Splendidly acted (Arno Frisch manages to be chilling and funny), sly and more accessible than Haneke's other films (we recently caught The White Ribbon where amusingly almost nothing is resolved), Funny Games was thankfully not as upsetting as some fainthearts would have it (Eden Lake was far worse); and it's partly because we're involved in the joke that we're a step removed. But does Haneke's lesson - focusing us to acknowledge our roles as accomplices in screen violence - really make any difference? We have, after all, been participating since the days of Shakespeare and Greek tragedy. He at least agrees with Hitchcock, that the more intelligent the villain, the better the film. And his inspiration - that perpetrators of violent crime can be well-off and unmotivated - is unsettling.
With Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Frank Giering.
Ph. Jürgen Jürges
