Cache (Hidden)
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Movie Reviews of Cache (Hidden)
Movie Review: Productive frustration
Summary: 5 Stars
(This comment may contain spoilers)
I wasn't prepared for how powerful Caché turned out to be: it's been a long time since I've heard an entire cinema gap in genuine shock at one sequence. On the surface it's a fairly typical French film, but it's what's under the surface that really counts. That said, it's still a film that many dismiss as empty or dilettante filmmaking, either because it's more concerned with the fallout its mystery provokes than offering a solution or because it's just trendy liberalism. It's certainly not for all tastes.
The central premise is simple enough, as Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche's comfortable bourgeois life is put under increasing strain by a series of videotapes of the their house accompanied by childish drawings of bleeding faces. The tapes show nothing: their menace comes not from their contents but the fact that they exist. Since the drawings have to come from someone who knows the character's past, is it Auteuil's Georges' own conscience that is sending them? Or is it the filmmaker himself to provoke a reaction from his characters? Significantly the tapes are all shot on a fixed camera mounted on a raised tripod in what must be a clearly visible position. The appearance of the second tape blocking a doorway that was clear earlier in the shot offers little else in the way of a possible natural explanation.
But the tapes are really just a Maguffin, a narrative device to push the characters and plot forward. This particular lost highway leads into the past, and France's inability to apologise for it's colonial past (specifically Algeria), something it absolves itself of all guilt from by repeating the mantra that it was all in the past when they were much younger and knew no better, as if that wipes out thousands of futures denied or stolen. It's no accident that the film revolves around a failed adoption that mirrors France's own failed colonisations.
While the characters are believable rather than Godardian or art-house archetypes, it's easy to ascribe a wider allegorical purpose to them. Georges is a reflection of France itself, outwardly respectable but denying his past and not acknowledging guilt over Algeria (significantly, Auteuil was born there). He simply doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't even connect emotionally with his present, let alone his past, mother, son and wife all a part of his life he really has nothing much to say about. Nothing is ever Georges' fault, not even a near accident crossing the street. He blames a cyclist for his careless mistake, showing that he has learned nothing from his past but is still repeating it. As with the opening of Haneke's epic of non-communication, Code Unknown, he is oblivious to the wider implications of what is to him a trivial moment or of the possible consequences of his moment of self-righteous anger.
Just as he edits out anything 'too theoretical' in his TV show, he tries to re-edit his own past (just as the French government did last year when it passed a law that "the benefits of French colonisation in foreign countries should be recognised and integrated into school programs.") but can't do it quite so easily. Not that he doesn't try. Both of Georges' initial flashbacks are dishonest reinventions of memory: Georges turns his childish conspiracy against one character into his victim terrorising him, reinventing his memory and history to reflect his current interpretation of events and reality. It's this reinvention that allows him to honestly claim without any real evidence that he is being terrorised - "a campaign of terror" are his exact words - by the person he has wronged, actions currently being replayed in Iraq. To France, the atrocities inflicted on the Algerians don't matter - it's the threat to Georges that, in his childlike ignorance, is all that matters and must be dealt with radically.
Indeed, even though Majid and his son are French-born, both are regarded as foreigners, intruders. Yet neither conforms to the stereotyped 'Arab' image: polite, sad, very pointedly not aggressive, yet still regarded purely as a threat for being goaded into an action for which they were punished.
Binoche can be seen as the French people, kept in the dark, asked for their trust although trust is not extended to them in much the same way that Blair in the UK asked for people's trust over the intelligence that led to the UK's involvement in Iraq yet never revealed nor explained his reasons beyond his contention that he was convinced it was "the right thing to do, but it's time to move forward." But if Binoche is the French people, she is no more admirable herself. Both ignore the violence and torture that plays unwatched on a TV in the background in one scene and concentrate on their own immediate priorities.
I still haven't had time to fully digest all the implications of the ending - is he committing suicide himself? (Probably not since he feels no guilt.) Is the hidden shot of two children talking to each other in the final shot a sign of complicity or the way that each generation is doomed to suffer for the sins of the father? Is it the next tape to be sent? It's almost a Rorschach Test for the viewer: how you interpret it says more about you than the film.
Haneke makes no secret that he isn't interested in providing answers but rather is forcing questions on the viewer to make them more of a participant: "I'm not going to give anyone the answer. If you think it's Majid, Pierrot, Georges, the malevolent director, God himself, the human conscience - all these answers are correct. But if you come out wanting to know who sent the tapes, you didn't understand the film. To ask this question is to avoid asking the real question the film raises, which is more: how do we treat our conscience and our guilt and reconcile ourselves to living with our actions... I look at it as productive frustration. Films that are entertainments give simple answers but I think that's ultimately more cynical, as it denies the viewer room to think."
Movie Review: Living on the Rug under which We Sweep Our Guilt
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Haneke ('Le Temps du loup', 'La Pianiste', etc) is a writer/director who respects the minds of his viewers. Nothing he creates is simple, instantly understandable, full of Hollywood endings, nor does he answer the questions he poses. He merely gives us the visual evidence of dysfunction, allows us to watch it without explaining it, and in doing so he makes the viewer an integral part of the film experience.
