I think the reason this film hits so hard, is that it so accurately describes the feeling of being a victim of a violent crime, during the act. Your mind is racing, desperately trying to figure out, the 'rules', of this encounter with another human being. You cling to the idea that in some way, you can trust or predict what that person says, or will do, if only you can understand their 'rules of engagement', so to speak. But you cant. All sense of control is terrifyingly lost. You can never understand this fellow human being, or what they will do. The sense of human betrayal is beyond devastation. There are no rules. You cannot trust, or believe anything.
I’m gonna be honest though, those long moments of grief and suffering actually had me hooked. While they grieved over their child, and while they hopelessly tried to fix the phone, I was just. Horrified. Panicking. Worried. The thought of the villains returning at any moment didnt let me rest for even a second
Mary Burdette Yeah I always remembered feeling the shot being so long and dragged out and thinking it was to put the fear into you of thinking they will be back any second. The catch being they don’t show back up for a little bit. Very well done.
I believe it's like that because a lot of horror films have some downtime between dramatic moments but because it's Funny Games it drags it out just long enough to make you wonder "how long is this going to take". The movie does this ALL THE TIME.
Also, is no one going to talk about the horrifying realization that at the beginning of the movie (the couple playing golf on their lawn) was being subjected to the same horror and torment that Ann, George and their son was going to experience, like, moments later?? Like, the way they felt so odd about how their friends were acting when Ann joked about them beating them in golf because they were already practicing. The couple on the lawn were trying to play it cool just like Ann did when the people on the boat came by later in the movie. At the beginning, Ann and George unknowingly witnessed their own fate. Just gave me chills, man.
I always found it strange that Fred actaly went to George with Paul and done nothing. I mean, there would be two of them aginst him, or he could have pushed him in the lake while they were working on boat.
@@billsykes2977im commenting 3 years too late but yeah the same thing happens when Ann went with Paul to the dock where their friends had pulled up their boat, she doesn't say anything to them either even though there was three of them and Ann together with them could've probably overpowered him.
24:32 Also something worth mentioning about this shot is how all three couches are facing Ann and George. Like an audience in the Colosseum, we surround them as we comfortably sit and watch them suffer.
19:58 best part of this scene, in my opinion, is that the camera still focuses on Ann's face rather than just cutting away. it would have achieved the same effect of avoiding her nudity, but instead the audience still feels like a voyeur - it's just that we are forced to acknowledge we are voyeuring her pain rather than her nudity. naturally in any horror film we are still voyeurs to women's pain and suffering and their nudity is used to obfuscate that while titillating the (presumed) straight male audience, but this scene forces us to confront that directly. i love this film
let's be real, we all knew it was coming. haneke followed the typical movie cliche where it turns out the gun's not loaded. this movie's some good satire.
Agreed. It's the actual aftermath of grieving someone who was just murdered. Not just a couple minutes to show it has impact but the genuine horror the characters have to sit with and face. For us, it initially feels like a twist and then the scene keeps going and it registers what that twist actually is. We go from "holy shit, they killed the kid" to "holy shit, they've lost their kid".
I feel like the two antagonists being young, attractive, yuppie-like characters creates a sense that they are almost like god like frat boys, who's parents could probably buy their way out of all their problems, which is terrifying on its own
After seeing this comment I feel as though there's another really excellent example of just such a movie/ general plot, but I can't remember what it is... UGH. I want to say Ryan Philippe was involved, and possibly Josh Hartnet? Not even sure I spelled their names right but whatever, LOL. What in the world am I thinking of?
Honestly it speaks volumes of the film that after watching such a comprehensive video essay there are still more instances of meta engagement and subversion that weren't mentioned. The way Paul keeps directing Anna even when looking away and when she's out of his sight. When Paul is getting food and says "Does anyone want anything?" and immediately after the first murder occurs. I can also see an argument being made that the shotgun is loaded or unloaded depending on who wants it to be loaded.
i tried to answer the question before watching, decided i was annoyed with all my own answers, and then came to the comments determined to make sure something like "that ending tho" was present here because i also loved that
Hmmm... one thing that strikes me with audience of contemporary American style cinema is their preoccupation with "boredom" and "something happening" and their shock whenever they encounter slower pace. As if it was an aberration. But go back 50 years and almost all cinema, even mainstream Holywood, was slower paced. It is simply a kind of aesthetic, not a statement. Like ambient vs RnB, meditation vs sports, doom vs power metal. Antonioni, Jarmush, Tarkovsky, Lynch, Coppola, Leone, Kubrick, Bergman, Kieślowski - all used slow pace and are not too obscure. Hell, even Ridley Scott and his "Alien". The opening: minutes upon minutes of space, then corridors, then equipment...
@@breno855 to be clear my comment wasn't a statement about quality but just an observation about pacing. Nothing makes slower pace automatically good. Or bad either. Same with faster. Christopher Nolan's films have incredibly fast pace with lots of cuts and it works as his style.
@@mikeyua7 Pace and length are two separate things. You can have a slow paced 10 min short film and a fast paced 3 hour one. I brought up Nolan as an example of a very fast pace, even though his films are long.
they will both win, because during the fight, they will look into each others eyes and realize that they do not want the other to die, that they want them to live, that they want them to thrive, and then they embrace and hug and both win a partner for life.
mistakes and humiliation Hmmm, I don't know if Goku and Superman would get along. Superman's heroism is part of his character. He upholds the peace because he truly believes in his own sense of justice. Goku's heroism is kind of a happy accident. His key motivation is to fight somebody strong. Just so happens that the strongest fighters are also a major threat to humanity. He frequently even puts humanity at risk to prove his strength against these villains. I could see someone like Superman hating someone like Goku.
i have never been into dbz or the superman universe and made this comment on a whim, but while i support you, i also feel that love can be found anywhere and that as long as they are both good people they could be able to learn to understand one another an initial hostility is what leads to the fight. however, since dbz fights are known to drag on forever, with lots of internal dialogue, there is plenty of time for them to realize some shit about their feelings. listen. they can find love in this hopeless fight skeletonmf, they really can
@@pencilline2879 i think it plays into them being the controllers of that movie world so something like one of them dying would feel like the right thing to happen for the audience and the script to feel as if it wasn't a complete and hopeless loss but no he doesn't allow that it's not the both sides lost something ending that would help you sleep better at night but the opposite
I do still feel that the film is something of an indictment of horror movie fans for enjoying violence depicted onscreen. It's as if Hanneke wants to rub it in the face of the audience for thinking a scenario where innocent people are victimised could ever be "fun" or thrilling. Though in that sense, Funny Games almost works too well. It's a horror movie that's actually legitimately horrifying, not just on a visceral level but on a psychological and intellectual level.
He's saying "Fiction is for you. All of this violence is for you. You like this, right? But what if I go in and take away the happy ending, will you then recognize the horror movie plot for the justification of sadism that it is?" The fourth wall breaks maybe aren't as subversive 10 years on in the age of internet meta, but I still think it's great. I went back and watched the trailer for this movie on TH-cam, and the comments section is AMAZING. The people there seem, on the whole, to dislike it for being 'a bad horror movie', or 'lying in the commercial'. It seems like they really did miss the point. Kind of crazy actually.
Man, that's a good observation. The movie is pretty straightforward for most of its running time and is really well shot and engaging. Then the remote control scene happens and it feels like Haneke is saying "Oh, were you invested in this movie? The plot was fake the whole time, idiot!" I know there are a lot of other ways to read it, and I'm sure he had other stuff he wanted to say with it. But the initial frustration I felt is always going to define that scene, and the movie as a whole, for me.
I think he wasnt trying to make audiences ashamed of liking these movies but wanted to make them more aware on what actually makes these scenes horrifying and effective. It isnt all the blood and guts that are the horrifying part, but rather the toll it takes on the characters and the implications that are behind the antagonists actions. I think its really highlighted when Peter says paul doesnt want to make a mess of the carpet. He knows pauls intentions isnt gore so hes supposed to stay clear of that, but then he messes up with the kid.
Hereditary was a piece of shit. Being voyeuristic isn't something to be praised. That was the whole fucking point of this movie. So by that measure, Hereditary was exploitative.
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 or maybe u just don’t like artsy movies, which in that case the movie isn’t bad, it’s just too much for u to observe and process
@@zyphayt It wasn't artsy, it was melodramatic, unoriginal, exploitative, derivative bullshit. Having immaculate cinematography, a big name actress and a high budget does not a great movie make.
Yeah!, something I noticed and paused the video to think through is that this movie leaves in all the upseting stuff that would trigger people's empathy for whatever is being killed, which your regular slasher leaves out, usualy portraing the people killed as assholes and making the pain brief and fake, but here the suffering is all that is being portraid, with no justification for it, these people did nothing wrong or unreasonable, and jet their pain is spread out for you on silver plater for your entertainment like it's the same thing, and it makes it feel a lot less like watching a lion get killed by a gladiador in a colusium and a lot more like what it is, suffering. Then I unpaused and she pointed out that we aren't getting the pay off that this movie atvertizes itself for, there's no guts to look at, or props to praise or critizise, there's no flash of action. The request to see something violent is met, this is deffinatelly not what you wanted but what you asked for, and I think what they did is cool as fuck. I'm not gonna watch it though, the acting is too good and I might actually gotta pause every god damn second to watch it in one sitting, cuz i'm sensitive like that.
The thing that really made this film difficult to watch was the superb acting. Haneke can break the fourth wall all he wants, but every single actor in this film put in a remarkable, realistic performance - and that’s where most of the power of the movie comes from, IMO. Props to this review because it’s the only one I’ve seen that really gives credit to the child actor, Devon Gearhart. To a large degree, the whole film depended on his performance to really sell the horror, and he absolutely nailed it.
Every time he spoke to the camera, did you make you feel like he was the Home Alone kid Kevin McCallister who grow up and realized he really liked hurting people in houses.
Ha! Never thought about it like that, but I only ever watched it the once a decade or more ago. Now with the theory that Jigsaw is Kevin too that circulated the internet a while back I can have my inhead canon of "Mr. MaCallister and the Mutiverse of madness." XD
@@yep9462 I think there's a comic book version of the Joker who is like that. He's not crazy, he's super sane. He realizes they're all in a comic book and if it's not entertaining enough, they all cease to have futures because the comic will be cancelled, so he acts like a crazy clown man and messes with Batman to keep the viewers engaged so that everyone in his world has a future.
