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Funny Games (1997 film)

Funny Games
Funny Games1997.jpg
Original release poster
Directed by Michael Haneke
Produced by Veit Heiduschka
Written by Michael Haneke
Starring Susanne Lothar
Ulrich Mühe
Arno Frisch
Frank Giering
Stefan Clapczynski
Cinematography Jürgen Jürges
Edited by Andreas Prochaska
Production
company
Distributed by Concorde-Castle Rock/Turner
Release date
  • 14 May 1997 (1997-05-14)
Running time
109 minutes
Country Austria
Language German
French
Box office AUD$41,828

Funny Games is a 1997 Austrian psychological thriller film written and directed by Michael Haneke. The plot of the film involves two young men who hold a family hostage and torture them with sadistic games. The film was entered into the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. In 2007 it was remade in America by Haneke, this time with a different cast and a mostly American crew.

Haneke wanted to make a film set in the United States, but for practical reasons he had to set it in Austria.

After the 2007 American remake directed by Haneke used the same house including props and tones, Robert Koehler of Cineaste wrote that this "proves for certain that—whether he uses the great cinematographer Jürgen Jürges () (for the 1997 version) or the great Darius Khondji (for the new film)—Haneke is fundamentally his own cinematographer exercising considerable control over the entire look of his films."

The film begins with a wealthy Austrian family—Georg, his wife Anna, their son Georgie, and their dog Rolfi—arriving at their holiday home beside a lake in Austria. They spot their next-door neighbor Fred accompanied by two young Viennese men, Peter and Paul, one of whom Fred introduces as the son of a friend.

The two men begin imposing themselves on the family's courtesy. First Peter asks to borrow eggs which he keeps breaking, supposedly by accident, also destroying the family's phone with his apparent clumsiness . Eventually a frustrated Anna demands that the men leave, asking Georg to eject them from the premises. Peter breaks Georg's leg with the latter's golf club while Paul reveals he has killed Rolfi, and the two men take the family hostage, forcing the members to participate in games of pain and death.

Paul asks if the family wants to bet whether they will still be alive by 9:00 the next morning, though he doubts that they will win. Between playing their games, the two men keep up a constant patter, and Paul frequently ridicules Peter's weight and lack of intelligence. He relates contradictory stories of Peter's past. No definitive explanation of the men's origins or motives is offered. When some of the family's other neighbors arrive for a visit, Anna passes the men off as friends until the visitors leave—much in the same way Fred did at the beginning of the film. Georgie eventually escapes to the house next door, but finds the family dead. He attempts to shoot Paul with a shotgun, but it is not loaded. Paul returns him to the house, along with the gun. After a few more games, Peter plays a counting-out game between the family members and shoots Georgie while Paul makes sandwiches in the kitchen. After this, both intruders leave.


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