Michael Haneke Interview (excerpt 1)

@SeeThinkFall Funny Games is indeed the better film. Those Saw movies are crap.

I never fully appreciated Funny Games, until my friends took me to see Saw on Halloween. Sitting through two hours of torture porn, I came out of the theatre fucking depressed that all my friends loved it so much. I tried to get them to watch FG, and I'm still trying.

*Spoiler* "Fatty" getting shot-gunned will not do though will it? That's why the film "rewinds". Anyway. Even if people who go to watch the film as you say "GET OFF" on the violence I think they'd be disappointed because most of it IS edited out. And with the challenge to the audience from one of the torturers I think Haneke IS challenging the audiences voyeuristic attitude to violence

That would be funny if they did a sequel like that. Like in the beginning of "The Player" the Robert Altman film where an executive is being pitched "The Graduate II"

'Benny's Video' is one of Haneke's first feature films; it was made in 1992. It's regarded as part of a trilogy with 'Funny Games' and 'Hidden/Cache'. In my opinion it's less overwrought than 'FG' and more compelling than 'Hidden'. Definitely check it out! But it's also very shocking, in the vein of all his films.

Ah. I just watched recently the two you mentioned. With his recommendation I'll seek it out

Yes, do! Also, a slight correction: I've since learnt that Bennys Video is not actually part of an official trilogy with Hidden and Funny Games, but rather with The Seventh Continent and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. I haven't yet seen the latter two; haven't found them readily available. But I'm sure they too are worth your while.

i hope that happened

is that movie based on a true story?

Yes. Your family.