because Haneke refuses to humanize his characters and give them depth, and because he refuses to make his narrative very compelling (via the negation of suspense coupled with a paper-thin plot drawn out to nearly two hours), the only thing that stands out to the viewer is his rather smug didacticism.

Haneke wants to frustrate the viewer so much that he refuses to portray anything that is compelling to an audience, which is why characterization, plot, visceral thrills (like gore and nudity), and dramatic conventions are kept to a minimum. He dares you to hate the movie while simultaneously daring you to try to be involved. (He bets on the former while knowing the latter to be extremely difficult.) The only thing that's worse than this strategy is how self-conscious it's rendered to be. How can anyone consider the movie to be worth watching, except as a curiosity or experiment, as Jim has called it?

I for one am lost amid the argument that the film needs to use American film techniques in order to make any sort of a statement on that which it attacks. I feel that the only fault with the original was that it was in a foreign language therefore labeling itself "inaccessible" and unpopular here in the states. Simple as that. Seeing how it is now in English, it will draw in the exact crowd that needs to see it. One of the films strong points is that it does not lack subtlety which guarantees even the most thickheaded of movie-goers will have the much needed message forced into their skulls. And that is the only technique, along with the language change, that is needed for this film to work. This film is not aimed at most of us commenting on this page but those who see violence, the very violence this film promises but denies the viewer, as the entertainment they seek. Bravo Mr. Haneke. P.S. Thanks to Jim for this wonderful page where any and all comments we may have can be shared. And for your participation as well.

Jeremy: I liked what Michael Phillips said in the Chicago Tribune: "So why does a comparative lark such as “Cache” work its own games so insinuatingly? Because it is not an exercise, or a theatrical contraption. It’s a film with its own sureness of tone and sense of the unknowable. By contrast “Funny Games,” the U.S. remix, is just a dubious idea fulfilled."

All this talk of "need" -- the people who "need" to see this film, its "much-needed" message . . . I don't think any of us is such a mind-reader as to determine what other people do and don't "need." And if it were really that important, you'd be corralling them on the street and forcibly dragging them into the theater.

Every review I have read so far concerning Funny Games US is EXACTLY the same, i.e., righteous indignation that an Austrian would presume to diagnose our culture and how unsuccesful he is and why this and why that...But no one, and I mean NO ONE, is talking about the writing or the direction or the acting, which leads me to believe that Haneke did indeed hit the intended sore spot. These reviews are a classic case of group think, and to me, it seems as if Haneke is getting the last laugh.

Jeremy, I can understand if the Euro-art-film style is intended to be yet another way for Haneke to confound and frustrate the audience; I like to think that I understand just about everything that Haneke is trying to do. But I seriously question the effectiveness of the technique.

With each tactic that contributes to the alienation effect, Haneke loses a way to engage and relate to the intended audience. Ultimately, the audience will be so alienated that they won't know how to reckon with what they see, and no matter unsubtle the message is, they'll be inclined to tune it out because of this lack of engagement.

I think that this is what Jim was trying to say when he argued that the movie might work better if it much more closely resembled the movies that it critiques.

Couldn't one just look into who rented "Faces of Death" and accomplish the same goal of this film without being a sanctimonious, pompous, windbag about it all? Is there a bipedal organism that thinks that any of this is new?

Thanks for saying that, Mike. If I want to watch a movie about the inherent horror of voyeurism, one that condemns audience and filmmakers alike, I'll watch Strange Days or the deeply flawed Diary of the Dead. These are films that cover the same issues without a ticker-tape parade declaring how important they are leading the way.

Ted, your comments leave me flabbergasted. Sir, what you've just presented is a non-argument that is even demonstrably untrue in its own premises.

First of all, just because the movie has provoked such a strong reaction does not mean that it has "hit the intended sore spot." Most of us are saying that Haneke's argument isn't portrayed convincingly, not that it's wrong. How can that possibly mean that we are reacting in the way that Haneke intends? He wants to provoke guilt and anger from the audience for having its misanthropic bloodlust exposed, but we're saying that he doesn't do a good job at communicating his intentions.

Also, I can't believe that you say that the reviews don't talk about the writing, the direction, or the performances. Most of the reviews say that Watts and Pitt do an enormously effective job, and the rest of the cast are at least competent. And when we critique how effective Haneke's methods are, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE WRITING AND THE DIRECTION.