On the point of being willing to misdirect your audience, I am still incredibly disappointed that The Truman Show wasn't formatted this way. They open up with all the secrets out of the bag. Just think the movie would have been so much more if it was revealed about half way through the movie that it was all a show.
Hmm idk sometimes there are good reasons for letting an audience know something that the character doesn’t. It’s this idea of impending doom the more subtle “LOOK BEHIND YOU” feeling.
Eh, I think that would turn the movie into a very different experience than what it is/intending to be. The way it’s presented works well for that movie.
Dude - I’m a rabid cinephile and I watch a lot of video essays on TH-cam. This is by far the best I’ve ever seen, and it’s on a film I hadn’t even considered. I heeded your spoiler warning and came back, and you helped me appreciate this film as the horror masterpiece it is. And to think, I was gaga over THE CABIN IN THE WOODS as the most genius expression of meta horror ever when this gem existed.
Welp. Went though the comment section saw your comment and decided as a fellow cinefile it would be worth watching. It really fucked with me. I blame you 😂
I feel like when paul looks at the camera at the end of the film its an indictment of the audience as part of the events that took place onscreen. Since the barrier of fiction has been completely obliterated at this point, we are responsible in a way for this family dying. If i were to say, stop watching the movie before any deaths had taken place, then to me and my reality, no one died in the movie i just watched. But by continuing to watch the movie the audience is complicit in letting these things happen to the characters. But its not like the audience could do anything for the family, the plot of the movie is that they die, but that plot doesnt happen unless we watch the movie. I see it similarly to how in undertale continuing to play the game after getting the true pacifist ending is an admission by the player that they arent satisfied letting the characters of the universe be happy, and that in order to satiate their desire to play the video game the characters in that video game dont get to keep their happy ending. In other words the way to get the “happy ending” to funny games is just to not watch the movie, but then you’d be missing out on the experience of watching the film but the film directly kinda criticizes you for continuing to watch it and fuck its just too good. This is in my top 3 favorite videos of yours, behind the kunst saga and the recent one about art objectivity. I’ve watched it 30+ times and it’s just as well put together as i remember it being every time.
Excellent analysis, I agree that the ending is a direct indictment of the viewer. It’s like “here you are, at the end. You sick fuck.” I’ve never felt so penetrated by a look on screen. Paul is staring into your soul and directly calling you out. It’s your fault this family died.
21:32 I want you to appreciate this shot, this frame, this expression of pure fear and hopelessness imbued in the face of that kid It really makes you feel sorry for him
I'm really hoping you will see this. In the conversation Paul and Peter have at the end, I think you missed something. Peter is talking about the sci-fi story he's been writing, and how the place where the protagonist is stuck in, which was first supposed to be an anti-matter alternate universe, turns out to be fiction. Then Paul posits "if you can see it, it's real". I don't think Paul is (directly) saying that all on-screen fiction is real because you can view it, but that in a work of fiction, dubbing an element of that story 'fiction' (in other words two layers of fiction for us) does not make any difference if you actually depict the 'fictional' place, since there is no basis for distinction in the audience's eyes; fiction inside fiction is as real to the viewer as the story within it resides, so if the story is supposed to be 'real', then the fiction inside it is just as real. I'm not sure if this is something you've considered and whether you thought it was a metaphor for what you explained it as in the video, but in any case I would like to hear your thoughts on it, since I found your essay very insightful. Hoping I'm not too late and that you reply to new comments
[preface: writing based on watching the 1997 version (imo superior on tension)] I took this as a dual meaning; so first of all as a comment on the nature of being accustomed to watching violent horrors, the impacts that has on the viewer, and how the viewer typically distances themselves from the actions within horror movies in general (deeming them solely fiction) as a coping mechanism to enjoy a film's gruesome nature. But secondly, asking the viewer whether the events they just witnessed were "fictional" within the world the movie resides in, since nearly all interactions were intentionally cut short and involved (to my recollection having watched the movie a number of years ago) deaths that resulted in the actor being quickly removed from the scene, rather than remaining as a corpse. Asking how the events of the movie could have an impact on the viewer. And further, whether the removal of the "torture porn" sort of scenes typical of horror movies has diminished (or lessened in severity) your impression of the events (relating to the previous discussion [before she is lifted on the gunwale]) on the difficulty of retaining communication between the two universes of fiction and reality [their universe lacking the typical gruesome scenes you'd come to expect of a typical horror]) simply due to one being deemed fiction. So to summarize I took it both as a introspective into the "joy" or entertainment people derive from slasher/torture style movies, and an introspective into how you have perceived a film in which you *didn't* see the events typical of slasher movies, but rather the aftermath- and if that removal of gory brutality can still constitute a valid horror. Begging the question - if horror movies (more so American horrors) are unnecessarily violent in their exposure of the gore in order to sate a niche (possibly not niche and a significant segment) of the horror audience who watch for the suffering or brutal death of others typical to these movies - and what pleasure you as a viewer derive from a movie absent of these typical horror cliches. Edit: To add, questioning whether the disavowal of events in movies allows one to enjoy the gruesome scenes they are watching, what impact that has on the viewer, and whether this separation of actions from resulting impacts impacted your perception of the overarching message (and the murders within the film) to question how/why you enjoy horror movies.
Konnie M. Yea that’s a big theme of Haneke’s work. He has a very Videodrone take on cinema, essentially that anything seen in a movie is part of reality bc it exists in real life. So anything that is viewed is part of reality once it’s seen in real life and once you believe that, there is no such thing as ‘fiction’ in regards to cinema because everything becomes non-fiction wants it’s viewed in real life. Or something along those lines lol. Kind of the Schrödinger’s cat approach to film making. Once it’s observed, ‘it’ becomes real.
@@ChuckECheeez huh, that's interesting to me because although I rarely get into interviews and such (have zero idea of Haneke as a person), I have seen most of his films and there's something about the way he works that sticks like a thorn in my psyche more than almost any other filmmaker. i still have thoughts about stuff like The Piano Teacher even though I haven't watched it since like 2006
I remember tuning into this movie one morning when I woke up at like 4 AM just cuz nothing else was on, not knowing anything else about it. It was one hell of a trip.
Well you weren't wrong when you said funny games was upsetting. Just from what of it you showed in this video got me very upset. Especially the boat scene. Idk why but when they pushed her into the water i got visibly upset. Like more than i thought I should've been
I'd never seen the American version. From what I remember, in the original, there's a knife just out of her reach on the boat, tantalizing the audience before they throw her off the side This is even worse. You don't even get the fakeout catharsis; you get nothing
I had casual feelings about it myself. To me it advanced the movie to the next point even though I knew it was almost over with the last death. I was pretty interested in the sailing situational aesthetic. Like "lets just go boating now". They did a good job sailing too.
I think Anne starts to suspect something is wrong when "Peter" says "did you give Tom the eggs?" Up to that point he had referred to his evil twin as Peter.
The home invaders really just comes down to preference. Pitt and Corbet feel like inserts from the author. Like they're constantly above the violence and being smug because they don't really need to worry about any of it. As if they know it's simply a movie. But the Original 2 feel like true sociopaths who are attacking the family simply because they are sick. Peter especially, but the moment when the 4th wall is broken, feels almost jarring. Less like how Pitt Plays it like he's laughing along with us, but more like "I see you out there watching, and I'll be knocking on your door pretty soon too." Again it's preference. Pitt isn't scary because he isn't real. He feels phony (that's what makes him so good). But the original feels real, and any breaks in reality feel jarring and even further implicates us (I think) because we're not removed from the violence in the same way Peter is. We're engaging with it until we realize we're being watched as well.
I'm not really into torture porn. I like the stories in some horror movies, but I genuinely hope as many people survive as possible. I only watched Funny Games because I'd heard that it was good. The whole movie I kept wondering about some of the "mistakes" that made everything so much easier for the two boys. "Why would any house not have a landline which allows for emergency calls even if there's no active phone service? Why would she leave her cell phone next to the sink full of water?" Then the remote scene happened, and I realized the diablus ex machina at work. I was kind of pissed about that, but your video did give me a new way to look at it in a way that I can appreciate it more.
"Why would she leave her cell phone next to the sink full of water?" Dude, mistakes like that happen all the time in life! It can only feel weird from the safe distance 3rd person perspective of your couch.
My uncle's retreat house doesn't have a land line and AT&T cell service is shitty. There's actually a splice pedestal by the road but the phone company has apparently abandoned the trunk and won't offer service.
I honestly never got the whole "Funny Games is boring" critique, but maybe that's because I found the acting to be fantastic even the first time I watched it despite being unaware of the background and purpose of the film or even who the director was.
"funny games is boring" is more of a creative choice on haneke's part than a point of criticism. there are shots that drag on for several minutes where nothing happens, he wants you to be bored. hence the home invaders constantly asking what time it is, like a viewer wanting the movie to hurry up and get to the point so they can go on with their day.
it's boring to those who need mr beasts level cuts to be "entertained" - same people who would've watched those weird puppet theatres where the puppet man beats his wife.
I think the ending is probably a way of saying to the audience "You're going to keep watching violent slasher films aren't you?", but it's more disturbing because you just witnessed pure suffering and it wasn't enjoyable suffering. I saw Funny Games about a year ago and loved it but I can't say it has impacted the way I view violent horror films. To me, it's still all art, special effects, acting, and writing. Nothing has changed for me since Funny Games. When I view fiction, it's just so much easier to divorce myself from the feelings of the characters unless the artist intends for me to have those feelings. Overall, Funny Games was a great film but I still don't understand what it is the director wants from me.
I haven't seen the above video yet, but I saw this film first time when i was 18 or 19. Back then I didn't really understand what this movie was trying to say, so I just shrugged it off. Couple years ago I decided to watch the film again. Half point through I stopped watching because I understood what it was about. The two killers are basically part of the audience. They are constantly reminding that you can stop the madness by simple press of a button. I mean the whole scene where the killers give a chance for the victim to escape or whatever, was there exactly so that the movie would give you enough time to consider stop watching it. In essence Haneke is trying to say that violence is never completely fictional. He wants you to be afraid of violence. I don't know if that made any sense but that's how I understood it.
