Rating of
3.5/4
"Why are you doing this to us?"
Arbogast1960 - wrote on 04/03/08
Even though he can be--or rather, is--too preachy, I am a Haneke fan. This film, Cache, and The Seventh Continent are particularly brilliant at probing, in most unsettling ways, the self-created horrors of the bourgeoisie. Granted, he doesn't do so with the same verve or puckish wit as Bunuel, but on the other hand he does so with a tangible plot unlike Godard, so you take what you get I suppose. And technically he's one of the finest filmmakers working today--if he ever decided to just let her rip and make a Hitchcockian thriller, we'd be in store for a great film, no doubt. This film is truly painful to watch, with the sadistic games its villains/protagonists play with the family, and wittier (particularly in its self-reflexive moments) than one might expect.
While Haneke succeeds as well as one can at creating an anti-violence-in-the-media-without-resorting-to-said-violence diatribe (much better than, say, Natural Born Killers), I'm not quite sure he succeeds fully at creating a piece of anti-entertainment. Indeed, the film is fascinating for how perfectly structured it is to thwart the audience's desired payoff at every turn, thus creating its own unique sort of payoff. I also enjoy the fact that the film is followed to its logical end--certainly a more satisfying resolution than any cliche that could have been tacked on. Worth a look if you're up to the challenge of Haneke's strangely off-putting/intriguing brand of cinema.
