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February 21, 2006
Award-winning French film ready for America
Cache, the new film from director Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Time of the Wolf) opens with an incredibly long shot of a townhouse in Paris with nothing particularly of interest taking place in the street. As voices are heard, we discover that what we are seeing is a videotape of the townhouse where Georges (Daniel Auteuil, Queen Margot, La Separation) and Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche, The English Patient, Chocolat) live with their son, Pierrot.
Georges and Anne have no idea who sent the video or why. Anne openly admits that she is frightened, though admitting she does not know exactly why. Soon, she starts receiving anonymous phone calls while Georges is away working as the host of a TV show.
After a second video arrives that shows the farmhouse where Georges grew up, they go to the police who insist that nothing can be done, as no direct threat of harm is evident in the phone calls or the videos.
As the tension heightens, Georges and Anne bicker at each other, unable to understand why someone is watching them or who it could be.
Another video arrives depicting an empty hallway in an apartment building. Since the police will do nothing, Georges visits the apartment himself and discovers that the man living there is someone from his past, bringing up unhappy, conflicting, hidden memories of guilt.
Georges is convinced that this is the man terrorizing his family with the videos and threatens him, while lying to his wife about the confrontation. However, Anne is sent a video of the conversation, and learns that Georges has been lying to her, further complicating their already strained and tense relationship.
It is very hard to describe too much about Cache, certainly one of the most tense and uneasy films I have seen in a long time. Too much can be given away by summary, yet, once you see it, you will discover that there is not any clear resolution to give away.
The film, which was made in French with a title that translates to Hidden, tackles so many issues, especially notions of racism, domination, guilt, and terrorism, that it is too difficult to tackle them and their implications in a brief review. However, several instances of television footage depicting military situations in the Middle East are there for us to perhaps draw some parallels between uncontrollable situations of unrest abroad and at home.
Most unsettling to both the Laurents and the audience is the idea of being vulnerable to someone watching, silently observing them. However, the true identity of who is terrorizing the Laurents is hidden, along with camera filming the Laurents.
In many cases, the camera would have to be positioned in such a way as to be clearly visible to the Laurents. The film ends with no clear resolution, concluding with a conversation between two of the films characters; a conversation of which the content is hidden.
However, the reason the film remains so intriguing after viewing it is the fact that nothing really has been revealed. The film is fueled by the paranoia invoked in Georges and Anne, and we desperately hope to find out what the hell is going on.
Binoche as Anne shakes with fury, and Auteuil as the detached Georges is excellent at revealing little about what his character is feeling, just as the character wishes to reveal nothing of his past. Instead of revealing anything, Cache keeps more hidden, living up to its translated title.
But if you want to see something compelling, intriguing, intense, and pretty damn satisfying, go see Cache. And if you see it, take a good look at the movie poster on your way out of the theater because then you’ll know what it represents from the film. And then you will shudder.
Posted by dwright at February 21, 2006 04:59 PM
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