I have no problem with an Austrian critiquing American society and culture, just like I don't argue with Lars von Trier when he does the same. When I say that the movie reeks of Haneke's didactic smugness, I mean that you can see that he feels above his characters, above his story, and above his audience. Haneke doesn't care about any of his characters (who only serve as broadly-drawn vehicles for his message), and he certainly doesn't develop much of a story. He holds himself superior to the audience because he thinks that it should be "taught a lesson."

And it's not groupthink if we independently come to very similar conclusions. It just means that maybe Haneke should've considered what he was doing more carefully.

I wonder how much of the actual "criticism" of this film is based on the film itself, or all of the reactions that have already been levied against the original? I guess, in the plethora of reviews I've come across for Funny Games "US", I have yet to see anyone move beyond judgment. There hasn't been an actual examination of what the film does, but whether it is valuable (or needed, or good/bad, or hypocritical).

I agree that Funny Games is a thesis, not a film. I have argued that Funny Games is merely the culmination of his entire German language period, the terse argument that signaled his transition to France. This is a work about structure and construction, not plot or characters.

First, to say that Haneke doesn't care about his characters, and thus we don't care about the characters, is so completely off-point. Who is arguing that these are characters in the first place? It is obvious you are working with cut-outs (Haneke lays that out for you in the whole "Why are we doing this? sequence). So to negate the film for not caring about the characters is ridiculous.

Second, I would argue that this film is an affective powerhouse. No matter how much Haneke "distances" the audience, I have found it increasingly difficult to do so. You can't help but get involved (that is why people HAVE cheered when Anne turns the gun on fatty, repeatedly!). I think Haneke knows that even when he shows you the artifice, one's natural reaction is to say "shoe, go away" and delve back in.

Running rampant in this round of criticism of Haneke is the idea that he is somehow hypocritical in his approach, with many comparing him directly to Eli Roth. I think this speaks to Haneke's ability to generate the sense of violence, without actually presenting violence as such. This is something that he has done through out his career. There is very little violence in its traditional sense in the film. But reading the reviews in preparation for seeing the film, I began to question the original I had seen so many times. Was I forgetting something? Was there violence, like actual visible violence? No, very little, it turns out. But we feel the violence, and that is exactly what Haneke intended. In this way, his depiction is more truthful to the nature of violence than something like Hostel. Your imagination takes hold and you have to deal with actual suffering, and it is painful (I think this is the reason for the incensed backlash surrounding the film). Critics are claiming they get the point, but have been completely unable to deal with the film itself, especially its affective power. I think Haneke’s real power is in his ability to show violence in areas and in ways in which we do not necessarily expect it. Perhaps Funny Games isn’t his best example of this (not the point), but I for one find the opening egg sequence much more cringe inducing than other aspects of the film. Sort of a British comedy of manners, minus the comedy.

In the end, I think the debate on the film can move to another level. Probably to address comments like, “Call me old fashioned but I like movies to either 1) entertain me or 2) achieve some sort of dramatic catharsis.” I mean, this is the heart of the argument, and you have people saying, “I don’t need to be told this, duh, its obvious!” and then say things like this.

mikey: I'm with you on the eggs. (You can't make an omelette...) The mixture of politeness and aggression -- everything leading up to the first slap -- is the most effective part of the movie for me, and the only part I found emotionally compelling. Once Paul began acknowledging the camera, it was all over for me. (In both versions.)

Do you think revulsion is an inappropriate response to this film? Isn't that exactly what it seeks to provoke? Would applause be a better response? Some have had a ho-hum response to it, which is legit if it had no effect on them, but I'd think most people would have more extreme feelings, whether they thought the film "worked" or not. I think it's too sterile and clinical (and, yes, patronizing and self-conscious), but I'd seen the 1997 version and several other Haneke films, so I may be approaching it differently than the Tarantino or "Hostel" or "Saw" audience that Haneke says he's seeking to reach with the US remake. (See interviews: "Dr. Haneke's diagnosis.")

The film does refuse to provide a dramatic catharsis, as you say. It stimulates adrenaline and then... people attack or defend it vociferously. As I keep saying, I'm finding that much more interesting than the experience of actually watching the movie.

Some have had a ho-hum response to it, which is legit if it had no effect on them, but I'd think most people would have more extreme feelings, whether they thought the film "worked" or not.

I was quite suprised (disapointed) by the lack of response of the audience I saw the remake with tonight, and the lack of response of the person I saw it with. From overhearing conversations on the way in and out, I'd gather no one else in the theater had seen the original, my friend included, and so it was doublely suprising that the only reactions were "that wasn't very good," shrugging it off like any other slasher movie.

