To Joe C: I understand this idea that Funny Games feels like being ‘lectured’ for two hours, but I’m not sure I agree with it. I think that implies a degree of glibness, or smugness, that the film doesn’t have. I reckon (and I’m speculating as I’ve never met the dude) that if you asked Haneke if he thought he was morally superior to the people who watch his films - is he in a position to lecture them - I think he’d say ‘no’. What I took away from Funny Games was a kind of scorched earth view of humanity: we’re all as bad as each other… We’re all fucked, but at least some of us know it. And yeah, that’s not exactly a positive sentiment to take away after two gruelling hours in a cinema, but at the same time, there’s something compellingly uncomplicated about just how nihilistic it is. Does that make sense? I didn’t feel hectored or even particularly chastened, but I did spend a long, long time thinking about what a film like Funny Games ‘means’ for cinema - what are its responsibilities? Its limits? Can it ever stand apart from it audience? Must it always be as complicit as we are? More so? Not sure if that is particularly clear - I think it’s hard to find clarity in a film like Funny Games, but I do think that to write it off as ‘lecturing’ as, for instance Mark Kermode did, is unfair. But fuck me, do I not want to see it again… Thanks for commenting everyone.

Just curious, man. No need to get all cranky.