CACHE is a tough movie, one that requires total concentration on the part of the viewer, and one that presents the secrets and guilt of the characters by allowing us to watch instead of depending on their explanations of their etiologies or resolutions. Watching CACHE is an exciting and stimulating experience - and at the same time it is a film so impressive that it lingers in the mind long after the film is over.
Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) are successful professionals, living with their prepubescent son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky) in a Parisian home of comfortable means. There is some tension between them (Haneke likes to explore relationships subtlely) but their lives have reached an acceptable, successful routine. A videotape is left on their doorstep: the tape merely shows hours of a camera filming the front of their house. Further tapes arrive (Georges' childhood home, a corridor, etc) as well as papers and cards with a stick figure smeared with red. They contact the police who do nothing but Georges and Anne become paranoid and fearful that they are being stalked, that Pierrot is at risk. Georges has a hunch who the perpetrator might be, but does not elect to share that information with Anne, a fact that infuriates her. She seeks solace through a mutual friend Pierre (Daniel Duval) who offers her understanding and the suggestion to the viewer that Anne may have a secret about her relationship to Pierre - and Pierrot questions his mother's secrecy. But Georges' hunch involves one Majid (Maurice Benichou), an Algerian man Georges' mother (Annie Girardot) had wanted to adopt after the 1961 slaughter of Algerians in Paris (another dark secret of Parisians that no one cares to address), and Georges had talked his parents out of adopting the child who would have been a challenge to his territory as an only child. Georges has nightmares about a childhood encounter with Majid, decides to find him and confront him with the accusation that Majid is sending the tapes. Majid's son (Walid Afkir) is privy to the past and to the detective work Georges is undertaking, and when Georges final confrontation with Majid ends in a tragedy, the son confronts Georges as being responsible for his father's wretched life. The perpetrator of the videos is not explained, the schism between Georges and Anne is not addressed, Pierrot's transient disappearance is not fully explained - and the film ends as we, the audience, sit and watch a view of Pierrot's school as parents come to pick up their children. There is no ending.
Nothing is resolved for us: we are left to make our own conclusions about guilt, about the sickness that guilt creases our lives and molds our psyches, about the need or importance of communication, of relationships...it is all in our hands to decipher what Haneke has put before us. Each member of the cast is excellent, creating a tension almost as unbearable as the dilemma of the tapes with which we are constantly subjected. Life is an ennui, broken only by particles of our past and fragments of our actions. This may not be a movie for the general audience, but for those who are willing to invest time with a master artist of film, the journey is extraordinarily rewarding. In French with English subtitles and considerable disturbing violence. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Grady Harp, June 06
Movie Review: You Are Being Watched!
Summary: 5 Stars
French film `Cache',' (`Hidden') by director Michael Heneke, is effective for many reasons. Quietly, the movie creeps up on us and makes the tangible presence of surveillance unnerving in a convincing way.
At the beginning of the movie middle aged couple, George and Anne, are viewing a video in their Paris flat. At first we don't see them; we only see the video and hear them as they watch and rewind or fast-forward the tape playing. During the video they try to place the author who provides the footage filmed just outside their residence. We soon discover the tapes are sent anonymously and dropped off in an antechamber to a gate protecting their place. George, who is a celebrity host of a local television talk show, finds he is being stalked and sent puzzling videos wrapped with disturbing pictures. In one of the drawings there is a child with a stream of blood flowing from him. Although the pictures look like it was done by a child's hand, they (and we) believe otherwise.
Life goes on at its regular pace, and the movie's perfect timing makes us feel the repercussions of harassment as if it were our own. After more disruptive deliveries, George finds another video. This time the perpetrator has taken a trip to his childhood residence. From here George has some clues, so he visits his mother who helps him sew together a past which starts to haunt him. From there an additional video transports George to a mysterious residence. With some simple legwork, George's investigation unfolds. Understandably, they go to the police, but are told that something more significant must take place before they can intervene. The manifestations even come into Georges' professional life when a strange videotape with George in it surfaces at work. In the meantime, the couple's nerves are frayed, especially when the whereabouts of their 12-year-old son, Pierrot, comes into question. As one character says to Georges, "You have everything to lose."
`Cache' works so well with the audience because it mostly gives us a first person seat to George's inner turmoil. The mundane and extraordinary events mix so expertly, we are never in doubt about the state of affairs. Past and present also surface skillfully as we see both ends meet in George's consciousness. Social commentary is amply provided for without much articulation or artificial resonance. (France, who also has immigration strife like the U.S., imports issues that, if neglected, can come to roost.) Suspenseful and intriguing, 'Cache' should come out of hiding on everyone's movie list. If you can't stand subtitles, you should set aside your reservations at least for this movie.
