5 Reasons Why 'Funny Games U.S.' is Postmodern

Funny Games U.S.- Directed by Michael Haneke in 2007

Reasons Why Funny Games U.S. is postmodern:

1.  The film has an extremely slow pace so much so that it is not longer entertaining for the audience. The extremely long, continuous shots that are shown don't allow the audience to get distance between them and the film, making the audience feel like they are in the room with the characters experiencing the horrible things that are happening in real time, along side them. 

2.  One of the killers breaks the 4th wall multiple time throughout the film, firstly with just a glance at the camera and then towards the end he is asking the audience direct questions- asking their opinion as to what should happen to the characters. Then, the film ends with him looking directly at the cinema with a creepy glare.

Breaking the 4th wall

3.  Even though the film is centred around the violence happening to the family you don't actually see the violence. This means that when something violent happens,  as the audience you're left to use your imagination which means everyone will have unique image in there mind, which makes the violence even scarier because everyone will imagine what they themselves find the most frightening.

4.  The film has no score or music playing over the action, the only music heard in the film is diegetic sound that the characters themselves play and are in control of. 

5. In a stereotypical horror film the audience has hope that the victims will survive and in this film you see moments of hope that in a stereotypical horror film would be the turning point when the killers are defeated but in this film this is not the case as each time it doesn't work out. Some examples of this are: when the son runs away and escapes- just to be brought back by the killers, when the mum tries to get help, she is just brought back by the killers, when the mum finds the knife on the boat and most importantly, when the mum shoots one of the killers dead, the other one simply finds the remote and rewinds so that he can then stop this from happening. This last example is completely breaking 'the rules' and going against what you expect is going to happen, and gives no explanation as to why this is aloud to happen. 

Rewind scene