Funny Games (1997)

Funny Games: Directed by Michael Haneke. With Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering. Two violent young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic “games” with one another for their own amusement.

“First things first, Michael Haneke HATES Quentin Tarantinou0026#39;s films. He hates the way violence and death are shown as being u0026#39;coolu0026#39; – Cool gangsters executing their enemies whilst saying cool lines (And you will know, that my name is the Lord! etc,etc)with a cool song playing in the background. This is not how violence is in the real world, violence is a horrible fact of life, not a glamourous thing for youths to copy, and I think Haneke intended Funny Games to show it how it really is. I watched Funny Games without the slightest clue what the film was about, so I just had to sit back and take it as it comes. At first, I wasnu0026#39;t too impressed. I thought the scenes were too long and dragged out, yet at the same time, I felt a strange feeling of suspense. The incredibly long camera shots leave you that bored, that you think u0026quot;Something bad is going to happen soon, I can tell…u0026quot;. The suspense also lasts right through the film u0026#39;til the very end. You donu0026#39;t want to watch it, but at the same time, you feel hypnotised by it.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI will not detail any events of the film, to save spoiling the atmosphere, but I will note one thing that people tend to be confused about:- u0026quot;Why did the family let them into the house in the first place?u0026quot; The two characters of Peter and Paul are let to walk all over the family because of one flaw in the bourgios psyche – u0026#39;The more polite a person is, the better a person they are.u0026#39; This absurd way of thinking is played on by Peter and Paul and they obviously score, plus u0026#39;getting into the house without breaking inu0026#39; is also one of their u0026#39;gamesu0026#39;.For those who havenu0026#39;t seen the film, I definitely wouldnu0026#39;t recommend this for a night in with the parents/girlfriend, but I definitely would for people who want to see the difference between death and Tarantino-glam. Prepare for a highly suspenseful yet sickeningly violent, non-Hollywood, edge-of-the-seat piece of art. 8/10”