I wanted the family to win all throughout the movie. When they killed the boy, I wanted two of them to somehow still survive. When Anna shot Peter I cheered, but then Paul just rewound the scene. Even when he pushed her from the boat, I was still expecting her to surface somehow. Instead I got a big fat fuck you. I think that was the point. It's genius, actually, with little details like the phone almost working, or that knife on the boat which we were explicitly made aware from the beginning, but which Paul notices the moment Anna starts cutting the rope.
Why does fiction work in the first place? Are we just that stupid? Also my favorite part of the movie is the discussion the two have on the boat at the end, where they're just like, "Yeah, don't even try talking yourself into thinking all the torture and suffering you just witnessed means nothing. It was valid." The creator honestly read my mind with that scene. The first thing I wanted to do was dismiss the whole ordeal as fiction, but he wouldn't allow me to. This movie honestly forces you into a kind of growth spurt
Also makes me think of what actors are put through for “entertainment “. On so many levels. From just a crying scene all the way to abuse and harassment that actors experience off screen. From their own bosses, who would then write a torture scene for them to “play”. *shudders*
@@gotgunpowder But does that really matter when the whole point is that you suspend your disbelief and take it as if it was real on some level anyways? As far as our own perception goes, it’s real, that’s what the movie is about really.
because of this video i decided to watch funny games and oh boy, what a masterpiece. something that i love that you didnt touch on is how the film indulges in a very light, white palette, not only contributing to the daylight horror of it, but directly subverting horror movies that use darkness and dim lighting to add to the horror and suspense.
im sure someone else has pointed it out by now, but i love how you, in your video about subversive fiction, subverted your own comment section from being focused on the main part of the video in favor of a question that only matters to prove a point. this was a wonderful video, and i can't wait for more. it truly made me reconsider fiction in the same way that you described. keep up the spectacular work!
My friend and I stumbled upon this movie when we were like 12 and it quickly became one of my favorite movies and I think that's why I'm broken and can't enjoy movies anymore
I understood the movie as a paradox of how civilized people are so used to safety that they find themselves completely defenseless to any threat that might come their way, these murderers are a couple brats that don't even get their white clothes dirty during a massacre, we are terrified of violence and that gives power to those willing to use it.
Except they are not just brats. They are meta- demons who can reverse time. They are written as unbeatable even after one of them takes a shot gun blast to the chest.
28:59 incredible to notice that, while Anna's rifle shot got to be fully on screen and bloody, Peter keeps his attack on Anna offscreen. Of course. Anna's breaking the rules, she's not writing the story, so she's not following its conventions. Peter is one of the authors, so he commits violence the way the author (Haneke/Peter) wants to have it in the story: subverted and dangled away from the viewer.
honestly I personally didn't find the "boring" parts all that boring I think they actually served to elevate the suspense as both you and the victims honestly don't know whats going to happen next or how they're going to get out of this situation and it filled me with a sense of terror and excitement instead of boredom
Question for people who have seen this film (spoilers) - what do you think is up with the tent on their neighbors’ lawn? The one we see in the first shots after the heavy metal music in the titles sequence cuts out. Haneke has such attention to detail, it clearly wasn’t a random thing. I have an opinion. I’m guessing that the two baddies have the couple’s kid isolated in the tent. I don’t think their child is dead at that point, because the dad is still able to approximate normality when he comes to help launch the boat. Which makes sense if his child is still alive, but not if he or she has already been killed. He doesn’t break character when visiting with George and Anne, which suggests the villains have some serious leverage over him beyond threatening his own life, in which case it would have made more sense for “Uncle Fred” to sound the alarm and get George’s help in beating Paul (who was not particularly physically imposing) senseless. So that’s why I think their kid - the one that little Georgie wanted to speak to but wasn’t answering him - must still be alive in the opening shots, and it has something to do with the tent on the lawn that everyone is standing next to. Love to hear any other thoughts on the tent issue.
I think you've gone a little far on the assumptions with it - the tent is likely something to convey the uncomfortable nature of the film (no reason for a tent to be there), control of the filmmaker (the camera doesn't show anything inside the tent, door is shut), & possibly hint at the viewer's watching experience (you're sitting in a theater shoved in the middle of someone's [fictional] life).
14:54 I interpret this shot as the antagonist "watching" the suffering of the victims with the audience, in a sort of meta style. The original does that all the time in more subtle ways. Which is another thing that makes me like it more than the remake. It makes more sense with the controller at the end.
The German actors have this raw edge the American actors don't. There's something about the friendly faces of the German actors that you think they won't hurt a fly, which makes it more terrifying.
Dude, Everyone knows the answer to the Superman vs Goku question. The answer is simple: Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a metaphor for the trajectory of historical Leftist movements, and Battleship Hime from Kantai Collection is a lesbian without a straight bone in her body.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the final step to turn the new trilogy into capitalism realism incarnate. Fite me. :P I know, it doesn't have anything to do with the video, but I had a hot take inside of me
I did love this movie. My roommate and I watched it together and she and I had goosebumps by the end. We got a lot of value out of the film, but I can totally understand others feeling bored
I think a big piece of our enjoyment is the nature of the villains and the lack of on screen violence. We both love horror movies but oddly we don’t love watching gore. As for the villains when we play D&D there were some foes that behaved with that same coldness as Paul. The fascination was less about the absoluteness of the hero’s failure, but more the lack of autonomy given to them. She might have a different take on this, but regardless we both enjoyed it all the way through and on multiple rewatches.
I watched this movie only once almost ten years ago but it's one of those rare movies that I actually remember well, and this review made me see it all over again. It's all so unnerving, and so well done. Love this analysis. Also Goku and Superman wouldn't fight to the death. Superman wouldn't kill someone who's not threatening Earth and Goku wouldn't kill someone who can provide him with a good fight.
the two villains talking in the background, michael pitt’s character scolding the other for killing the kid while the camera is focused on the tv is brilliant. it reminds me of a viewer scolding a character in a movie for killing in a way that wasn’t gory enough (and i’m sure that was the point.) i love this movie.
When Peter got up to get food because he was hungry, it looks like he started eating the raw meat that Ann had cut up just before he arrived for the eggs. Not sure if it’s relevant to anything, but it’s definitely an odd thing for him to choose to eat.
Is it bad that I was laughing hysterically at most of the violence in this movie? Not because it was unrealistic (it was ultra realistic), but because of how savage it was. 😂
For the answer at the end do you think it's similar to the answer of "how do you kill a zombie"? In that the answer to the zombie question is "how ever way you want.". Thus implying that since zombies are fictional it's all dependent on the author on how to kill them.
It just hit me that when we see Paul and Peter with the neighbors in the beginning, we're getting a voyeuristic shot of what would be the cold open of the film~
I'll be honest, while I love this review, I think the comparison of Funny Games vs The Cabin in the Woods is a little... unfair. While both tackle the same themes, it's with an entirely different worldview. The Cabin in the Woods loves slashers. Funny Games does not. The Cabin in the woods is a love letter to the horror genre flaws and all. Funny Games aims to constantly critique it and by extension it's viewers.
Cabin in the Woods is the loving, understanding parent who doesn't condone their child's shitty behaviour, and just wants to know why it happened and tries to come up with a better solution to the issue with the child. Funny Games is an abusive asshole step-parent who yells, physically punishes and grounds the child without ever listening to what they have to say or trying to understand them.
@@levischorpioen I think of it more as Cabin in the Woods is that movie your inner geek wanted made just to see all the ridiculous tropes of typical cabin slasher movies rolled into one, where as Funny Games is something that was intended to have a message that would resonate with the audience and make them think more critically about how they view horror/slashers. I do agree that it's not a really fair comparison though, one is more for a geek-out fun session, the other for a serious critical/evocative approach to the genre
i'm not sure i'd even say that Haneke doesn't love slashers, i don't think he's making a genre critique, I think he just decided what if we took all this seriously for once?
6:35 everyone was great Devon with the sheer terror and crying, roth with his ear pricing screams of pain, and watts with her sheer contempt and sadness 26:00 I also like the little touch where he takes a bite out of a bagguet, only to spit it out seconds later, implying he's so distraught he cant even bring himself to eat to keep up his energy
I watched this video when it first came out about a month ago. And more than any other video essay it has played on my mind ever since. Fantastic work!
I always fantasized about making a movie that subverts every expectation to 11/10, where I could just do whatever I wanted "because", but in my mind it always ends up reaching a point so ridiculous I feel like only a few people could possibly appreciate my pretentiousness of being "so meta" and/or being entertained at all without walking out. I never knew this movie already existed lol. Edit: I really wish I could go back and watch the movie now, before watching this essay. I'm curious to know whether or not I would have appreciated it or been frustrated with it. I feel now like I would have liked it. But part of me wonders if I would have hated it before having its intricacies spoon-fed to me. Similar to Enemy, before watching Chris Stuckman's analysis.
Think everyone should see this movie. It has such a profound message about violence in cinema. It’s the antithesis of Tarantino sensationalism. It’s a movie about violence, a movie about psychopathy, a superbly gruesome movie but there aren’t any murders shown on screen. It’s all implied. It’s meant to explore the real-life destruction of violence without using it as a vehicle for entertainment. It’s one of the scariest movies ever, but it shows no gore or sensational violence. He doesn’t use gore to build suspense. I’ve seen an interview w Haneke where he says he detests Schindler’s List for multiple reasons but uses the scene in the gas chamber as evidence, saying it was horrible how Spielberg utilized the gas chamber scene as a way to build suspense, or, to entertain. And I’d never really thought about it but he’s right, or at least has a valid point. There are subjects so serious that they shouldn’t be manipulated in a way for entertainment. Violence is such a pervasive part of culture and artists should probably be more careful with how they use it for entertainment. This is not to say I don’t love Scorsese or Tarantino, but it’s interesting how Haneke can create disturbing, violent art without being sensational or exploitive. Brilliant movie.
There’s also a whole other conversation about fiction and reality and the Schrodinger’s cat application toward cinema in relation to the film and all the fourth wall breaks. It’s fucking brilliant. And Haneke is a pretentious blow hard lol.
Also, see the case of Leopold and Loeb if you are interested in a “real-life” case of two privileged teenage psychopaths who commit murder for the fun of it.
Incredibly well-made video, thanks so much Eric. You'll always have my support! This one was a little out of my normal area of expertise, and you did a great job of guiding the viewer through the topic. It was entertaining, well-paced, and very informative. Cheers!