I think there is a problem with Haneke's intentions, and I don't mean this to sound facetious (though it likely is), but the audience he wants to reach isn't listening. They simply watch films differently than he'd expect them to. That's a generalization, but I saw it at an "art house" theater and even that crowd didn't "get" the message of the movie. I know you're not exactly singing the film's praises, Jim, but you definitely see what Haneke is attempting, even if you feel he fails. I got the impression that the talk about fiction being real because you see it at the end just completely passed the audience by. I wouldn't fault the film for though, because I, and from the comments on this blog alone, many others understood that element. I was struck even more in the english language version how much Haneke spells out the entire thing at the end.

Comparing the two versions, I have a hunch that the original is a more powerful film, if only because its the first time it was done. Film isn't theater, and as Psycho and The Vanishing have shown, you can never recreate the magic of an earlier film by filming it again exactly the same way. But as a gimmick, it probably works just as well for audiences oblivious to the original.

I'm still hopeful, but it seems like the thing I thought was probable, but hoped would be otherwise, is happening. People just don't give a shit.

Hi Jim,

There’s no love lost between me and Funny Games, original or redux, but all the (predictable) kerfuffle unleashed by FGUSA has produced some rather interesting results. What is evident in almost all of the comments is a rejection of the film itself through each person’s individual outraged viewpoint (whether or not they’ve seen the thing) rather than considering the communal nature of all the venom. I’ve seldom seen so many people on the same page for the same reasons. And while I feel no need to reconsider my opinion of FG itself, the convulsive reaction to it has started me thinking that perhaps the effects it didn’t intend to produce are as interesting as the ones it’s clearly designed to.

And that leads to point #1: there’s been a lot of Haneke-quoting going on in these comments, and while there are closer-than-usual correlations between the director’s stated intentions and the film itself in this case, I’d still invoke the old “trust the tale, not the teller” saw . Yes, Haneke reads as smug and pedantic. And then there’s that film he made. So let’s pay more attention to the latter.

Point #2: More than any other film I can recall, the objections to FG stem completely from the fact that it is an absolutely perfect realization of its intention – indeed, if the film were less conceptually and aesthetically perfect than it is, there wouldn’t be nearly so much infuriated reaction to it (Jim Ridley, whom you quote, is one of the few critics to point to the fact that the film is masterfully made). Thus the rejection of it must be entirely couched in its intentions rather than its aesthetics.

Point #3: I need to stress this: the cruelty of the film is as disturbing as it is because the actors playing the family – in both versions – are almost unbearably affecting, and this is due to Haneke at least as much as it is due to their individual talents. Haneke certainly bears no love for the bourgeoisie as a class, but what has kept him from sinking into shallow misanthropy time and again is that he is adept at showing the people that exist within the types. “George” in both versions could have been portrayed as just a little more simpering, a little more impotent; “Anna” in both versions could have been a little more haughty, and (in Watts’ case, at least) a little more conscious of her safely domestic sexuality – and all of this could have made their suffering at the hands of Peter and Paul seem more “deserved”. What makes Haneke an artist, what places him beyond his deck-stacking mechanics, is that he’s attentive to human variables even when he’s launching a polemical broadside. George, Anna and their son in no way deserve the terrible fate that’s been prepared for them, and this is what makes their prolonged suffering both nearly unwatchable (at least the first time through) and thematically continuous with most of Haneke’s other films. When critics complain that the violence visited upon his bourgeois piñatas is radically disproportionate to their “crimes”, they’re missing the point – time and again, Haneke shows that the completely justified outrage and defensiveness of his protagonists manages to blind them from other, even larger injustices occurring beyond their limited sphere. (As FG is a completely self-contained universe, however, this does not apply as pertinently as it does in Code Unknown, Time of the Wolf, or Caché.)

Point #4: the charge that if Haneke wanted to critique American movies specifically, he should have employed American stylistics. This, I think, is one of the most redundant criticisms that has been leveled at the film. Despite claims to the contrary, FG has not dated since its original conception – if it indeed did try to mimic the languages of the films it’s trying to decry, then it would have dated immeasurably, no more than an Epic Movie or Meet the Spartans for the arthouse set. FG was always its own hermetic entity, both specific and unspecific enough to travel an ocean without altering its effects or affects – which makes it both the most conducive of Haneke’s films for a profitable US remake and a still pertinent thorn in the side of (over)sensitive critics (why else is everyone so steamed up about it?)

