Avis des critiques

Galvanizing, unsettling and deeply disturbing, [Funny Games] went on to define [Haneke's] particular trajectory of cinematic miserabilism, and a penchant for delivering a chilly filmography designed purposefully for admiration rather than enjoyment.

For all his bold framing devices and metafictional indulgences, Haneke is not a mere pop-culture scold, here to tell us all the ways in which we are bad viewers... Funny Games may be simple and sadistic in conception, but it is complex and humanistic in its particulars. That’s why it works so well.

Haneke’s films are famously pessimistic, blackhearted affairs that peel back the thin veneer of politesse hiding human monstrosity. [Funny Games] isn’t his best movie, but it is his most viscerally frightening.

What really busts up Funny Games is a damning smugness. Its assumption is that I, the viewer, am dumb as a stump and in desperate need of a remedial course in “What is Screen Violence?” If I needed it, it wouldn’t be from a tutor as inept as Haneke; I might be tempted to call Funny Games the Euro twin to Scream—clever yet clueless—but I don’t think Haneke has even the moral sophistication of Wes Craven.

This is a snuff narrative in which the guilty not only go unpunished but wind up free to continue the cycle... Funny Games is a film of exquisite craft and self-defeating aspirations. It’s there for turning off.

Haneke’s admonishments are disturbing only in the sense that they’re never self-critical, and while watching one of his films, there’s always a sense that he thinks he’s above his characters, his audience, and scrutiny.

Funny Games provokes a tantalising cauldron of conflicting emotions in its audience including confusion, empathy, disgust, respect and disappointment... [It's] an engaging, noble failure that awkwardly raises important questions all film viewers should regularly ask.

[Haneke's] brutality is meant to punish the audience, not to entertain it... There's perversity in paying admission to get harshly scolded, and Funny Games is not for the squeamish, but this may be one time to step up and take the licking you deserve.

At a time when slasher flicks are jokes and horror movies camp pastiche, along comes a piece of work that turns your skin inside out. It does more. It takes your blood and sticks it in the freezer... Not since Janet Leigh took a shower in the Bates motel has film felt so fearful.

[Funny Games] is a film you might argue with, but its sparing use of on-screen violence, some extraordinarily protracted scenes and sensitive handling of thorny subject matter make it also a film you ought to see.

Funny Games is a firestarter for post-screening arguments, alight with ghastly images and actions, and essayed by a spot-on cast and storyline that flows seamlessly from one nightmarish incident to the next. It's an uncomfortable, distressing, and altogether provocative take on the global culture of media violence that not only draws in hapless viewers, but also forces them into fait-accompli acceptance, like it or not.

Blood-curdling... beautifully acted and paced... Posing as a morally challenging work of art, [Funny Games] is a really a sophisticated act of cinematic sadism. You go to it at your own risk.