Two sadistic sociopaths torture a middle class family to death. Sounds
like a violent film, but despite the generic premise, Haneke almost
never shows violence, concentrating instead on its traumatic
repercussions. Rather than aestheticised gore spurting from bullet
wounds, what we get here are almost unbearable static scenes of people
in pain. It's not exactly entertaining, but certainly makes you
examine your own expectations and responses. The one time he lets
loose, showing the victims’ brutal retaliation, it’s satisfying, but
in a troubling way that makes you wonder what it is about violence that
makes us so want to see it up there on giant screens.
