masterful layering of themes that are familiar from the other haneke i’ve seen, the Funny Games diptych. media, violence, colonialism, bourgeois social relations, surveillance, repression, meta-textuality. i don’t think i’ve seen this movie before, but somehow the central act of violence seemed familiar to me, but still extremely shocking. this film doesn’t quite break the fourth wall, but it gets really close to it; haneke is the only filmmaker i can think of who incorporates meta-textuality in a way that doesn’t come off as incredibly juvenile. i think it has to do with actually incorporating them into a work where they make sense with the themes of the film…and where those themes actually have stakes (having to do with media/subjectivity/colonialism/violence). i’m thinking of Resolution & The Endless, both dogshit movies. this film feels like it has a very clear logic, and the idea is perfectly integrated with the formal techniques used.
one scene in particular that stood out to me is the dinner party, where the couple reveal the premise of the film to their friends. the characters’ movements are over-micced, so the sound of cutlery etc has as much presence in the mix as the dialogue. a very deliberate move that reminds me of Jeanne Dielman. it’s an extremely subtle technique that almost subliminally alienates the audience from identifying with the realism of the scene, which i think is the main objective of this film: to problematize the audience’s relationship with media.