I had already seen the original version of this movie, but this is making me want to see the u.s. version as well. seems like michael pitt gives a really great performance
This was an awesome video. I for one was a huge fan of funny games. I'm an especially huge fan of societal freak-outs as well. When my girlfriend and I went to Disneyland we rode the Indiana Jones ride. Right when the rides camera mechanism decided to take our picture we had positioned ourselves to look like I had just punched her in the face. When everybody was looking we at their own glee filled photos ours of course showcased that we had in fact nailed the position so it completely looked like I had just taken her out in the blackness of this ride. It was a good day 😊
Something about the ending really scares me. It’s clearly an indictment of the viewer, like “you sat through this. Here we are. Why are you watching this?” It made me very uncomfortable
Wow, thanks. I've watched them all and that's the analysis I was looking for. Damn, you've accomplished what seemed impossible to me, you've made me UNDERSTAND this movie, lol. I'd like to address one detail concerning rewinding scene which you've neatly called "plot armor". Specifically, the fact that Paul uses Volume button on the remote which might seem inconsistent, or even silly. So, I've once heard a Buddhist master say: "In the world of ghosts you don't need translators" - meaning that in the metaphysical realm the communication occurs above the semantics, completely outside of cognitive boundaries the "material world" is otherwise imposing on us. In the movie, Paul and Peter are clearly the tools of the architect and not the subject he works on. The strokes of the brush on the canvas, not the picture. The act of creating art, not the work of art itself. They're above the convention, they're metaphysical, the rules don't apply to them. They could press the nail on the wall or the button on their shirt and rewind the scene just as fine, and it would be as much valid as the Volume button on the remote. They're like the brush set in Photoshop compared to the actual pixels ;) Once again, thanks for the amazing breakdown of the movie. I think it kind of changed my perception of art as well.
Neither. Both. It doesn't matter. The one who will win in this fight is the one whom the story demands will win. These are both characters who are written to be as powerful or weak enough to win or lose in service of the story. In Goku's narrative, Superman may win at first, afterwards, Goku spends hours and hours upon episodes and episodes of montage-filled filler, building up his power level until he does defeat Superman. For Superman, Goku may acquire kryptonite, demanding Superman be creative, or patient, or depend upon the support of others or use some other moralistic device to come out on top. So the answer is "Who's writing the story? Who do they want to win? Who should win, in this narrative?"
Outstanding video. I watched Funny Games quite some time ago, and it bothered me enough that I never wanted to watch it again, despite appreciating its craft. This is a terrific dissection of the film.
I saw this version when it first came out. I was just a kid, but it's always been one of my favorite movies, even though I didn't understand it. This makes so much sense.
broooooo don't just glaze over the first time we meet paul and call it filler lol! That scene is one of my favorites just due to how well the actor portrays fear without saying anything. His eyes say "help me" and I feel like that's incredibly noticeable on repeated viewings
You question at the beginning made me think of the question, "how do you kill a vampire?", from the death and return of Superman video. The answer is however the fuck you want, because vampires aren't real.
I saw this movie around the time it released and while intrigued, I now realize I was too young(read: stupid) to truly understand what was going on. So funny to see all these things you pointed out that went completely over my head! Great video
Great video. I have a very kneejerk negative reaction to "it's the same movie, but remade in your language!" But in this case I'll have to make am exception and finally watch the 2007 version.
The two murderers are such interesting characters. What is their backstory? Are they ever telling the truth or are they just bullshitting and making up stories the whole time? They're like these invincible cartoon characters (note: the white gloves) that just pop up cause havoc, laugh about it and leave when they get bored. The fact that it's established this isn't the first family they've murdered and it won't be the last... it makes me wonder if these guys have been travelling door-to-door wiping out the families in every house just because they can. They're so casual about torturing people it's disturbing. Great film.
The German line "Who do you think will win... You are on their side, aren't you?" which is way less ambiguous about the fact the audience might be rooting for the bad guys.
I just wanted to say that I re-watch this video every so often, because your analysis and love for the film is so amazing to be shared with us as an audience, but also a testament to how great this movie is as well. I frequently put longer videos on as background to whatever other activity I'm doing, however with this video i can't help but watch it. I feel completely embedded in the movie even when short clips are playing. I adore your critique (or moreso adulation?) of Funny Games and you've made the experience of watching the movie on it's own an even greater, almost intimate experience. You alongside Michael Haneke are wonderful creators.
to me this is the black hole analogy, because peter (piggy) is inside the black hole (the movie) and paul is the hero observing from outside the event horizon, he's seeing it as it happens and thinking "you should have been looking out!" , it plays into how paul is the main character even tho he's the villain and how he's untethered, unbound we are viewing the premise of a horror movie playing out in loops, no hero resolution just abject horror
Funny games is a great thriller not only the acting has you on the side of your seat but the fact the two men play cat and mouse with the family is so intense
I prefer the original tbh. As a native speaker in german you notice subtle edges and spikes in the performances which made it immensly scary to me. The austrio-german accents in the film also works in favor of portaying the torturers sadism since it's often perceived as highly cultural but slightly bored. (I really hope, my syntax makes some kind of sense)
I really prefer not to watch horror movies, and slashed flicks and torture porn in particular. However, what this movie does is amazing! The scene with the remote honestly amazed me, like holy shit! There were a few lines that I thought I didn’t understand because I was seeing it out of context, but it totally wasn’t! It’s these things that make me really appreciate analysis channels because I wouldn’t have watched that scene otherwise. And the few horror movies I do watch I miss a lot of because I’m probably not going to watch them multiple times and I’m too scared to catch a lot of what is happening on the first watch.
Thanks! Haneke is my fave director, and Funny Games is not leaving my mind. Now I understand why I love this film on a new level. I was obsessed for a while, comparing the German and US versions frame by frame. Nice! I enjoyed this video!
I much prefer the German film, more underrated and it helps that I don’t know the actors, the American version seems a little overdone, maybe just because of the increased fidelity and production value.
I first watched this movie 5 years ago. My original reason for watching it was because I thought it would be a standard horror/thriller, so, of course, when I got to the end of the movie I was frustrated and annoyed. Coming back to it 5 years later and re-watching it, I now understand and appreciate it. IMO, the heroes aren't the family being victimised. The heroes are Peter and Paul, because they're working for us, the audience. Without their psychotic-selves, this genre wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be entertained. The best stories are the ones where the heroes/protagonists are disguised.
Got really confused at first when they were speaking English. Totally forgot that this movie was remade. Not going to watch that again though Edit: Also I quite prefer the original to the remake. (though I've only seen the clips of the remake shown here) I loved Peter in the original because he was really good at masking his emotions. In this version it's a bit too blunt. Also I think the casting was quite better in the first. (and Arno Frisch was weirdly attractive)
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
![[CC] Interview with Michael Haneke (2017) on "Funny Games" (1997)](/img/n.gif)
I think the reason this film hits so hard, is that it so accurately describes the feeling of being a victim of a violent crime, during the act. Your mind is racing, desperately trying to figure out, the 'rules', of this encounter with another human being. You cling to the idea that in some way, you can trust or predict what that person says, or will do, if only you can understand their 'rules of engagement', so to speak. But you cant. All sense of control is terrifyingly lost. You can never understand this fellow human being, or what they will do. The sense of human betrayal is beyond devastation. There are no rules. You cannot trust, or believe anything.
That’s just socializing while being ND
trust
twust*
superman and goku love each other, next question
yes
@@duatia5315 oh you son of a JK Rowling
@Su Nam (Kevin) Jang yes
Su Nam (Kevin) Jang I don’t like the implication that J.K. Rowling is actually a gun
@@Gloomdrake and here I thought they were calling jk Rowling a bitch lol
I’m gonna be honest though, those long moments of grief and suffering actually had me hooked. While they grieved over their child, and while they hopelessly tried to fix the phone, I was just. Horrified. Panicking. Worried. The thought of the villains returning at any moment didnt let me rest for even a second
Mary Burdette Yeah I always remembered feeling the shot being so long and dragged out and thinking it was to put the fear into you of thinking they will be back any second. The catch being they don’t show back up for a little bit. Very well done.
I believe it's like that because a lot of horror films have some downtime between dramatic moments but because it's Funny Games it drags it out just long enough to make you wonder "how long is this going to take". The movie does this ALL THE TIME.
Same here!!
Me i forward it..
@@fat9457 Why would you? Didn't you want to feel the Intended emotions?
Also, is no one going to talk about the horrifying realization that at the beginning of the movie (the couple playing golf on their lawn) was being subjected to the same horror and torment that Ann, George and their son was going to experience, like, moments later?? Like, the way they felt so odd about how their friends were acting when Ann joked about them beating them in golf because they were already practicing. The couple on the lawn were trying to play it cool just like Ann did when the people on the boat came by later in the movie. At the beginning, Ann and George unknowingly witnessed their own fate. Just gave me chills, man.
I always found it strange that Fred actaly went to George with Paul and done nothing. I mean, there would be two of them aginst him, or he could have pushed him in the lake while they were working on boat.
@@billsykes2977It's because they're both in control
@@billsykes2977im commenting 3 years too late but yeah the same thing happens when Ann went with Paul to the dock where their friends had pulled up their boat, she doesn't say anything to them either even though there was three of them and Ann together with them could've probably overpowered him.
24:32 Also something worth mentioning about this shot is how all three couches are facing Ann and George. Like an audience in the Colosseum, we surround them as we comfortably sit and watch them suffer.
"why not" is also said off screen, behind the viewer almost, as if we, the audience, are saying "why not" rather than them saying it to us.
YES
thats what i thought too!!
Great point!
19:58 best part of this scene, in my opinion, is that the camera still focuses on Ann's face rather than just cutting away. it would have achieved the same effect of avoiding her nudity, but instead the audience still feels like a voyeur - it's just that we are forced to acknowledge we are voyeuring her pain rather than her nudity. naturally in any horror film we are still voyeurs to women's pain and suffering and their nudity is used to obfuscate that while titillating the (presumed) straight male audience, but this scene forces us to confront that directly. i love this film
The little kid being betrayed by the gun made me the most upset out of everything.
@Mario Lisa I know, that doesn't change anything..
