"But that word, 'fear' -- a fluid haze, an elusive clamminess -- no sooner has it cropped up than it shades off like a mirage and permeates all words of the language with nonexistence, with a hallucinatory, ghostly glimmer. Thus, fear having been bracketed, discourse will seem tenable only if it ceaselessly confront that otherness, a burden both repellent and repelled, a deep well of memory that is unapproachable and intimate: the abject."-Julia Kristeva, POWERS OF HORROR
Suggested Supplemental Screenings: BENNY'S VIDEO (Haneke, 1992), LOST HIGHWAY (David Lynch, 1997), and HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (Alain Resnais, 1959).
“Cache”
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this film a lot more then “I Stand Alone” I don’t know what it was, but I was able to connect with the characters and really feel their fear when it came to the anonymous tapes. I think it might have been because there was the extra assignment attached to it determining who was sending the tapes, so I became obsessed with uncovering the mystery. I really got into detective mode at one point I even thought that the police were behind it because they were so hesitant to help this family, but I think eventually I realized or at least think that it was the man who cut his own throat. Also, I was really intrigued by the son’s character because he was acting so strangely towards his family, and the fact that the father thought that it was him in the beginning. I feel like parents usually think that their kids can do no evil, but when the father tries to ask him about it you can see that he did not do it, but at the same time I feel like he is on drugs or something because it feels as though he is hiding something from his parents, and with him staying out all night it just feels like a boy that age would not leave his parents to worry by not calling. I mean I am 21 years old and I still have to send my parents a text telling them if I get home. Maybe it is a Cuban thing, but that would never fly at my house.
Also I felt like maybe the father was having an affair at the beginning and I still kind of feel that way, because it was not until he got the tape of the apartment building that he assumed it was his old friend. I feel like his lover was black mailing him into doing all of these different things. The scene that made me believe that was when he was like I think I know who did all of this, but I do not know for sure and he would not tell his wife who he suspected, and I thought that was really strange. If I were the wife I would have demanded to know who was terrorizing my family. I would have assumed immediately that if he would not tell me who then that means that he did not want me to know. I just do not understand why he would want to keep this child hood friend from his wife, unless he did feel guilty about his family sending him back to the orphanage and never really wanted to talk about it again, which would make sense.
All in all though I thought that film really worked. It grabbed my attention, and even with the long wides it held my attention for the duration of the film.
I think I enjoyed this movie. I'm still not really sure. While I found myself incredibly frustrated with the lack of forward momentum I was also inescapably twisted into the wonderment of where the hell these tapes are coming from and why.
ReplyDeleteThis film definitely solidified my thinking that Haneke really does hate us. The intensely long takes of wide shots are unbearably gripping. The multiple false endings are infuriating. The fact that we follow random pieces of characters lives without any reason (WHY DO WE HAVE TO SEE THE SWIM PRACTICE!?) and everything is so out of time makes it nearly impossible to see if characters have an arc and if the plot is going anywhere.
In the end, the plot really doesn't go anywhere; George essentially ignores everything that happens and ends no more changed than he was in the beginning. It really doesn't matter if the characters change or not though, because I found myself really not caring about them. None of them were like-able. Even Pierrot who seemed like just a regular pubescent boy turned into a really infuriating and puzzling little brat.
Part of me wants to watch this film again to try and piece more things together, though I know all will be in vain since there aren't any answers. I also don't know if I could take the slowness of it knowing it doesn't go anywhere.
Oh well, overall, it was at least an interesting look at a deconstructed thriller.
As maddeningly slow as Cache is, I actually really enjoyed. In a way, the pace really works in its favor. It’s so off-putting and unknowing in nature that the sluggishness really brings out the best parts of the movie. It has a very disjointed feeling, as though all these people know each other and yet don’t. You get the sense that this couple, although married; have no sense of who the other one is. They’re successful and live comfortably but their relationship reeks of discontent and disconnection. And the videotapes work to amplify that. This is a world where no one is happy, and everyone seems just a little false. Everyone seems like their full of crap, and that their bull-crapping their way through life. Even Majid, who I do believe is innocent in this whole thing, seems like he’s just as out of touch from the world as everyone else is.
ReplyDeleteGeorges is a really annoying character. Talk about wandering through life with blinders on. And his mother! She should really take some of the blame for all of this, she clearly went through in the same way that Georges is. He doesn’t change at all, there’s absolutely no evolution in his character. His son is also kind of annoying, in a rather bratty way. I feel like he was hiding something and, like his father, was using a bunch of different excuses in his life to explain away his really inappropriate behavior and supposed ‘teenage angst.’ All these people kind of sucked at life to be honest. Still really enjoyed it, makes me feel a lot better about mine. Technically, there were some really interesting shots; I really like the swim practice scene.
