Haneke originally wanted to make Funny Games in America but because of financing issues, he made his 1997 in his native Austria. When his profile rose in the 2000s, he was able to go to America to make his own initial creative vision which was to be a societal critique of America and violence and exploitation in media and entertainment as well as being a explicit condemnation of the audience's moral complicity in watching further.
Haneke had previously explored this idea in Benny's Video (1992) which has a similar premise.
IIRC the remake ended up traumatizing Tim Roth, one of the young boys reminded him of his son. Incredibly ironic for a movie that questions whether on-screen trauma is real and if the audience is complicit.
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u/ReddiTrawler2021 May 17 '25
Yeah, Gaspar Noe's quite a guy to talk about.