@@opernce he wasnt betrayed by the gun, it just wasnt loaded
@@codybolo7803 its scarier thinking it betrayed him tho
It worked against him, betrayal
let's be real, we all knew it was coming. haneke followed the typical movie cliche where it turns out the gun's not loaded. this movie's some good satire.
I do like how he stops rewinding right before she would have said the prayer which would have had her say it backwards and thus win the Gold.
I was like, oh is she gonna say it backwards like this, are they gonna address that but yeah he stops right before she says the prayer
🤯🤯
This just blew my mind.
wow, nice catch
That scene where they just sit and cry is just horrific, holy shit
Righttt! I actually cried watching that scene. It made me so upset.
It lasts so long it just broke me
Agreed. It's the actual aftermath of grieving someone who was just murdered. Not just a couple minutes to show it has impact but the genuine horror the characters have to sit with and face. For us, it initially feels like a twist and then the scene keeps going and it registers what that twist actually is. We go from "holy shit, they killed the kid" to "holy shit, they've lost their kid".
I feel like the two antagonists being young, attractive, yuppie-like characters creates a sense that they are almost like god like frat boys, who's parents could probably buy their way out of all their problems, which is terrifying on its own
After seeing this comment I feel as though there's another really excellent example of just such a movie/ general plot, but I can't remember what it is... UGH. I want to say Ryan Philippe was involved, and possibly Josh Hartnet? Not even sure I spelled their names right but whatever, LOL. What in the world am I thinking of?
“God like frat boys” lmfao man where the fuck does that logic come from I hope you know there’s really some things money can’t buy
Oh Noes I believe you’re thinking of The Skulls.
I thought u were talking about goku and superman lmfaoo😓😭
that's exactly how i saw it!!
Honestly it speaks volumes of the film that after watching such a comprehensive video essay there are still more instances of meta engagement and subversion that weren't mentioned. The way Paul keeps directing Anna even when looking away and when she's out of his sight. When Paul is getting food and says "Does anyone want anything?" and immediately after the first murder occurs. I can also see an argument being made that the shotgun is loaded or unloaded depending on who wants it to be loaded.
Yeees
Why would they fight? They are Married
playing the sax Pre-nup.
The majority of those married fight.
Who, Superman and Goku? Don't be ridiculous. Goku fights everyone he loves. His love language is martial arts.
Everybody's answering the question but holy shit this is the greatest ending to a video essay ever made.
i tried to answer the question before watching, decided i was annoyed with all my own answers, and then came to the comments determined to make sure something like "that ending tho" was present here because i also loved that
88% of youtube comments are unfunny memes and racism
MaKilla Gorilla And the other 12% are funny memes and sexism?
Hmmm... one thing that strikes me with audience of contemporary American style cinema is their preoccupation with "boredom" and "something happening" and their shock whenever they encounter slower pace. As if it was an aberration. But go back 50 years and almost all cinema, even mainstream Holywood, was slower paced. It is simply a kind of aesthetic, not a statement. Like ambient vs RnB, meditation vs sports, doom vs power metal. Antonioni, Jarmush, Tarkovsky, Lynch, Coppola, Leone, Kubrick, Bergman, Kieślowski - all used slow pace and are not too obscure. Hell, even Ridley Scott and his "Alien". The opening: minutes upon minutes of space, then corridors, then equipment...
I agree. More and more I am convinced that american or at least Hollywood cinema is mediocre and formulaic.
@@breno855 to be clear my comment wasn't a statement about quality but just an observation about pacing. Nothing makes slower pace automatically good. Or bad either. Same with faster. Christopher Nolan's films have incredibly fast pace with lots of cuts and it works as his style.
@@mikeyua7 Pace and length are two separate things. You can have a slow paced 10 min short film and a fast paced 3 hour one. I brought up Nolan as an example of a very fast pace, even though his films are long.
they will both win, because during the fight, they will look into each others eyes and realize that they do not want the other to die, that they want them to live, that they want them to thrive, and then they embrace and hug and both win a partner for life.
mistakes and humiliation
Hmmm, I don't know if Goku and Superman would get along. Superman's heroism is part of his character. He upholds the peace because he truly believes in his own sense of justice. Goku's heroism is kind of a happy accident. His key motivation is to fight somebody strong. Just so happens that the strongest fighters are also a major threat to humanity. He frequently even puts humanity at risk to prove his strength against these villains. I could see someone like Superman hating someone like Goku.
i have never been into dbz or the superman universe and made this comment on a whim, but while i support you, i also feel that love can be found anywhere and that as long as they are both good people they could be able to learn to understand one another
an initial hostility is what leads to the fight. however, since dbz fights are known to drag on forever, with lots of internal dialogue, there is plenty of time for them to realize some shit about their feelings. listen. they can find love in this hopeless fight skeletonmf, they really can
32:01 They even subvert the subvertion, because he's rewinding the scene with the volume button XD
I feel like it has something to do with the prayer being resighted backwards as well
No the pause button was in the middle of the other volume buttons
Rewinding is paradoxical. As soon as he presses rewind, he would be rewinding his pressing of rewind, and wouldn't be able to rewind any further.
@@MilwaukeeF40C Gotcha - he doesn't actually need the remote.
@@pencilline2879 i think it plays into them being the controllers of that movie world so something like one of them dying would feel like the right thing to happen for the audience and the script to feel as if it wasn't a complete and hopeless loss but no he doesn't allow that it's not the both sides lost something ending that would help you sleep better at night but the opposite
I do still feel that the film is something of an indictment of horror movie fans for enjoying violence depicted onscreen.
It's as if Hanneke wants to rub it in the face of the audience for thinking a scenario where innocent people are victimised could ever be "fun" or thrilling.
Though in that sense, Funny Games almost works too well. It's a horror movie that's actually legitimately horrifying, not just on a visceral level but on a psychological and intellectual level.
I think that's the point, haneke subverts as many horror tropes as he can and in the process makes the best horror movie.
He's saying "Fiction is for you. All of this violence is for you. You like this, right? But what if I go in and take away the happy ending, will you then recognize the horror movie plot for the justification of sadism that it is?" The fourth wall breaks maybe aren't as subversive 10 years on in the age of internet meta, but I still think it's great.
I went back and watched the trailer for this movie on TH-cam, and the comments section is AMAZING. The people there seem, on the whole, to dislike it for being 'a bad horror movie', or 'lying in the commercial'. It seems like they really did miss the point. Kind of crazy actually.
And due to the cliche of horror movies getting remade, Haneke is basically parodying that idea by remaking his own film.
Man, that's a good observation. The movie is pretty straightforward for most of its running time and is really well shot and engaging. Then the remote control scene happens and it feels like Haneke is saying "Oh, were you invested in this movie? The plot was fake the whole time, idiot!"
I know there are a lot of other ways to read it, and I'm sure he had other stuff he wanted to say with it. But the initial frustration I felt is always going to define that scene, and the movie as a whole, for me.
I think he wasnt trying to make audiences ashamed of liking these movies but wanted to make them more aware on what actually makes these scenes horrifying and effective. It isnt all the blood and guts that are the horrifying part, but rather the toll it takes on the characters and the implications that are behind the antagonists actions. I think its really highlighted when Peter says paul doesnt want to make a mess of the carpet. He knows pauls intentions isnt gore so hes supposed to stay clear of that, but then he messes up with the kid.
the 11 minute shot of them grieving really reminds me of the shots of Toni Collete's grieving in Hereditary, voyeuristic and raw
I was thinking exactly this.
Hereditary was a piece of shit. Being voyeuristic isn't something to be praised. That was the whole fucking point of this movie. So by that measure, Hereditary was exploitative.
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 ok
@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 or maybe u just don’t like artsy movies, which in that case the movie isn’t bad, it’s just too much for u to observe and process
@@zyphayt It wasn't artsy, it was melodramatic, unoriginal, exploitative, derivative bullshit. Having immaculate cinematography, a big name actress and a high budget does not a great movie make.
24:45 "removing all the entertainment out of suffering, leaving only suffering" man what a brilliant take on it. absolutely love it.
Yeah!, something I noticed and paused the video to think through is that this movie leaves in all the upseting stuff that would trigger people's empathy for whatever is being killed, which your regular slasher leaves out, usualy portraing the people killed as assholes and making the pain brief and fake, but here the suffering is all that is being portraid, with no justification for it, these people did nothing wrong or unreasonable, and jet their pain is spread out for you on silver plater for your entertainment like it's the same thing, and it makes it feel a lot less like watching a lion get killed by a gladiador in a colusium and a lot more like what it is, suffering.
Then I unpaused and she pointed out that we aren't getting the pay off that this movie atvertizes itself for, there's no guts to look at, or props to praise or critizise, there's no flash of action.
The request to see something violent is met, this is deffinatelly not what you wanted but what you asked for, and I think what they did is cool as fuck.
I'm not gonna watch it though, the acting is too good and I might actually gotta pause every god damn second to watch it in one sitting, cuz i'm sensitive like that.
The thing that really made this film difficult to watch was the superb acting. Haneke can break the fourth wall all he wants, but every single actor in this film put in a remarkable, realistic performance - and that’s where most of the power of the movie comes from, IMO. Props to this review because it’s the only one I’ve seen that really gives credit to the child actor, Devon Gearhart. To a large degree, the whole film depended on his performance to really sell the horror, and he absolutely nailed it.
Every time he spoke to the camera, did you make you feel like he was the Home Alone kid Kevin McCallister who grow up and realized he really liked hurting people in houses.
Ha! Never thought about it like that, but I only ever watched it the once a decade or more ago. Now with the theory that Jigsaw is Kevin too that circulated the internet a while back I can have my inhead canon of "Mr. MaCallister and the Mutiverse of madness." XD
Lmao 🤣
@@yep9462 I think there's a comic book version of the Joker who is like that. He's not crazy, he's super sane. He realizes they're all in a comic book and if it's not entertaining enough, they all cease to have futures because the comic will be cancelled, so he acts like a crazy clown man and messes with Batman to keep the viewers engaged so that everyone in his world has a future.
On the point of being willing to misdirect your audience, I am still incredibly disappointed that The Truman Show wasn't formatted this way. They open up with all the secrets out of the bag. Just think the movie would have been so much more if it was revealed about half way through the movie that it was all a show.
Hmm idk sometimes there are good reasons for letting an audience know something that the character doesn’t. It’s this idea of impending doom the more subtle “LOOK BEHIND YOU” feeling.
First Person Truman Show movie when?