Another masterful film from Haneke that is haunting, disturbing, and completely addictive. The last time I watched “Cache,” I went back and re-watched so many scenes after the film’s conclusion. I was pretty obsessed with solving, with as much certainty as possible, the mystery of the videotapes. But this time, I really tried to stay focused on what exactly Haneke is communicating or commenting on, as opposed to solely getting caught up in the suspense. By the film’s end, I really feel that the terrorism that these videotapes provided is a tool, an object that Haneke uses in order to throw-off the stability of this familial environment and expose the deeply wounded psychology of Georges. In this sense, it seems that Haneke really is too concerned with the audience finding a sense of narrative closure regarding the tapes. In class, we’ve occasionally referenced the role/presence of the director in these films (in other words, the surrogate of the director) – Trae, you mentioned the possibility of Paul occupying that role in “Funny Games.” If so, it would seem that Haneke is deeply involved in the traumatic events that arise in the lives of George(s) and Ann(e). I’m wondering about what role Haneke has in this film – is there a surrogate for his vision in the film? More importantly, I’m realizing how “Funny Games” and “Cache” differ, especially in their inclusion of backstory. Haneke has these events occur that traumatize the “characters” and the film would follow them as the events take their course – but unlike “Funny Games” Haneke doesn’t operate within a timeline that continually moves forward from the point in which the traumatizing event starts (i.e. the videotapes in “Cache” or the harassment in “Funny Games”), instead “Cache’s” timeline constantly draws from the past, reaching back as the movie move forward. In that case, Haneke is orchestrating the events, or so it seems, to resurface some of the hidden past from Georges. But, is Haneke orchestrating simply these traumatic events? Is he not also orchestrating the backstory of Georges? If so, then again it seems like Haneke is not only trying to affect the characters in the film but also the audience watching. This probably sounds really confusing, but they are kind of incomplete thoughts I had in my head after watching the movie…Sorry if it sounds too “out there.”
ReplyDelete(Sorry for the late response I just got a chance to screen this a little while ago, but I will try to get these in sooner.)
I've always found Hanake's view of children very interesting and intriguing. As you were saying in class Trae, he holds a controversial fascination with how un-pure they are and can be, the multi-faceted sides to their personalities, a ruthless nature, and a seemingly inherent and repressed maliciousness that inevitably manifests itself in their behaviors and choices; after all, we are led to believe, when considering the film's final shot, that Pierrot and Majid's son were the main contributors to Georges and Anne's miseries. But perhaps in a more emotional way, the film's thematic concern of guilt and powerful/misshapen memory are the aspects that are most haunting to me, and the ones that touch a deep nerve. Specifically the way guilt eats from the inside out, the sequence of events it precedes and then helps determine, the inescapable grasp it can hold. Georges, in particular, is a very striking character, in that he acknowledges the mistake of his childhood lies and selfishness, yet he practically never exposes an underlying or vital interest in atoning for his sins. Along the lines of this "inescapable grasp" that guilt imbues on a particular person - in this case, Georges and Anne - is the "inescapable grasp" of time, specifically the past. The unsettling notion and tone of Hanake's film derives predominantly from a universal truth: the past is inescapable, a part of us, continually hovering above us. The parts of our past that are tainted in a negative light, and mostly because of our own doing, can reach forwards into our present and stay with us for an interminable amount of time, nudging at us incessantly. There are clear themes of voyeurism at the forefront of the film, and in much the same way that other films we have already screened portray this voyeurism, these acts force us to contemplate the different ways we receive pleasure in just watching, whether it be watching events from a distance, or watching people at their most fragile and vulnerable. There is a certain part of us that prevents us from merely looking-away, and our roles as spectators is meticulously scrutinized and criticized in most of these films as inborn functions and reactions to the world around us. I was also especially heartbroken by Maurice Benichou's depiction of Majid, as he is able to tap so directly into the character's desperation and sober lamentation. His suicide, horrible as it is, is the ultimate exemplification of a man who has been broken beyond repair or salvation of any sort. His exit is, perhaps, the film's most brutal, most shattering moment.
ReplyDeleteAn idea that has consistently fascinated me is the collision of chaos with order. In "Cache," characters contend with such a dilemma. The formerly (relatively) tidy lives of an affluent family is slowly reduced to irksome chaos. In reaction, George emits pitiful protests in the form of threats to Majid; for a time, he also suspects his son. George and Anne are quickly disabused of former notions, as their rules for life have suddenly been assaulted. As control slips further away, they're pained with the recollection of a forgotten past, coupled with the futility to halt the bleeding in the present.
ReplyDeleteSide Note to Trae:
The interest in this particular idea probably began with "Heat." If you got to see it this weekend, like you said you might, the minor characters of Van Zant and Waingro epitomize this. Mann said he viewed Waingro as "a contagion loosed upon the atmosphere" when Neil loses track of him at the diner. The comfortable, arrogant lifestyle of Van Zant is also sent into a spiral of anarchy when Neil tells him to "forget the money" and that he's now a "dead man." Each man copes with the chaos in dramatically different ways, but, in the end, both are claimed by it.