Author Topic: Cache (Hidden)  (Read 10151 times)

andrijzip

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Cache (Hidden)
« on: January 06, 2007, 10:30:02 AM »
I just watched this, and really enjoyed it.  Let's start with the ending.  I'm assuming you noticed that Majid's son and Pierrot meet, talk and then go their separate ways.  This could mean one of two things:

1. Pierrot and Majid's son were in on it together.

2. Majid's son is trying to reconcile what happened to his father by reaching out to Pierrot.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe the former.  Having said that, if the second is what happened, meaning Pierrot and Majid's son didn't send the tapes, then who sent them?  I read on Wikipedia that they could be metafictional, and that Haneke, the film's director, "sent" them to the Laurents, which is an interesting theory.  This seems to be supported by the fact that the drawings foreshadow Majid's suicide.

As well, I read in some reviews to pay attention to the swim meet.  I did, but couldn't find anything worthwhile, other than a teenager with a camcorder, which seems to be a dubious clue at best.

All in all, I thought that this was a taut, intelligent, provocative film.  It works well on many levels - an examination of guilt in contemporary France and the West, a criticism of liberal intellectuals  choosing to ignore pressing issues, a suspensful Hitchcockian thriller and, possibly, metafictional mindbender.

TomSt

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2007, 03:12:18 PM »
I really enjoyed most of this movie too.  It built up a huge amount of tension and intrigue and I was completely drawn into it.  Unfortunately, I think any plot-driven analysis of the ending is going to be disappointing (which was my first reaction).  Now I'm hoping it was meant to be meta-fictional (and viewed that way, I think it's a very good film all-around), but if so, I wish the director had found a way to clue us in to that.  As it is, I'll bet this film is disappointing to most people that see it.

One interesting thing I realized about 2/3 of the way through the movie is that there was absolutely no music (or almost no music... I didn't really check).  I think it's great.   I think music should be used less in movies in general, but I guess that would cut down on variety of moods one could create.

sdedalus

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2007, 12:25:02 AM »
I finally watched Lost Highway the other day.  Aside from it being the first David Lynch film I've really liked, I was extremely happy to learn that the only original and interesting thing about Michael Haneke's Cache was directly ripped off from Lynch.

Now I'm free to think the whole movie's lame.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2007, 10:24:30 PM by sdedalus »
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alexander

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2007, 01:48:47 PM »
And Lynch maybe saw a certain Maya Deren film that came out 50 years before Lost Highway.

sdedalus

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2007, 10:24:47 PM »
Which?
The End of Cinema

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"He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?"

philip918

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2007, 01:24:53 AM »
I think I've already ranted about Cache in another thread, but the bile is still hot in my throat, so I think I'll spew some more.
Cache is one of the most relentlessly heartless and emotionally stunted films I've ever seen.  I can see how it works on the macro level (the characters represent French society itself) and the micro level (the characters themselves), but to crucify a young child over vying for his parents affection in order to make the point that France has treated its Algerian immigrants extremely poorly, is goddamn callous and cruel.  As much as the French heap scorn on the bourgeois, this film reeks of the naive, self-righteous, super-political correctness that only the privileged classes can afford to hold.
This film spleens me.

Wowser

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2007, 05:41:22 PM »
I finally watched Lost Highway the other day.  Aside from it being the first David Lynch film I've really liked, I was extremely happy to learn that the only original and interesting thing about Michael Haneke's Cache was directly ripped off from Lynch.

Now I'm free to think the whole movie's lame.

You're insane. It's a better film than Lost Highway.

I like the way it creates such an amazing sense of fear through such  understated means.

Also, the way they captured middle class life in France seems, to my mind, perfect - for instance the literature discussion programme he hosts.

aliaimee

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2007, 07:49:00 PM »
Sdedalus, man those are harsh words! I wrote a couple of papers on Cache last year and most sources found the film to be an inversion of Hitchcock's Rear Window (in fact a lot of Haneke's films play on Hitchcock's). I'm not sure if that will raise or lower Cache in your esteem though.

Was much of the history behind the film reported on during its release? Do you know that it's Haneke's investigation into the 1961 Paris massacre, where between 30-200 (documents are still classified) peaceful French Algerian demonstrators were beated by police and thrown into the Seine. The prefecture of police at the time, Maurie Papon was brought up on war crimes in 1997 (for his part in the deportation of over 1000 French Jews to Auschwitz) and this later massacre was brought up during the trial. In 61, Papon's official report claimed only 2 people had died as a result of police mistakes, and the remaining deaths were due to Algerian fratricide. It wasn't until 2001 that French government took steps to redress this terrible lie and the Mayor of Paris erected a plaque: In memory of the numerous Algerians killed in the bloody suppression of the peaceful demonstration on 17 October 1961.

Apologies if this comes across as a stream-of-consciousness history lesson, but I think a bit of context helps to deconstruct where Haneke was coming from with this film. To me, Cache is a study of the processes of guilt and denial, and the repercussions these have for future generations. For 40 years this terrible event, which took place in the centre of Paris, has remained wilfully forgotten; the fratricide wasn't amongst Algerians but Frenchmen...

philip918

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2007, 09:30:29 PM »
I totally agree that the history behind the film is extremely relevant and terrible.  I think the vehicle used to examine that history (and quite superficially, in my opinion) is dead wrong.  Offensively so.  If they had just made the kid a little older, a young teenager, someone who has learned right from wrong, the film would have been a little more credible to me.  Young children as cute as they can be, are beastly little things, they just haven't been inculcated by social norms yet.  I basically view this film as the social stoning of a six-year-old boy.

aliaimee

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Re: Cache (Hidden)
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2007, 10:26:04 PM »
I didn't see it as the social stoning of a six year old at all. Something Haneke says in the interview on the DVD is that Georges reaction as boy was normal - and I didn't see it as a condemnation of his actions then, but his failure to recognise and take responsibilty for his actions as an adult. It's a moral quagmire to be sure - should he feel sorry for his boyhood transgressions? Spun out onto a national and global contemporary level though: should France come to terms for the brutal policies enacted during the Algerian War (particularly when in 1968 de Gaulle granted amnesty to all police and military personnel for treasonous acts and war crimes committed during the French-Algerian war)? Should Australia say sorry to the Stolen Generation? Should Americans for Hiroshima and Nagasaki? All these things have taken place in our nations' pasts and collective amnesia or denial is not the way to deal with it. It took 40 years for Paris to take responsibility and 'remember' 17 October 1961, where as Georges takes some sleeping pills and cocoons himself in darkness - literally anesthetising himself from his past.
As an allegory for the actions of nations, particularly towards their colonial histories, I believe Cache is extremely effective and disturbingly provocative.

 

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