Eh, I think that would turn the movie into a very different experience than what it is/intending to be. The way it’s presented works well for that movie.
Dude - I’m a rabid cinephile and I watch a lot of video essays on TH-cam. This is by far the best I’ve ever seen, and it’s on a film I hadn’t even considered. I heeded your spoiler warning and came back, and you helped me appreciate this film as the horror masterpiece it is. And to think, I was gaga over THE CABIN IN THE WOODS as the most genius expression of meta horror ever when this gem existed.
Welp. Went though the comment section saw your comment and decided as a fellow cinefile it would be worth watching. It really fucked with me. I blame you 😂
Elesian Subs Hah! Glad you had the experience! I’ll just say you’re welcome 😆
Cabin is surface level meta for normies. Funny Games is possibly the deepest meta movie out there. Still one of my fav movies to this day
I wouldn't call either genius tbh
it's a modernized 'a clockwork orange' and i love it
I feel like when paul looks at the camera at the end of the film its an indictment of the audience as part of the events that took place onscreen. Since the barrier of fiction has been completely obliterated at this point, we are responsible in a way for this family dying. If i were to say, stop watching the movie before any deaths had taken place, then to me and my reality, no one died in the movie i just watched. But by continuing to watch the movie the audience is complicit in letting these things happen to the characters. But its not like the audience could do anything for the family, the plot of the movie is that they die, but that plot doesnt happen unless we watch the movie. I see it similarly to how in undertale continuing to play the game after getting the true pacifist ending is an admission by the player that they arent satisfied letting the characters of the universe be happy, and that in order to satiate their desire to play the video game the characters in that video game dont get to keep their happy ending. In other words the way to get the “happy ending” to funny games is just to not watch the movie, but then you’d be missing out on the experience of watching the film but the film directly kinda criticizes you for continuing to watch it and fuck its just too good. This is in my top 3 favorite videos of yours, behind the kunst saga and the recent one about art objectivity. I’ve watched it 30+ times and it’s just as well put together as i remember it being every time.
Excellent analysis, I agree that the ending is a direct indictment of the viewer. It’s like “here you are, at the end. You sick fuck.” I’ve never felt so penetrated by a look on screen. Paul is staring into your soul and directly calling you out. It’s your fault this family died.
What if you rewind
@@thewizard1 if you’ve watched the film you know what happens when things get rewinded
@@aguywhoexists4351 what happens when you watch a recap or a video essay about the movie on TH-cam
@@thewizard1 i think that is outside the scope of the film
21:32 I want you to appreciate this shot, this frame, this expression of pure fear and hopelessness imbued in the face of that kid
It really makes you feel sorry for him
I'm really hoping you will see this. In the conversation Paul and Peter have at the end, I think you missed something. Peter is talking about the sci-fi story he's been writing, and how the place where the protagonist is stuck in, which was first supposed to be an anti-matter alternate universe, turns out to be fiction. Then Paul posits "if you can see it, it's real". I don't think Paul is (directly) saying that all on-screen fiction is real because you can view it, but that in a work of fiction, dubbing an element of that story 'fiction' (in other words two layers of fiction for us) does not make any difference if you actually depict the 'fictional' place, since there is no basis for distinction in the audience's eyes; fiction inside fiction is as real to the viewer as the story within it resides, so if the story is supposed to be 'real', then the fiction inside it is just as real.
I'm not sure if this is something you've considered and whether you thought it was a metaphor for what you explained it as in the video, but in any case I would like to hear your thoughts on it, since I found your essay very insightful. Hoping I'm not too late and that you reply to new comments
thank you, I haven’t seen funny games and that part of the analysis was bothering me. your context helped a lot
[preface: writing based on watching the 1997 version (imo superior on tension)] I took this as a dual meaning; so first of all as a comment on the nature of being accustomed to watching violent horrors, the impacts that has on the viewer, and how the viewer typically distances themselves from the actions within horror movies in general (deeming them solely fiction) as a coping mechanism to enjoy a film's gruesome nature.
But secondly, asking the viewer whether the events they just witnessed were "fictional" within the world the movie resides in, since nearly all interactions were intentionally cut short and involved (to my recollection having watched the movie a number of years ago) deaths that resulted in the actor being quickly removed from the scene, rather than remaining as a corpse. Asking how the events of the movie could have an impact on the viewer. And further, whether the removal of the "torture porn" sort of scenes typical of horror movies has diminished (or lessened in severity) your impression of the events (relating to the previous discussion [before she is lifted on the gunwale]) on the difficulty of retaining communication between the two universes of fiction and reality [their universe lacking the typical gruesome scenes you'd come to expect of a typical horror]) simply due to one being deemed fiction.
So to summarize I took it both as a introspective into the "joy" or entertainment people derive from slasher/torture style movies, and an introspective into how you have perceived a film in which you *didn't* see the events typical of slasher movies, but rather the aftermath- and if that removal of gory brutality can still constitute a valid horror. Begging the question - if horror movies (more so American horrors) are unnecessarily violent in their exposure of the gore in order to sate a niche (possibly not niche and a significant segment) of the horror audience who watch for the suffering or brutal death of others typical to these movies - and what pleasure you as a viewer derive from a movie absent of these typical horror cliches.
Edit: To add, questioning whether the disavowal of events in movies allows one to enjoy the gruesome scenes they are watching, what impact that has on the viewer, and whether this separation of actions from resulting impacts impacted your perception of the overarching message (and the murders within the film) to question how/why you enjoy horror movies.
Konnie M. Yea that’s a big theme of Haneke’s work. He has a very Videodrone take on cinema, essentially that anything seen in a movie is part of reality bc it exists in real life. So anything that is viewed is part of reality once it’s seen in real life and once you believe that, there is no such thing as ‘fiction’ in regards to cinema because everything becomes non-fiction wants it’s viewed in real life. Or something along those lines lol. Kind of the Schrödinger’s cat approach to film making. Once it’s observed, ‘it’ becomes real.
@@ChuckECheeez huh, that's interesting to me because although I rarely get into interviews and such (have zero idea of Haneke as a person), I have seen most of his films and there's something about the way he works that sticks like a thorn in my psyche more than almost any other filmmaker. i still have thoughts about stuff like The Piano Teacher even though I haven't watched it since like 2006
It's real because you want it to be real, but why would you want a reality like this? (Why not?) lol
I remember tuning into this movie one morning when I woke up at like 4 AM just cuz nothing else was on, not knowing anything else about it. It was one hell of a trip.
Me too.
me too LMAOOO i remember waking up at like 7 in the morning and it was on my tv
Well you weren't wrong when you said funny games was upsetting. Just from what of it you showed in this video got me very upset. Especially the boat scene. Idk why but when they pushed her into the water i got visibly upset. Like more than i thought I should've been
I'd never seen the American version. From what I remember, in the original, there's a knife just out of her reach on the boat, tantalizing the audience before they throw her off the side
This is even worse. You don't even get the fakeout catharsis; you get nothing
No, the knife bait and switch is still there.
Imagine my experience when I caught this on tv innocuously not having heard a thing about it in my life. I did the intro tho.
it's so casual. like it didn't even matter. they just... move on, like they got bored.
I had casual feelings about it myself. To me it advanced the movie to the next point even though I knew it was almost over with the last death. I was pretty interested in the sailing situational aesthetic. Like "lets just go boating now". They did a good job sailing too.
i love that this video has serbian subtitles for some reason
Same. I thought that the author is Serbian and added them lol
I think Anne starts to suspect something is wrong when "Peter" says "did you give Tom the eggs?" Up to that point he had referred to his evil twin as Peter.
The home invaders really just comes down to preference. Pitt and Corbet feel like inserts from the author. Like they're constantly above the violence and being smug because they don't really need to worry about any of it. As if they know it's simply a movie.
But the Original 2 feel like true sociopaths who are attacking the family simply because they are sick. Peter especially, but the moment when the 4th wall is broken, feels almost jarring. Less like how Pitt Plays it like he's laughing along with us, but more like "I see you out there watching, and I'll be knocking on your door pretty soon too."
Again it's preference. Pitt isn't scary because he isn't real. He feels phony (that's what makes him so good). But the original feels real, and any breaks in reality feel jarring and even further implicates us (I think) because we're not removed from the violence in the same way Peter is. We're engaging with it until we realize we're being watched as well.
Yeah I thought the first actors were way better than the English remake
I'm not really into torture porn. I like the stories in some horror movies, but I genuinely hope as many people survive as possible.
I only watched Funny Games because I'd heard that it was good. The whole movie I kept wondering about some of the "mistakes" that made everything so much easier for the two boys. "Why would any house not have a landline which allows for emergency calls even if there's no active phone service? Why would she leave her cell phone next to the sink full of water?"
Then the remote scene happened, and I realized the diablus ex machina at work. I was kind of pissed about that, but your video did give me a new way to look at it in a way that I can appreciate it more.
"Why would she leave her cell phone next to the sink full of water?" Dude, mistakes like that happen all the time in life! It can only feel weird from the safe distance 3rd person perspective of your couch.
My uncle's retreat house doesn't have a land line and AT&T cell service is shitty. There's actually a splice pedestal by the road but the phone company has apparently abandoned the trunk and won't offer service.
I honestly never got the whole "Funny Games is boring" critique, but maybe that's because I found the acting to be fantastic even the first time I watched it despite being unaware of the background and purpose of the film or even who the director was.
"funny games is boring" is more of a creative choice on haneke's part than a point of criticism. there are shots that drag on for several minutes where nothing happens, he wants you to be bored. hence the home invaders constantly asking what time it is, like a viewer wanting the movie to hurry up and get to the point so they can go on with their day.
Yeah, Funny Games is a genuinely tense and disturbing film (which ends up making its message a lot more poignant)
it's boring to those who need mr beasts level cuts to be "entertained" - same people who would've watched those weird puppet theatres where the puppet man beats his wife.
I think the ending is probably a way of saying to the audience "You're going to keep watching violent slasher films aren't you?", but it's more disturbing because you just witnessed pure suffering and it wasn't enjoyable suffering. I saw Funny Games about a year ago and loved it but I can't say it has impacted the way I view violent horror films. To me, it's still all art, special effects, acting, and writing. Nothing has changed for me since Funny Games. When I view fiction, it's just so much easier to divorce myself from the feelings of the characters unless the artist intends for me to have those feelings.
