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Funny Games (1997)

Anna: Well, no point in crying over spilt milk.

Such wisdom! In all seriousness I love that Michael Haneke has one of his characters say this most banal bit of wisdom in Funny Games, because it situates itself against the absurdity finely. For one, Anna (Haneke regular Susanne Lothar, giving a tremendous performance) is actually talking about dropped eggs, not milk. Sure that's a technicality -- we use the "split milk" thing for all kinds of situations not involving milk. But "eggs" are breakfast adjacent enough to "milk" to add a wee vibe of wrongness, a thing that Funny Games thrives on. It's off. So off.

But also it's that there will be plenty of reason to cry over this "spilt milk" shortly, and the sheer inability of Anna's trite phrasing to truly reckon with what she's actually facing at this moment as this strange man smashes eggs in her foyer -- your folksiness isn't gonna get you anywhere, Anna, and she learns this right quick. 

But you should deep dive into all this by picking up Criterion's brand new blu-ray of Funny Games, out today and stuffed with their typical healthy dosage of extra helpings -- you can read critic Bilge Ebiri's fabulous essay on the film on their website already, but on top of that the film's been digitally restored with Haneke's personal supervision, and most excitingly to me though there is a new interview with Haneke regular Arno Frisch, who gives a chillingly charming performance as the head bad guy in this film. We adore him.