Haneke: films for middle-class masochists

from Spiked;
To Haneke, this is just how it is – ‘the truth is obscene’, he said in a recent interview. All he’s doing is making us see. And what a vision it is. In Haneke’s films, human society is sunken, rank, a place where mass culture is dumb, where people, turned on and tuned off by TV, are cruel and complacent, and where families will, for time immemorial, fuck you up. Socialisation here is virtually synonymous with corruption.

Why is this vision so popular? What is it about this crass, aloof moralising that is so attractive? The answer lies in the question. In Haneke, every countercultural prejudice, from the perils of consumerism and mainstream entertainment to the denunciation of the family, is given a sophisticated artistic form. Never has liberal snobbery looked so clever.