Hacker Cinema
Funny Games
1997 · Film · 109 min
Directed by Michael Haneke
Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement.
2 positive2 neutralfrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
Jack’s seeing lots of phantoms—why not also the viewer, whom the camera brings “in” to the scene?
(When you start pulling on that thread—the viewer as a vital part of the fiction, as really present, as encouraging and complicit in what takes place—and make that the focus of a horror film, you get Funny Games)
Does anyone ever get "life is amazing but I choose to be angry" vibes from the comments on this topic every time it comes up? Like letting yourself get livid that you couldn't quite stretch your legs on a cheap flight that took you where ever you wanted in the world.
I always scroll the comments in the hopes of finding someone frustrated at the frustration, and I never find it.
For example, in these comments people assert that it's "user-hostile" that Netflix's search shows you related shows for your search term.
Should it do a better job indicating that your target show wasn't found? Maybe. Though I'd like to hear how you'd design that, because Netflix search is essentially a multi-lingual keyword search across multi-lingual titles. Is someone searching "funny" looking for the movie "Funny Games"? You'll notice that Netflix tries to help you drill down into comedies.
It's "user-hostile"? Has anyone here not been in a group setting trying to find something to watch, so you search something and someone recognizes some other movie from the search results? I've never even been in a group setting where anyone knew what we should watch, chaining through related videos seems like the best UX.
Also, do we really need access to every bit of content under the sun for some small monthly payment? Is that really the end-game? As a community of people who supposedly appreciate the merits of decentralization, which company gets to be that tollbooth of all content produced by humanity?
This topic generates so many strong opinions and anger at what seem like inconsequential issues that I have to wonder how much of the problem is Netflix and how much is merely our entitlement in a world where we have access to more content than any humans in history, and how that makes us even thirstier than ever.
Maybe Brody will enjoy Michael Haneke's upcoming foray into children's films: Funny Games Too
> A subset of the fans of the book get mad because the violence and fascism seemed so much cooler in their heads.
A film that does a great job of exploring this discrepancy (how we think violence is really cool... right up to the point where the director portrays it to us in a blunt and unflattering way) is Funny Games (either the original, or the shot-for-shot American remake. whichever is your preference.)
Funny Games pulled a bait and switch, selling itself "torture-porn" to draw in that sort of audience, then refusing to give that sort of audience satisfaction. Brutal violence, but almost entirely offscreen. Broke the 4th wall on several occasions to openly mock the viewers.