We've been having a bit of a debate about the film over at criterionforum.org



I quite like Funny Games (the original, have not yet seen and probably do not need to see the remake!) but think a lot of Haneke's other films are better. I don't want to dismiss Funny Games though because there are a lot of themes in it that built from Benny's Video and The Seventh Continent and that get much more fully developed in later films (though I agree that makes remaking Funny Games a bit of a retrograde step and one he probably wouldn't have taken on his own if the remake idea hadn't been brought up by Tartan).



Anyway all this waffle is to recommend anyone reading to check out at the very least Code Unknown which seems to encapsulate all of Haneke's themes inside its 'incomplete tales of several journeys' - including Juliette Binoche as an actress auditioning (and then playing the role in the film itself) for a part as someone trapped and terrorised. It all seems to be talking about the way people have their lives shaped by events and that often they don't know how to respond to them except accepting their new circumstances or bullying others in return (see Binoche's traumatic train journey in Code Unknown for another example).