Movie Deconstruction: Funny Games

            Michael Haneke is a director known for his rather brutal and bleak style of film-making which often raises issues about problems in modern day society. His 2008 film, "Funny Games" is a shot-for-shot, word-for-word American remake of the Austrian 1997 original, which he also directed. In this essay I am going to analyse a key sequence from the film, commenting on the use of sound, editing, text and mis en scene. .
             "Funny Games" is extremely disturbing but also very unique film and is largely said to be a critique on the amount of violence people like to see in modern day cinema. Its frequent use of breaking the fourth wall makes the audience question the entertainment value they are getting out of watching it. It often breaks down conventional plot devices, and has a powerful impact, where it could change the viewer's perception on films with overly gratuitous violence.
             Haneke has stated that he remade the film intentionally to get the message across to an American audience, who are arguably the main people who like to see senseless violence in modern day cinema. In an interview with culture.com in 2008, he said "The first version of the film unfortunately didn't get seen by its intended audience because it was in German, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to reach the audience it was originally made for". In the same interview he also gave his reasons for the film being identical to the original: "I think it is more relevant than ever because the pornography of violence in the media has increased".
             The film tells the story of a respectable family who are victimized by two psychotic young men, seemingly with no genuine motive other than sadistic pleasure, at their holiday home by a lake. It is a very stylishly made film, where the audience is almost put in the situation of the victims, with one of the antagonists talking to the audience several time throughout the film asking us things like "Your on their side right? You should be.