The director Michael Haneke has made something of a career of disturbing the natural order of the elites, whether sending a prim music instructor into a downward spiral in The Piano Teacher or forcing a highbrow TV host to revisit his childhood sins in Caché (Hidden). His latest film, Funny Games, begins simply enough: Two well-born teenagers show up at the front door of a neighbor's house to borrow some eggs — but what follows is a relentless game of torture perpetrated by the youths against a family helmed by the beatific Naomi Watts.
It's a rebellion fantasy rendered even more sadistic by denying the viewer the standard payoff images of horror-movie violence. Most screamers set their sights on your nerves; Funny Games is out to shatter your emotional threshold. You'll find yourself wondering why you subjected yourself to such torture — and then find that Haneke has already posed that question for you. His entire film subverts the genre that it springs from, and asks viewers in a to-the-camera aside why they're even watching. For the blood, maybe? There's a bit of that, sure, but no gore-porn. Is it for the tidy resolution? Sorry, wrong movie.
Haneke seems to delight in showing how much more there is to fear than fear itself. His work shines a light on demons far greater than those manufactured for entertainment — and if you enjoy watching his preppy thrill-seekers get off on doing this family in, he raises another question: What's wrong with you?
