CACHÉ

Posted by abby on January 5, 2011

I once heard someone say that walking blindly into a Michael Haneke movie was like walking blindly into an emotional meat grinder. At the time, I hadn’t seen any of the Austrian director’s movies, but was aware of his reputation for directing realistic, coldly dramatic films like “Funny Games” and “The White Ribbon.” If you’re even vaguely familiar with Haneke’s usual subject matter, you know that cinematic portrayals of warmth and good times are not his strong suit by any means. So it was with growing interest (and a little trepidation) that I decided to watch the director’s 2005 film “Caché.”

It turns out that “Caché” actually is like walking into an emotional meat grinder. The thriller is two hours of anxiety, drawn-out suspense and camera trickery specifically designed with surgeon-like precision to make the audience uncomfortable. The film tells the story of Georges and Anne (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche), an intellectual French couple with a 12-year-old son, who start receiving strange videotapes of the exterior of their house accompanied by creepy, threatening childlike drawings. The tapes and drawings particularly bother Georges, who sees connections to someone from his childhood who he’d rather forget.

Probably the most unsettling aspect of the film is Haneke’s use of the camera as an unreliable narrator. It’s difficult to tell in many scenes in “Caché,” especially in the film’s last half, whether what we’re watching is a simple exterior shot, or if it’s something that’s been shot by the anonymous stalker. Some scenes reappear shot from different angles, letting the audience know that what we thought was a private moment wasn’t really private at all. Once the viewer realizes they’re watching the work of the voyeur, the effect is chilling. I felt at once betrayed and like I was seeing something I shouldn’t be, a feeling that made me sympathize with Georges and Anne, the victims, all the more.

“Caché,” by the way, translates into English as “Hidden,” and it’s obvious that the way people hide guilt, uncomfortable emotions and uncomfortable memories is Haneke’s major theme. The mundane aspects of Georges and Anne’s life, their friends, their son, their work, contrast starkly to their actions and arguments when the tapes appear in their house. Haneke clothes most of his characters in dull neutral colors that subdue any kind of expression of their personalities. The only facts the audience knows about the characters are what they tell each other, which isn’t very much. Characters who seem nice at first look like total jerks later on. The message seems to be that everyone has secrets they hide that keep people from knowing them fully.

It would be easy to compare “Caché” to movies of the Alfred Hitchcock variety. It’s not entirely incorrect—there are some similarities. But where Hitchcock’s movies were exciting, charming and darkly fun, “Caché” is a movie tailor-made to keep audiences from enjoying it. Michael Haneke creates a situation where the stakes are high, and viewers spend the entire film waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting danger in every corner, but never feeling relief when it doesn’t come. “Caché” is a movie that’s put together by someone who absolutely knows what they’re doing, and it’s great to see a director with such a clear and dedicated vision. But that vision ain’t pleasant.

The Verdict:

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