Summary

Funny Games is a disturbing movie that criticizes the audience’s thirst for violence. The American remake is almost identical to the original German version, with the only difference being the performances. Michael Haneke remade the film to reach a wider audience and highlight the ignorance of American audiences towards non-English international cinema.

Funny Games is one of the most disturbing movies ever made, and viewers get the chance to go through the painful experience twice, as Michael Haneke directed both the original 1997 German version and the 2007 American remake. One shouldn’t be fooled by the title; there’s nothing funny about the games played in the movie. But what’s funny is the acid irony behind Haneke’s determination to make fun of the audience’s thirst for violence.

Both movies are centered around an idyllic family — mother, father, and son — and the two unhinged young men who take them hostage in their vacation home, forcing them to engage in a series of sadistic acts for their own amusement. Funny Games manages to be an extremely violent psychological thriller without having to rely on graphic violence, and Haneke accomplished this feat twice. Here’s why he chose to remake his own movie.

What’s the Difference Between the Original Funny Games and the Remake?

Watching the American remake of Funny Games after watching the original can feel like a torturous déjà vu, because, essentially, it’s a shot-to-shot remake that only differs from the German version in terms of performance. Even the runtime is almost a perfect match, with the first reaching 109 minutes and the second 111 minutes. Yet the most important similarity shared by the two movies is the creative vision of Michael Haneke, who steps in as the director of the same old story.

The original Funny Games is an Austrian production and counts on a predominantly German cast in the lead, except for Arno Frisch, the Austrian actor who plays Paul, one of the film’s antagonists. On the other hand, the American remake brings renowned Hollywood movie stars such as Oscar-nominees Naomi Watts and Tim Roth in the lead roles. In an interview with Cinema.com, Haneke revealed that bringing Watts on board was a condition for the remake, considering her “the best English-speaking actress in her age group.”

Both Funny Games versions are perfect examples of the difference it makes of having a good casting manager and a director who knows how to handle their actors on set. Opinions might differ about which version has the best ensemble cast, but there is simply a chilling resemblance in their deliveries. All the actors playing the family manage to convey absolute terror, while both duos playing the intruders are uniformly frightening.

Not a single scene in the American remake is framed differently, and the American script plays out like the original despite the language shift. Haneke promptly refused to rethink the choices he made 10 years prior to the release of the remake, sticking to the exact same draft. Surprisingly enough, Funny Games has only aged better. The irony that permeates its take on the mundanity of violence in contrast with the audience’s tendency to cheer for a bloodbath is still as effective today as it was in 2007 and 1997. The more time passes, its becomes clearer the media’s role in disseminating the vile wishes of the consumers.

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Haneke Wanted the Whole World to Watch His Masterpiece

Film producer Chris Coen approached Haneke at the Cannes Film Festival with the idea of a possible Funny Games remake, which made the Austrian filmmaker reflect on how the original movie didn’t reach the right people due to the limitations of its small-scale release and the German language. According to Haneke, the only reason why he decided to remake Funny Games was the possibility of bringing the movie to the audience he hoped for; it felt like a necessity to address a problem that corrupts the whole world in a way the whole world could see.

Known for movies such as The Piano Teacher and The Seventh Continent, Haneke became a reference in provocative cinema. His movies are filled with unsettling symbolism that aims at unmasking humanity’s ugly part, stripping viewers naked as they contemplate their worst tendencies onscreen. In Funny Games, Haneke entices the viewers with the violence they came to bear witness to, yet all they find is a manipulating scheme; the audience themselves is held hostage by the film’s two infamous psychopaths and forced to comply with their wicked game.

The scene in which the two antagonists use a TV remote to rewind the only scene of graphic violence in the film and have it play out in a completely different manner is the icing on the cake. Haneke knows what the viewers came to see, and they won’t have it. It’s curious how the movie is all about the representation of violence by the media, a concept that changes as technology evolves, rather than the nature of violence itself, which is a timeless subject. And even still, the role played by the media is still the same, decades after the original Funny Games.

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There’s an argument to be made that Haneke’s decision to carry out a shot-to-shot remake is just an extension of the morbid joke Funny Games wants to tell, using the movie as a response to America’s ever-lasting ignorance towards non-English international cinema. Those who watched both versions may feel like the remake is secretly the cinematic equivalent of Haneke shouting, “Do you understand it, or do I have to draw it for you?” to American audiences.

It’s not that regular Americans aren’t interested in seeking movies other than their own, it’s just that they’re too comfortable in a country whose language is spoken by a great portion of the world. There’s no such a thing as a language barrier, but rather a subtitle aversion. The American remake of Funny Games can be seen as an improvement precisely because of how well it pictures the ignorance of audiences towards cinema as a whole, with Haneke making a whole movie out of it.

Funny Games (1997) is available to stream on Max, while the 2007 remake is available to rent on AppleTV.