Overall, Funny Games was a great film but I still don't understand what it is the director wants from me.
Jragon // Learn How To Make Minecraft Commands he wants your blood!
I think he wants you to realize that fiction can still affect you just as much as the real world. That really their is no difference between the 2.
I haven't seen the above video yet, but I saw this film first time when i was 18 or 19. Back then I didn't really understand what this movie was trying to say, so I just shrugged it off. Couple years ago I decided to watch the film again. Half point through I stopped watching because I understood what it was about. The two killers are basically part of the audience. They are constantly reminding that you can stop the madness by simple press of a button. I mean the whole scene where the killers give a chance for the victim to escape or whatever, was there exactly so that the movie would give you enough time to consider stop watching it. In essence Haneke is trying to say that violence is never completely fictional. He wants you to be afraid of violence. I don't know if that made any sense but that's how I understood it.
I wanted the family to win all throughout the movie. When they killed the boy, I wanted two of them to somehow still survive. When Anna shot Peter I cheered, but then Paul just rewound the scene. Even when he pushed her from the boat, I was still expecting her to surface somehow. Instead I got a big fat fuck you. I think that was the point. It's genius, actually, with little details like the phone almost working, or that knife on the boat which we were explicitly made aware from the beginning, but which Paul notices the moment Anna starts cutting the rope.
he wants you to Learn How To Make Minecraft Commands
I feel like there had to be a way of doing this video without making the entire comment section about Goku
Sure, but is that necessarily a BETTER way?
what better way to obscure the comment section on a subversive movie essay?
Why does fiction work in the first place? Are we just that stupid? Also my favorite part of the movie is the discussion the two have on the boat at the end, where they're just like, "Yeah, don't even try talking yourself into thinking all the torture and suffering you just witnessed means nothing. It was valid."
The creator honestly read my mind with that scene. The first thing I wanted to do was dismiss the whole ordeal as fiction, but he wouldn't allow me to. This movie honestly forces you into a kind of growth spurt
Also makes me think of what actors are put through for “entertainment “. On so many levels. From just a crying scene all the way to abuse and harassment that actors experience off screen. From their own bosses, who would then write a torture scene for them to “play”. *shudders*
"Why does fiction work in the first place? Are we just that stupid?'
With all the streaming crap coming out now, the answer is proven to be yes.
but it literally is fiction lmfao. it's entertainment, it's not news footage or a snuff film.
@@gotgunpowder bad take
@@gotgunpowder But does that really matter when the whole point is that you suspend your disbelief and take it as if it was real on some level anyways? As far as our own perception goes, it’s real, that’s what the movie is about really.
because of this video i decided to watch funny games and oh boy, what a masterpiece. something that i love that you didnt touch on is how the film indulges in a very light, white palette, not only contributing to the daylight horror of it, but directly subverting horror movies that use darkness and dim lighting to add to the horror and suspense.
im sure someone else has pointed it out by now, but i love how you, in your video about subversive fiction, subverted your own comment section from being focused on the main part of the video in favor of a question that only matters to prove a point. this was a wonderful video, and i can't wait for more. it truly made me reconsider fiction in the same way that you described. keep up the spectacular work!
When i was in middle school I used to draw yaoi of Paul and Peter
based
Ayoooo
Nice😅
My friend and I stumbled upon this movie when we were like 12 and it quickly became one of my favorite movies and I think that's why I'm broken and can't enjoy movies anymore
Same lol, I was not prepared for what I was about to see
I understood the movie as a paradox of how civilized people are so used to safety that they find themselves completely defenseless to any threat that might come their way, these murderers are a couple brats that don't even get their white clothes dirty during a massacre, we are terrified of violence and that gives power to those willing to use it.
Except they are not just brats. They are meta- demons who can reverse time.
They are written as unbeatable even after one of them takes a shot gun blast to the chest.
28:59 incredible to notice that, while Anna's rifle shot got to be fully on screen and bloody, Peter keeps his attack on Anna offscreen. Of course. Anna's breaking the rules, she's not writing the story, so she's not following its conventions. Peter is one of the authors, so he commits violence the way the author (Haneke/Peter) wants to have it in the story: subverted and dangled away from the viewer.
What an insight! ❤
honestly I personally didn't find the "boring" parts all that boring I think they actually served to elevate the suspense as both you and the victims honestly don't know whats going to happen next or how they're going to get out of this situation and it filled me with a sense of terror and excitement instead of boredom
Question for people who have seen this film (spoilers) - what do you think is up with the tent on their neighbors’ lawn? The one we see in the first shots after the heavy metal music in the titles sequence cuts out. Haneke has such attention to detail, it clearly wasn’t a random thing. I have an opinion. I’m guessing that the two baddies have the couple’s kid isolated in the tent. I don’t think their child is dead at that point, because the dad is still able to approximate normality when he comes to help launch the boat. Which makes sense if his child is still alive, but not if he or she has already been killed. He doesn’t break character when visiting with George and Anne, which suggests the villains have some serious leverage over him beyond threatening his own life, in which case it would have made more sense for “Uncle Fred” to sound the alarm and get George’s help in beating Paul (who was not particularly physically imposing) senseless. So that’s why I think their kid - the one that little Georgie wanted to speak to but wasn’t answering him - must still be alive in the opening shots, and it has something to do with the tent on the lawn that everyone is standing next to. Love to hear any other thoughts on the tent issue.
I think you've gone a little far on the assumptions with it - the tent is likely something to convey the uncomfortable nature of the film (no reason for a tent to be there), control of the filmmaker (the camera doesn't show anything inside the tent, door is shut), & possibly hint at the viewer's watching experience (you're sitting in a theater shoved in the middle of someone's [fictional] life).
its a golf tent, so you can practice your swings and not lose your golf balls ?
@@stevef998 its just golf tent, so you can practice your swings and not lose your golf balls
14:54 I interpret this shot as the antagonist "watching" the suffering of the victims with the audience, in a sort of meta style. The original does that all the time in more subtle ways. Which is another thing that makes me like it more than the remake. It makes more sense with the controller at the end.
The German actors have this raw edge the American actors don't. There's something about the friendly faces of the German actors that you think they won't hurt a fly, which makes it more terrifying.
@@Onmysheet .... good point
Also, props to how Haneke made the exact same movie twice so I can thoroughly understand this analysis having only seen the 1997 version.
Dude, Everyone knows the answer to the Superman vs Goku question. The answer is simple: Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a metaphor for the trajectory of historical Leftist movements, and Battleship Hime from Kantai Collection is a lesbian without a straight bone in her body.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the final step to turn the new trilogy into capitalism realism incarnate. Fite me. :P
I know, it doesn't have anything to do with the video, but I had a hot take inside of me
I did love this movie. My roommate and I watched it together and she and I had goosebumps by the end. We got a lot of value out of the film, but I can totally understand others feeling bored
I think a big piece of our enjoyment is the nature of the villains and the lack of on screen violence. We both love horror movies but oddly we don’t love watching gore.
As for the villains when we play D&D there were some foes that behaved with that same coldness as Paul. The fascination was less about the absoluteness of the hero’s failure, but more the lack of autonomy given to them. She might have a different take on this, but regardless we both enjoyed it all the way through and on multiple rewatches.
I watched this movie only once almost ten years ago but it's one of those rare movies that I actually remember well, and this review made me see it all over again. It's all so unnerving, and so well done. Love this analysis.
Also Goku and Superman wouldn't fight to the death. Superman wouldn't kill someone who's not threatening Earth and Goku wouldn't kill someone who can provide him with a good fight.
the two villains talking in the background, michael pitt’s character scolding the other for killing the kid while the camera is focused on the tv is brilliant. it reminds me of a viewer scolding a character in a movie for killing in a way that wasn’t gory enough (and i’m sure that was the point.) i love this movie.
When Peter got up to get food because he was hungry, it looks like he started eating the raw meat that Ann had cut up just before he arrived for the eggs. Not sure if it’s relevant to anything, but it’s definitely an odd thing for him to choose to eat.
Is it bad that I was laughing hysterically at most of the violence in this movie? Not because it was unrealistic (it was ultra realistic), but because of how savage it was. 😂
For the answer at the end do you think it's similar to the answer of "how do you kill a zombie"? In that the answer to the zombie question is "how ever way you want.". Thus implying that since zombies are fictional it's all dependent on the author on how to kill them.
Shut up, kid.
no, I refuse.
It just hit me that when we see Paul and Peter with the neighbors in the beginning, we're getting a voyeuristic shot of what would be the cold open of the film~
I'll be honest, while I love this review, I think the comparison of Funny Games vs The Cabin in the Woods is a little... unfair. While both tackle the same themes, it's with an entirely different worldview. The Cabin in the Woods loves slashers. Funny Games does not. The Cabin in the woods is a love letter to the horror genre flaws and all. Funny Games aims to constantly critique it and by extension it's viewers.
Cabin in the Woods is the loving, understanding parent who doesn't condone their child's shitty behaviour, and just wants to know why it happened and tries to come up with a better solution to the issue with the child. Funny Games is an abusive asshole step-parent who yells, physically punishes and grounds the child without ever listening to what they have to say or trying to understand them.
@@levischorpioen I think of it more as Cabin in the Woods is that movie your inner geek wanted made just to see all the ridiculous tropes of typical cabin slasher movies rolled into one, where as Funny Games is something that was intended to have a message that would resonate with the audience and make them think more critically about how they view horror/slashers. I do agree that it's not a really fair comparison though, one is more for a geek-out fun session, the other for a serious critical/evocative approach to the genre
i'm not sure i'd even say that Haneke doesn't love slashers, i don't think he's making a genre critique, I think he just decided what if we took all this seriously for once?
I never saw this movie when it came out because I did think it was a bog standard slasher movie but now I have to see it an experience it first hand.
6:35 everyone was great
Devon with the sheer terror and crying, roth with his ear pricing screams of pain, and watts with her sheer contempt and sadness
26:00 I also like the little touch where he takes a bite out of a bagguet, only to spit it out seconds later, implying he's so distraught he cant even bring himself to eat to keep up his energy
I watched this video when it first came out about a month ago. And more than any other video essay it has played on my mind ever since. Fantastic work!
great video!
i hope in funny games 2 we get to see peter finally get to enjoy a nice satisfying meal.