Point #5, and the most important one: there’s something about the self-righteousness of FGUSA’s many detractors that has gotten under my skin somewhat. I stress again that I share many of the sentiments directed against the film, but the zeal with which they’re being applied has left me a tad uncomfortable. Without bringing the particular merits or demerits of this particular film into the debate, I would like to point out that the very fact that a pointed cinematic critique of cinematic violence has drawn such a fevered response hints at the general validity of its intentions.

Many of the people slagging FG no doubt turned cartwheels over the latest film des frères Coens, where a series of brilliantly staged and highly entertaining scenes of violence are provided the intellectual escape hatch of being incorporated into a weighty allegory about Fate n’ Death n’ Stuff. Or, God help us, Death Proof, where one is allowed to ogle the attributes and dismemberments of women with the intellectual escape hatch of the viewer’s puffy and profoundly uncool vicar – his cartoonishness played up to make sure that we’re laughing at him, not Us – being given a righteous beatdown by a troupe of superficially empowered femmes. (Look ma, I’m reflexive!)

Again, the respective merit of the films mentioned above is not the central issue here (though I do think that the first is pretty impressive and the second is beyond godawful) – what’s important is that they deploy attitudes towards violence that frames them in the context of entertainment. And that’s not necessarily wrong - but the almost unanimous rejection of Haneke’s reboot (and thus the whole original concept as well) cannot help but suggest to me that its implications and condemnations – however dogmatic, elitist, or what-have-you – touch a nerve with a certain kind of viewer and inspire a tidal wave of bile in reactive self-defense (this one included, at first viewing these many years ago).

So half a star, 4 stars, 9 stars? What does it matter? Whatever else it is or isn’t, FG is not negligible. And in perhaps forcing us to consider, implicitly or explicitly, what are “legitimate” uses of violence in entertainment, it has indeed sparked a wider-ranging conversation that goes beyond its own individual merits, and its original intentions.

Cheers Mikey!

I didn't like the movie. I feel Haneke failed at what he was trying to do. The reason I feel this is because the movie DIDN'T deliver on the violence. All of the violence in the film happens off screen except the "dream" shotgun blast by Watts' character. Now, if Haneke had intended to lure in an audience expecting violence only to give them none of it, then thats one thing (a director who obviously hates his audience), but judging from Haneke's quotes and everyone's reactions I would say this wasn't his intention. I didn't think the film was well made. Jim, you said it best at the end of your review. This movie would have worked better if Haneke had stuck with typical thriller conventions in the start, and then slowly, piece by piece began to subvert them. And for those who think his direction is restrained, I would have to disagree and say it was simply boring. The opening scenes built tension with the eggs, but after that too many camera shots lingered for way too long. Haneke ceased telling the story with his camera and just let it sit there watching the action unfold. This just made for a complete lack of caring on my part with anything that was happening on screen. The person who said this movie is an endurance test is right, an endurance in sitting through super long take after super long take with nothing remotely interesting happening on screen.

Hi Andrew: John Waters once said that if someone vomited at one of his films he would consider it the equivalent of a standing ovation. I imagine Haneke would feel similarly if an audience threw things at the screen or walked out -- if they stood up and said: "We're not buying the sado-masochistic shit you're selling." Not that that would ever happen, but I wonder if he'll be disappointed at the polite and bewildered audience responses some are reporting here.

I hope you've read through the other posts/comments here (including "Your User's Guide to Movie Violence" and "The reviews are in: Let the Funny Games begin!"). I keep stressing the concept of "Funny Games," because that's the way it plays to me -- as an experiment, not as a movie that sucks you in with story and character the way most American movies do (even "Hostel" and "Saw"). It taps you on the knees and your reflexes respond on cue, and then it's over. The results of the experiment are (as I expected) proving interesting, even if the premise is flawed, and this is a good example. Maybe the unintended effects are more substantial and complex than Haneke's stated intentions.

I'm not at all surprised that a movie designed to provoke and piss off people has provoked and pissed off people. That's what it should do. If people just slough it off as more thrilling and superficial entertainment, then they probably wouldn't feel compelled to write about their reactions to it.

If "FG" were less coy and cutesy and sterile maybe it could have provoked riots or howls of outrage in the theaters -- like "Un Chien Andalou" or "The Rite of Spring." I know, that's being naive and sentimental and idealistic, but I'd like to imagine it might still be possible.

