MovieChat Forums > Funny Games (2008) Discussion > Necessary movie

Necessary movie

posted 7 years ago by Renovatio (2990)
6 replies | jump to latest

A very necessary movie... I'm glad Haneke took this direction with the movie and that he made his intentions explicit... His commentary on movie violence and our lust for it as an audience...

I usually don't like movies about movies, but this is one of the exceptions... Usually when a character breaks the fourth wall by talking to the audience and when the director does something to make it clear that you are watching a movie, it takes me out of the movie... this time, it was done well and for good reason, not just empty style...

Heneke gets it... he understands that in order to get your point across to a wide audience you can't be too subtle about it... That's where this movie works better than Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, which was completly misunderstood by critics is still misunderstood by so many people who didn't get the satire or social commentary...

Also, Funny Games is fairly entertaining, well shot and very well acted... Solid movie and should be more popular given what it deals with...

I would love to hear what Haneke thinks of current blood-less mass violence in movies and TV, from a cultural point of view... The CGI comicbook movie voilence, the voilence as revenge-porn and as empowerment, etc... To me it seems worse than the bloody and viseral voilence of the movies in the 90s... It has all of the fantasy and glamorised elements, but not of the physical consequence... nevermind any moral consequences... what's more desensitising, the voilence in resevoir dogs or the violence in Dark Knight/Avengers/WonderWoman?

[–] RazoulGoozleSmog (169) 7 years ago

How about shows like The Walking Dead & Breaking Bad allowing TV shows to become more violent over these past 10 years?I've seen some pretty gory things on TV since then, what's it all leading to?

I guess we could discuss political conspiracy theories, but most of the time it just pisses people off.

[–] ghostboy (652) 7 years ago

Shows were gorey before then. Have you ever seen Spartacus? Sorry, I meant before shows like TWD and Breaking Bad. I just read the part over the past ten years.

[–] RazoulGoozleSmog (169) 7 years ago

That was on the movie channel Starz I believe or Showtime, I don't know I never had them, those shows are allowed to get away with stuff like that.

TWD and Breaking Bad were on basic cable.

[–] ghostboy (652) 7 years ago

True, but I think it was inevitable shows would become violent.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

I don't know those shows in particular as I don't watch many TV shows, but I think it would possibly apply there as well... Probably even more so, because TV shows tend to move quickly from one plot point to the next and from episode to episode, so you don't have as much time to think or feel about the violence as is possible in the better movies...

Movies end and we reflect on them for some time afterwards... It stays with us, whereas with TV there is always the distraction of the next episode and such...

[–] Drooch (5333) 4 years ago

I thought it was obnoxious and pointless, just a nasty as hell experience made by a preachy tosser who thinks we need to be punished for enjoying violent movies. Newsflash: people used to watch gladiators butcher each other and public hangings.

Movies are a safe way to experience and see things we’d rather avoid in daily life, they’re a thrill ride. This however was just torture porn, or even worse - suffering porn. Who wants to watch a family with a kid get tortured and murdered?

Haneke is clearly a talented filmmaker, it’s just a shame that his worldview is perverse and wrong. If you’re going to get on a moral high horse, at least get on the right one.

Also, the idiot doesn’t seem to realise the hypocrisy of trying to punish people for enjoying violent movies... by adding a particularly violent and sick movie to the world of cinema 🤦🏻‍♂️