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The society we live in is drenched in violence. I represent it on the screen because I am afraid of it, and I think it is important that we should reflect on it. All my films deal with issues that I find socially relevant, and all my films deal with my own fears. I am dealing with questions that I find oppressive or important, that interest me dramatically. I think that the things that are going well in society are difficult to present dramatically. In my 20 years of working in the theater, I only staged one comedy, and that was my single failure. My films are also a protest against the mainstream cinema, a response to the films screened in theaters today. If mainstream films were different, my films would be different as well.

Michael Haneke
from an interview with Bright Lights Film Journal (read full)