10 Movies That Thought They Were Smart (But Really Weren't)

2. Funny Games

Michael Haneke's Funny Games (in both its original form and in the US Naomi Watts-starring remake) is a film aimed almost solely to provoke, raising questions about the nature of violence and how we as consumers of culture engage with it. The narrative, which sees two sadistic young men take a family hostage and torture them, is intentionally framed as a relatively generic thriller movie, toying with audience's expectations of how a story such as this "should" unfold. Of course, Haneke has other ideas, and aside from never revealing the motives of the two men (something audiences reared on Hollywood typically crave), he shows very little violence on-screen in an attempt to provoke audiences who may have been expecting, even hoping to savour a gorefest. In addition to this, Haneke has the two boys constantly break the fourth wall in an attempt to shatter our connection with the grim material, such as referencing the fact that they're in a movie and being aware of what the audience expects to happen, which is one of the family members fighting back and killing the two psychos. The most famous moment in the movie occurs when the mother of the family, Anna, shoots one of the boys, at which point the other lad, Paul, uses a remote control to simply rewind the film and stop her doing it. By the end of the movie, none of the three family members survive, and the final shot has Paul smirking at the screen, content that the audience hasn't been satisfied in the way they've been conditioned to expect. Haneke has stated that he wanted to make a movie that critiques the violence proliferated in mass media, and the whole point of the movie was to be violent and have little intrinsic human worth. There is no redemption for the family, the villains are not punished, nor are we given any reason for why they commit these acts. Though Haneke's goal is admirable, it makes Funny Games a frequently frustrating film to watch, one that bashes viewers over the head with its ideology and doesn't do so in a particularly intelligent or thought-provoking way (except for the rewind scene, of course). Paul's final smirk into the camera feels less like Haneke is trying to plead with us and more like he's talking down to and judging the audience. The obnoxiousness of how the message is delivered may ultimately override the meaning itself.