10 Films That Make You The Bad Guy
2. Funny Games
Funny Games is not a particularly funny film... or should we say film(s)? Director Michael Haneke made his film twice, first in his native Austria, and then a shot-for-shot American remake. This could be viewed as either a colossal waste of time and resources, or a genius meta-commentary on the state of film and the tastes and demands of cinema-goers.
Meta-commentary really is the name of the game in both versions of Funny Games. On the surface, the film is nothing but two hours of two sociopaths in golf gear mercilessly murdering an ordinary family for seemingly no reason. Right under the surface, barely hiding at all, the movie is an indictment of the glamourisation of violence in film, and the general audience's taste for viewing violence onscreen.
Just in case anyone doesn't understand the not-particularly subtle message, the murderers Peter and Paul make sure to break the fourth wall and directly implicate the audience in every horrible act they commit.
By the time the film is over and the entire family is dead, Haneke has made his point clear. The characters in the film didn't do this: how could they? They don't exist. He did this by choosing to make the film, and we did it by choosing to watch and support countless needlessly violent films.
The blood of thousands of fictional characters is on our hands.