Caché (2005, Michael Haneke)
I liked this movie, and it is growing in my mind the longer I am away from it, but I really think I need another crack at it. I spent too much time focusing on the whodunnit, which in the end I believe is really beside the point. More after the jump and it is SPOILERIFIC
I really don’t think it matters who sent the tapes, I don’t think the film is about that. Note that about halfway through the movie, the tapes stop coming. There’s nothing after the film of Majid crying. If you want to take it on a literal level, HANEKE sent the tapes. Its his camera making them and sending them in, starting the characters down their path. Who sent the tapes matters as much as what is in Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase - zip. The film is about secrets and how they come uncovered, and what we do with the guilt and shame that bubbles to the surface when the past catches up with us. Many of my favorite movies have as a central theme a line I’ll steal here from Magnolia - “You may be through with the past, but the past isn’t through with you.” Certainly that theme is central to Caché.
I wish I had spent more time thinking about these issues and focusing on the relationship between Auteil and Binoche as the film progressed, rather than trying to puzzle out a mystery whose answer is irrelevant. That relationship is also a huge part of the film, note that despite the fact that they are apparently happily married and raising a child, he is never completely truthful to here. Even in the end, when he finally admits what he did, he is obviously leaving parts out (why was Majid’s nose bloodied? Why did he approach Georges with an axe after killing the chicken?)
It seems that many people missed what is an extremely important item in the last scene, namely that Pierrot walks out of the building and walks down the steps and stops to talk with Majid’s son. They stand talking for a while, it seems to be friendly, then they part, Pierrot walking back up the steps to meet his friends. Roll credits.
I have read many different ways to read this. It seems that most people will jump straight to the obvious - OMFG the kids did it. This is too easy, and since I fully believe that who did it is beside the point, it makes no sense for Haneke to give us the answer. I far prefer the idea that having suffered through what they have, the kids end up meeting and form a bond, two horrifying pasts coming together to form a more hopeful future. There is also the possibility that this is all a dream, a product of Auteil’s overloaded paranoid brain as he sleeps the sleep of the two sleeping pills (since it follows the brutally harsh scene of Majid being taken away.) Perhaps the meeting is itself being taped to send to Georges, for further torture. Its all open, the only explanation I will not accept is that it contains an answer to the whodunnit. I really need to see this again.
I haven’t even talked about the direction yet, and Haneke is at the top of his game. There is nobody out there now who can create tension like he can. The sound design and lack of music is a HUGE part of this. Think of that elevator ride up to Georges office with Majid’s song, the reflections back and forth, the silence, the real awkward horrifying time of it. I was floored by that scene. Also I recently read that this was shot on HD and I never would have been able to tell, its a beautiful film to watch. I need to see more, and I’m kicking myself for missing out on a Haneke retro a few months before I left Chicago.
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February 4th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
i agree with you that the tape sender is totally irrelevent, but it is still fun to speculate and is apparent the director specifically left it open-ended for that reason. i missed the kids meeting up in the final scene, all i recall seeing was some guy standing outside the school for a while (was this the culprit? i thought, but then he walked away), and then just random kids being kids after school.
to me, the central themes involved trust, guilt, and the idea of childhood trauma continuing to play a role in adulthood. you have the childhood snapshots of Georges and his bullying attitude toward this other child–bullying which may stem partly from a general distrust in this other child’s role as it is taken in by the family. later, as the tapes are sent, his deception to his wife is apparent but is somewhat covered up by him expressing that it is more out of protecting her from worry than from admitting his role. you can tell by his overdefensiveness that he is losing his own internal battle to guilt over what happened in his past. then of course his wife begins to distrust him for good reason, even though nothing seriously terrible has happened yet. suddenly everyone is on eggshells over a few pieces of paper and film.
so when it gets to the two kids meeting up in the end, to me it illustrates the cycle again. Majid commits suicide, his son now has to live with that trauma, and so by meeting up with Pierrot by the forces of nature he’s got all the seeds in his psyche now to play out this trauma again.
i like the idea of the director being the tape sender, and that all of this is happening in realtime, and as an audience of voyeurs we are contributing to the sudden dysfunction of a family and the continued cycle of grief and violence by introducing random props into their lives and seeing how they react.
February 11th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Good thoughts by both you and Roya on the film. I think we can speculate endlessly on the conversation between the kids at the end of the film and never really know what was going on there and I guess that’s as it should be. One thought that crossed my mind was that they’d met before. Maybe Majid’s son had planted the seed of Binoche’s cheating with Pierre in the kid’s mind earlier and that maybe Pierrot hadn’t been with Francois when he’d gone missing but had instead had some kind of interaction with Majid’s son then. Who knows.
One thing about the scenes you mentioned with Majid’s bloody nose and him going toward Georges with the ax. I think, since those were Auteuil’s flashbacks, that it was his guilt manifesting itself through the daydreams. With the bloody nose, I don’t remember it that way. I thought both times it was Auteil picturing Majid coughing up blood…kind of him making the lie he told about Majid real to make himself feel better about the horrible thing he’d done. The same with the ax/rooster scene. He told Majid to do it, but he dreams/pictures it being Majid killing the rooster and walking toward him with the ax. He’s remembering it that way to make comfort himself. Making his lies real.
I dunno, maybe that’s a bad reading. But everything Auteuil does seems to be a denial of the actual truth. Like you mentioned, he’s always leaving little pieces of things out even when he’s making admissions about the past. He can’t come to terms with it and keeps holding things back because it’s the only way he can go on living with what’s happened. Like after Majid cuts his throat, there’s that scene where Auteuil is outside a movie theater. It suggests he might’ve actually watched that shit go down and then hit a movie to try to get it out of his mind.
Crazy shit…we talked about the movie all afternoon as we were out doing stuff.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Don’t you know, man, “Cache” is all about 9/11 and terrorism, or so says Haneke. Me, personally, I don’t buy it, but whatever. I should probably watch it again, but Joe Dante’s “Piranha” is calling my name…
June 4th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
The film is a metaphor for a well meaning patriarchal state, with a guilt driven search for redemption of past colonial oppression, and the subsequent rejection by the people of that manifested immigration which encroaches on,and erodes the status and wealth of the indiginous people.
The rooster episode is a metaphor for the the banleiu riots of ethnic north african minorities which were ,alledgedly,stimulated by interested parties in order to create anti ethnic feeling in Paris and lead to ultimate ‘ethnic cleansing’.In the film the arab was threatening the share of the family,wsa encourage to commit a bad act, was alledge to be threateneing and was then ’shipped off’.
The underlying message of the filn is that the’establishment’ will eventually suffer as a more enlightened younger generationwill attempt to correct the ’sins of the fathers’ and ultimately bring the establishment down.