Funny Games - Analysis

Paul and Peter are two young drug-addicts with sadistic and violent tendencies who rob and torture rather wealthy families in their holiday residences.

Mr. Pitt (Paul), blue-eyed and baby-faced, appears to be the calm, ironical alpha predator, while Mr. Corbet (Peter), acting skittish and high-strung, looks like the weaker, crazier one. But that might just be part of the game they and Mr. Haneke are playing, since the whole point of Peter and Paul is that they function without identifiable motive or affect.
- Movie review - 'Funny Games' - Funny Games (2007), The New York Times, Site


The two young men's approach on the main robbery in the movie, is that they pretend to live with a family nearby. Some time later Peter knocks on the door asking for some eggs. He keeps talking his way out of leaving and at some point Paul shows up. When the father of the family, George slaps Paul, Peter knocks him down with a golf club, breaking his legs. The two then capture the whole family and starts playing sadistic games with them.

The film begins with a loving family - George Farber, his wife Ann, his son Georgie and their dog, arriving at their lake house. Their next-door neighbor, Fred is seen with two young men, Peter and Paul, who seem to be their friends or relatives. The two young men come over to borrow eggs. Ann is in the kitchen cooking while George and Georgie are outside by the lake, tending to their boat. They seem friendly, and they use Georges golf club. When the men depart with the eggs they soon return with them broken. After asking for more eggs which also end up broken, Ann becomes frustrated, but when George tries to force the men to leave, Peter breaks George's leg with the golf club and they take the family hostage

- Funny Games (2007), IMDb, Site

Overall throughout the movie Paul keeps talking about the entertainment value of the movie. He breaks the so called "fourth wall" of the movie multiple times by looking at the camera and talking to the audience. This raises focus on the fact that scary movie and horror movies entertain us by showing the pain and suffering of fictional characters.

"Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a film that is seemingly at war with itself and its genre. Though ostensibly falling into the category of ‘thriller’, Funny Games both fulfills and resists the expectations raised by such a label, shattering not only convention, but the sense of security we feel in knowing that it is all ‘just a movie’."
- Film Epidemic, Joel, Joel's blog

Ending of "Rendezvous" by Daniel Ransom

KIM
At first she feels intimidated and scared, because the strange man looks like a bit of a criminal, but as he is introducing himself and kindly asking to where she is going, she decides to trust him in bringing her home. When she gets in the car the loud drums have faded in to a soft saxophone. She likes it and she feels safe in the embracement of the gentle sound. As they ride down the road Kim decides to talk to him, just to know that he isn't some kind of psychopath.

PAYTON
As Payton drives down along the interstate with the young girl in the car, he feels quite sure about his catch. Everything is going according to the plan he has executed so many times before. She is quite a catch he thinks, but at the same time, he thinks about the priests words. Deep down he knows, that the priest is right. He is enraged by his hesitation, but can't stop thinking about change. Change for good. It only gets worse when she tries to talk to him. "Where do you come from", she says. Payton has always hated making contact to his victims, but this time is different. They talk for a while, and as Payton get to know Kim as her name is, he starts to regret picking her up and thereby seal her fate. The music have stopped, and so has Payton's will to go through with the plan. For the whole trip he can't get himself to drive off the road and do what he had decided to. When he finally arrives at the girls house, her parents come running out. They must have been worried. Payton drives away fast without saying a word, partly ashamed, partly relieved. He decides to visit the priest again.