This movie was as unsettling as Salo was and left me empty and depressed for more than a week just like Salo. Its a masterpiece.
I always fantasized about making a movie that subverts every expectation to 11/10, where I could just do whatever I wanted "because", but in my mind it always ends up reaching a point so ridiculous I feel like only a few people could possibly appreciate my pretentiousness of being "so meta" and/or being entertained at all without walking out. I never knew this movie already existed lol.
Edit: I really wish I could go back and watch the movie now, before watching this essay. I'm curious to know whether or not I would have appreciated it or been frustrated with it. I feel now like I would have liked it. But part of me wonders if I would have hated it before having its intricacies spoon-fed to me. Similar to Enemy, before watching Chris Stuckman's analysis.
Try remaking some story that already exist. I created true masterpieces in my head using that method XD
Think everyone should see this movie. It has such a profound message about violence in cinema. It’s the antithesis of Tarantino sensationalism. It’s a movie about violence, a movie about psychopathy, a superbly gruesome movie but there aren’t any murders shown on screen. It’s all implied. It’s meant to explore the real-life destruction of violence without using it as a vehicle for entertainment. It’s one of the scariest movies ever, but it shows no gore or sensational violence. He doesn’t use gore to build suspense. I’ve seen an interview w Haneke where he says he detests Schindler’s List for multiple reasons but uses the scene in the gas chamber as evidence, saying it was horrible how Spielberg utilized the gas chamber scene as a way to build suspense, or, to entertain. And I’d never really thought about it but he’s right, or at least has a valid point. There are subjects so serious that they shouldn’t be manipulated in a way for entertainment. Violence is such a pervasive part of culture and artists should probably be more careful with how they use it for entertainment. This is not to say I don’t love Scorsese or Tarantino, but it’s interesting how Haneke can create disturbing, violent art without being sensational or exploitive. Brilliant movie.
There’s also a whole other conversation about fiction and reality and the Schrodinger’s cat application toward cinema in relation to the film and all the fourth wall breaks. It’s fucking brilliant. And Haneke is a pretentious blow hard lol.
Also, see the case of Leopold and Loeb if you are interested in a “real-life” case of two privileged teenage psychopaths who commit murder for the fun of it.
Incredibly well-made video, thanks so much Eric. You'll always have my support! This one was a little out of my normal area of expertise, and you did a great job of guiding the viewer through the topic. It was entertaining, well-paced, and very informative. Cheers!
Michael Pitt is an absolutely incredible actor, man... 🤦♂️ Haneke is an insanely talented filmmaker.
I had already seen the original version of this movie, but this is making me want to see the u.s. version as well. seems like michael pitt gives a really great performance
This was an awesome video. I for one was a huge fan of funny games. I'm an especially huge fan of societal freak-outs as well. When my girlfriend and I went to Disneyland we rode the Indiana Jones ride. Right when the rides camera mechanism decided to take our picture we had positioned ourselves to look like I had just punched her in the face. When everybody was looking we at their own glee filled photos ours of course showcased that we had in fact nailed the position so it completely looked like I had just taken her out in the blackness of this ride. It was a good day 😊
Something about the ending really scares me. It’s clearly an indictment of the viewer, like “you sat through this. Here we are. Why are you watching this?” It made me very uncomfortable
Wow, thanks. I've watched them all and that's the analysis I was looking for. Damn, you've accomplished what seemed impossible to me, you've made me UNDERSTAND this movie, lol. I'd like to address one detail concerning rewinding scene which you've neatly called "plot armor". Specifically, the fact that Paul uses Volume button on the remote which might seem inconsistent, or even silly.
So, I've once heard a Buddhist master say: "In the world of ghosts you don't need translators" - meaning that in the metaphysical realm the communication occurs above the semantics, completely outside of cognitive boundaries the "material world" is otherwise imposing on us.
In the movie, Paul and Peter are clearly the tools of the architect and not the subject he works on. The strokes of the brush on the canvas, not the picture. The act of creating art, not the work of art itself. They're above the convention, they're metaphysical, the rules don't apply to them. They could press the nail on the wall or the button on their shirt and rewind the scene just as fine, and it would be as much valid as the Volume button on the remote. They're like the brush set in Photoshop compared to the actual pixels ;)
Once again, thanks for the amazing breakdown of the movie. I think it kind of changed my perception of art as well.
I think he presses that button to make it read better for the audience, but your interpretation is good too.
Neither. Both. It doesn't matter. The one who will win in this fight is the one whom the story demands will win. These are both characters who are written to be as powerful or weak enough to win or lose in service of the story.
In Goku's narrative, Superman may win at first, afterwards, Goku spends hours and hours upon episodes and episodes of montage-filled filler, building up his power level until he does defeat Superman. For Superman, Goku may acquire kryptonite, demanding Superman be creative, or patient, or depend upon the support of others or use some other moralistic device to come out on top. So the answer is "Who's writing the story? Who do they want to win? Who should win, in this narrative?"
Outstanding video. I watched Funny Games quite some time ago, and it bothered me enough that I never wanted to watch it again, despite appreciating its craft. This is a terrific dissection of the film.
Michael Pitt is awesome in any role he been in.
I saw this version when it first came out. I was just a kid, but it's always been one of my favorite movies, even though I didn't understand it. This makes so much sense.
broooooo don't just glaze over the first time we meet paul and call it filler lol! That scene is one of my favorites just due to how well the actor portrays fear without saying anything. His eyes say "help me" and I feel like that's incredibly noticeable on repeated viewings
Every time he made eye contact with the audience I was so viscerally uncomfortable I had to put my hand up on the screen
You question at the beginning made me think of the question, "how do you kill a vampire?", from the death and return of Superman video. The answer is however the fuck you want, because vampires aren't real.
I saw this movie around the time it released and while intrigued, I now realize I was too young(read: stupid) to truly understand what was going on. So funny to see all these things you pointed out that went completely over my head! Great video
Great video. I have a very kneejerk negative reaction to "it's the same movie, but remade in your language!" But in this case I'll have to make am exception and finally watch the 2007 version.
The two murderers are such interesting characters. What is their backstory? Are they ever telling the truth or are they just bullshitting and making up stories the whole time? They're like these invincible cartoon characters (note: the white gloves) that just pop up cause havoc, laugh about it and leave when they get bored. The fact that it's established this isn't the first family they've murdered and it won't be the last... it makes me wonder if these guys have been travelling door-to-door wiping out the families in every house just because they can. They're so casual about torturing people it's disturbing. Great film.
The German line "Who do you think will win... You are on their side, aren't you?" which is way less ambiguous about the fact the audience might be rooting for the bad guys.
I just wanted to say that I re-watch this video every so often, because your analysis and love for the film is so amazing to be shared with us as an audience, but also a testament to how great this movie is as well. I frequently put longer videos on as background to whatever other activity I'm doing, however with this video i can't help but watch it. I feel completely embedded in the movie even when short clips are playing. I adore your critique (or moreso adulation?) of Funny Games and you've made the experience of watching the movie on it's own an even greater, almost intimate experience. You alongside Michael Haneke are wonderful creators.
I noted something to add to the satire. "Look out!" Happens a second after the brother is blown back a la shotgun.
to me this is the black hole analogy, because peter (piggy) is inside the black hole (the movie) and paul is the hero observing from outside the event horizon, he's seeing it as it happens and thinking "you should have been looking out!" , it plays into how paul is the main character even tho he's the villain and how he's untethered, unbound we are viewing the premise of a horror movie playing out in loops, no hero resolution just abject horror
Funny games is a great thriller not only the acting has you on the side of your seat but the fact the two men play cat and mouse with the family is so intense
Exactly
I prefer the original tbh. As a native speaker in german you notice subtle edges and spikes in the performances which made it immensly scary to me. The austrio-german accents in the film also works in favor of portaying the torturers sadism since it's often perceived as highly cultural but slightly bored. (I really hope, my syntax makes some kind of sense)
Nope (2022) is a beautiful companion piece to this
Nope.
I really prefer not to watch horror movies, and slashed flicks and torture porn in particular. However, what this movie does is amazing! The scene with the remote honestly amazed me, like holy shit! There were a few lines that I thought I didn’t understand because I was seeing it out of context, but it totally wasn’t! It’s these things that make me really appreciate analysis channels because I wouldn’t have watched that scene otherwise. And the few horror movies I do watch I miss a lot of because I’m probably not going to watch them multiple times and I’m too scared to catch a lot of what is happening on the first watch.
I accidentally watched this movie with my mom during our family movie night. I think she regretted it...
My mom would hate this movie lol
This is still one of my favorite film analysis videos ever and I’m still recommending it to people. Amazing work. 💜
That ending put the fear of God in me more profoundly than any typical horror gotcha no lie
Easily one of my favorite movies I’ve ever seen and no one will let me show it to them
"DC Universe Superman"
*Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down*
Thanks! Haneke is my fave director, and Funny Games is not leaving my mind. Now I understand why I love this film on a new level. I was obsessed for a while, comparing the German and US versions frame by frame. Nice! I enjoyed this video!
I much prefer the German film, more underrated and it helps that I don’t know the actors, the American version seems a little overdone, maybe just because of the increased fidelity and production value.
Thank you for this video! I've only ever seen the original funny games so it's cool to see the little differences in the remake
11:00 - "Who might be in power now? Maybe my humble phallus could give you a hint."
David Lynch summed all of this up in three words: No hay banda
I've never seen this movie but I've watched this video essay at least three times akdjsjsh
I fucking LOVE this film. Michael Pitt is an INSANELY gifted actor/artist.
I first watched this movie 5 years ago. My original reason for watching it was because I thought it would be a standard horror/thriller, so, of course, when I got to the end of the movie I was frustrated and annoyed. Coming back to it 5 years later and re-watching it, I now understand and appreciate it.
IMO, the heroes aren't the family being victimised. The heroes are Peter and Paul, because they're working for us, the audience. Without their psychotic-selves, this genre wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be entertained. The best stories are the ones where the heroes/protagonists are disguised.
Got really confused at first when they were speaking English. Totally forgot that this movie was remade. Not going to watch that again though
Edit: Also I quite prefer the original to the remake. (though I've only seen the clips of the remake shown here) I loved Peter in the original because he was really good at masking his emotions. In this version it's a bit too blunt. Also I think the casting was quite better in the first. (and Arno Frisch was weirdly attractive)