I posted these things leading up to the movie's US release as part of my own experiment (trying to engage the movie on its own terms, to reply to its challenge in kind) and so far I think it's paid off. Your eloquent analysis is evidence of that.

"Funny Games" strikes me as pedantic and transparent, but it is skillful enough to make viewing it painful for many (as would be, say, showing the slaughtering of a pig; wonder if he'll remake that one, too). And and because (like NCFOM) it denies the audience the pleasure of catharsis, I expected some people might want to vent their euphoria or frustration afterwards.

What I fail to see is how the European art-house sensibility of "Funny Games" addresses the ways violence is commodified and exploited in American films. But that's just one way to read the movie -- and one you might expect from a film critic somewhat familiar with Haneke's work (though not all of it), and with American horror, action and exploitation films....

What the defenders of the movie still haven't produced is a solid, direct argument against what detractors have extensively named as the movie's deficiencies. Defenders repeatedly underline how provocative the movie is and how necessary and important the message is. They bend over backwards to assert that Haneke's techniques really work and fail to either explain why they work so well or address detractors' claims that they don't work. Just because a movie's message is worthwhile doesn't mean that it should be given a pass for its aesthetic and narrative deficiencies.

I don't hate the movie like many do. To me, its failings are not offensive (nor is Haneke's didacticism); they just seriously take away from what Haneke intends. He could've dramatized his thesis in any way, but he chose to do it in this particularly literal-minded, self-aware, clinical, tedious, and alienating manner. So one should ask why and whether this is really the best way to do it. How is this strategy superior to ones that I, Jim, and others have described?

Haneke clearly holds his audience in contempt, not merely because of what he's said in interviews, but also in the way that everything in the movie is designed to confound and frustrate the audience. Take for instance the exchange between Ann and one of the killers: Ann demands, "Why don't you just kill us?" and the reply is, "You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment." Later, Paul says that he and Peter should leave the family to its own devices for a while in order to help pad the narrative to feature-length.

In these moments, Haneke is plainly telling the audience that he intends to make them suffer and for a protracted length of time. Is this really more effective than making a straightforward but incredibly tense and draining thriller (such as the recent 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days), and if so, how? To me, it just smacks of laziness and arrogance. It's like Haneke's saying, "I'm torturing you to teach you a lesson, which is ..." rather challenging the audience to figure out why he's doing this to them. There is a compelling (and widely held) theory of education wherein the most powerful lesson is the one that the student discovers for him/herself. But perhaps for the brain-dead masses, Haneke's condescending hand-holding is the only thing that works, no?

Similarly, I get that the thinness of the characters is part of the point, just like the dearth of plot. But why is this more effective than having engaging, developed characters? I have little problem with the movie's brutality, but I am disappointed that it's the movie's only major affective quality. Viewers are affected by the violence and cruelty because they can't help it. It's like in Un Chien Andalou when the eye is sliced open: It's more visceral than emotional. You're telling me that viewers wouldn't feel more violated and guilty if they cared about the characters?

Furthermore, Haneke's point is that viewers dehumanize themselves through the consumption of violence as disposable entertainment. By treating the gore in horror movies as the genre's main attraction, viewers themselves degrade the subjects of the violence in the movies. In Funny Games, the filmmaker is the one who doesn't treat his characters as human beings. One could argue that he's trying to make the task really easy for the audience by doing the work for them. He wants to sell them the thrill of violence by allowing the characters to remain shallowly defined. But that would essentially justify charges of hypocrisy: He's telling viewers to relish the violence inflicted upon these hollow characters, and then he chastises the audience for doing so. Why did he think that this was a better way to get his message across than humanizing the victims, thereby giving him a better position to decry, "Look! You crave the deaths of human beings!"

In short, to say that everything that Haneke does has a point is as obvious as the message that he's peddling. But because he's deliberately trying to reach an audience, he should cater his communication strategy to his audience. That doesn't mean that he should "dumb things down"; in this case, I think that he should "smarten things up."

A really subversive thing that Haneke could've done, whether it would've been for the 1997 original or the remake or both, is to produce a fake trailer advertising a home invasion thriller and put that in front of a two-hour-long filmed lecture in which he stands in front of a camera and addresses the audience directly. Sadly, what he's actually produced is no more than a step or two above that.

For some odd reason Funny Games has got me thinking about Starship Troopers lately, and how the two movies could possibly relate to one another.