(In the DVD's extras, Director Michael Heneke gets right to the point of his creation. Talking about more than method, he gives his own takes on the meaning of the story. Loving ambiguity in his films, he, nevertheless, is concrete and clear with several points. In the twenty-five minute interview, Heneke makes one of the most concise "special features" I've ever seen on DVD.)
Movie Review: A voyeurs dream!
Summary: 5 Stars
I think what is so startling about `Cache' is that, when all is said and done, we are left with a `is that what this was about?' kind of feel that makes the atrocities that play out all the more haunting. Auteur (yes, that is what he is) Michael Haneke is known for his obsession with violence. He has tampered with the natural human tendency to react to and with violence many times (maybe most notably with `Funny Games') and each examination brings us closer to the same conclusion; there is no conclusion. With `Cache', Haneke explores the unraveling of a man's life and how he choices to react to the situation he has put himself in.
The marvelous Daniel Auteuil plays Georges, a talk show star who finds himself (and his family) being tormented by a series of videotapes that are being left at his doorstep. The tapes are harmless, yet chilling. They are basically hours of footage, the first of Georges' house, the second of the home Georges grew up in, the third of a rainy drive to a crummy apartment. The tapes don't seem to say much, but to Georges they say a lot.
Like I mentioned, for me it was the realization that `that was all' that really made me shiver. This is a film that will shock you with his abruptness (just wait until the 89 minute mark) but will also shock you in its resolve. The point is not to show the atrocities that lead to the atrocities but to show that sometimes atrocities are a direct result of something much more minor in comparison.
Did Georges' actions really warrant his punishment?
Haneke is a brilliant director, and the way he drenches each scene in this feeling on claustrophobia is just masterful. There is this incessant need to dissect each sequence, from start to finish (I literally watched the opening and closing segments three times in order to take in everything), but the truth of the matter is that the film really is meant to be taken for face value (at least that's how I take it). The more you try and pick apart a hidden (the word `Cache' means just that; hidden) meaning and motive the more you diminish the real core of the film. The fact that the ending feels like a `letdown' for me is what makes this movie so clever.
Haneke baited us, and then pretty much told us that what we wanted just wasn't realistic.
The performances across the board help propel this film into the eerie depths of reality it needed to embrace, especially from Auteuil. Binoche is also outstanding in her conflicted paranoia and Maurice Benichou is unforgettable in his few short scenes.
UNFORGETTABLE!
This very same year we saw the release of `A History of Violence', a film that sported a huge following and showed director Cronenberg exploring the deep-rooted instinctual tendency of violence. For me, Haneke's interpretation of the same subject is vastly superior and all the more chilling. It is in this films soft and subtle crevices that one finds the most depth (watching a man get into bed has never been more chilling).
Movie Review: Paris, 17 October 1961
Summary: 5 Stars
Secrecy, amnesia, conscience? A thriller or an allegory? Or mainly an essay on film theory?
I was prepared not to like this film. I had hated director Haneke's previous Funny Games: not mindless violence, but intelligent, sadistic, senseless violence.
The reviews here on Hidden are mixed. Some of those who expected a thriller are disappointed or even bored.
The naked story (trying to make sense without spoiling it): a wealthy Paris family is being stalked. The stalker sends tapes, which at first show only that he has watched their house. Then he sends a tape of the husband's childhood place. Then a tape leading to a certain apartment in a recognizable street. The husband has a hunch from the start, but dissembles. His lies disturb the relation with his wife. The 12 y old son has his own puberty problems which add to the thriller layer of the story.
The husband visits the apartment and claims that nobody had been there. The next tape shows him in conversation inside the apartment.
The tape story drags on a bit. Our sympathies are entirely with the wife, who is almost unreasonably reasonable, under the circumstances.
Let me say, if this was a thriller and nothing else, it would come out here with about 3 ˝ stars from me: interesting enough, but not overwhelming.
But of course, say some, this is an allegory about France's guilt from the Algerian independence war.
There was a massacre in Paris on October 17 in 1961, when police killed somewhere between 200 and 300 Algerians; this happened, if I am not mistaken, after a demonstration. Sounds like Iran? Exactly!
The husband is digging into his memory and he finds ugly things. His parents had been about to adopt an Algerian boy when he himself was 6. The adoption was cancelled under ugly circumstances. The husband prefers to keep the lid down. The truth comes out in his nightmares. The final scene is possible only under sleeping medication.
The allegory interpretation says that the husband symbolizes France. He tries to forget his personal October 17.
The cinematography is based on the integration of the tapes into the story, to the extent of confusing us, certainly on purpose. We don't always know right away if we are here or there.
I am sure that generations of film students will find material for their thesis in this film.
In the end I am so fascinated that I can't avoid giving 5 stars, against my initial instinct. (And I had the added problem that my DVD was French without subtitles, so I lost some of the verbal communication, eg during the dinner party conversations, when no context helps in figuring out the conversation. It turns out that to some extent the language problem forced me to focus harder on the visual communication. Maybe one ought to watch more movies without tone, at least for the second time. If they are worth it. And one should watch only movies that are worth watching twice. Or have I said that before?)