In Starship Troopers, we indeed have a movie that uses the techniques of American cinema to satirize the conventions of right-wing action movies. The question is: is it better or worse in condemning the subject it depicts? On Starship Troopers the issue is compounded by the fact that the movie actually plays both parts of the audience at once. To the Friday night crowd, the satire was most likely completely lost, but the movie still delivered the kicks of a straightforward action epic. Critics meanwhile could sit back and enjoy the hidden layers with smug satisfaction.

Starship Troopers is like an ironic racist joke. Both racists and non-racists are still free to laugh at it.

Funny Games is different. It doesn't deliver the kicks of Hostel or Pulp Fiction. And I don't think Haneke wants it to. As mentioned, Funny Games is designed to provoke, to outrage, to bore even. That's why he undermines his material at every step of the way. In this way I think Funny Games is a more admirable attempt at commentary than Starship Troopers. Not only does Haneke actually try to reach out to the Hostel crowd, the movie wants to outrage all audiences equally. It may fail to register the 'desired' response, but ultimately I doubt any of them could misread, or in fact, enjoy the movie.

I completely agree with Jim's review. He's right, Funny Games is not a movie. It's an anti-movie, with nothing to say but the hypocritical moralizing of a petulant, self-righteous child. The fact that he remade it just so more Americans will be subjected to his infantile proselytizing insults me. I certainly won't be seeing the remake.

On a sidenote, for me there is another reason why this new version of Funny Games is such a disappointment. It's another missed opportunity (by a major director, this time) to do something creative with the concept of the 'remake'. I know a lot of people hate remakes by definition, but the problem is they are so often the product of uninspired studio strategies. By itself the concept isn't uninteresting, I think.

Songs can be covered in refreshing new ways, so as paintings can be given abstract reinterpretations by other painters. If a film is remade then, why not do something that's actually creative? Why, for that matter, remake good movies? It seems to me that it is the flawed ones that should be done 'better'.

And it is here especially that Haneke has failed with Funny Games US. This remake was an excellent opportunity to address criticisms against the original. Instead, he just remade it, shot for shot, and we're back in the same boat.

On revulsion: I think that revulsion is an appropriate response, if it is an uncontrollable response. At the moment when it becomes a logical choice, it ceases to carry much weight for me. I think the affective revulsion that the film promotes is at the heart of what Funny Games is all about, and is where the focus of critical discussion should be weighed. For me, Funny Games repulses me physically in ways that Hostel or Saw can never approach. And against all logic, it does it by its absolute lack of tangible, traditional violence. Again, I think, if anything, Funny Games forces us to examine violence in a new way. People are not doing the affective power of this film justice. Its clear that there is that power. Unfortunately, the natural response is to lay judgment on it, not understand it. We don’t like feeling this way, thus it must be a symptom of a bad thing. What the film really asks is, Why is casual violence in film so palatable, while the “violence” of this is not? It is certainly difficult for me to see a basic action/thriller without thinking of the 9-minute, post-Georgie scene. It makes violence a lot less exciting. Even a film like No Country (which I love) can’t help but make violence exciting and alluring. Just the sound of Chigurh’s shotty rings of this sort of fascination. If anything, Funny Games never does this. I can’t help but think this is a direct result of his approach, and had he made violence visible, or his characters human, that we wouldn’t feel this overwhelming sense of real violence.

On Haneke hating his audience. I think quotes like, “You shouldn’t forget the importance of entertainment,” are more aimed at filmmakers, than viewers. Granted, Haneke despises casual indulgence in violent images, but I fail to see why this is a problem. Are directors not allowed to have strong opinions about spectatorship, and if so, should they not put them across in their films?

On shallow characters. If anything, the characters of this film are a comment on the characters in any horror/thriller film. In a general thriller/horror/sci-fi film (I’m thinking Cloverfield here), do the attempts at making us empathize with the characters really do that much? And should you have to connect to a character to be outraged by torture or murder? If so, I think that is the problem, not the film.

In the end, however, I think the most interesting aspects of Funny Games are those that lie outside of what Haneke intended. I think the self-reflexive stuff is far less interesting than his direct approach to scenes of violence. Clearly, this sort of critique of violence is not new. And yet, no one has rendered it in a similar way. Every single attempt at this sort of film ends up becoming fascinated with the violence it criticizes. Haneke does not fall victim to this. For me, Funny Games, although it is so clearly a structure, has rendered violence in the most realistic, repulsive way possible.

Oh! I get it now. I thought Ebert had gone of the deep end with a particuarly dim witted review. Upon inspection, I realise its someone else who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about and is probally a little dim witted to boot who wrote the reivew. Sneaky.