Caché opens with a sedentary shot that gazes upon an upper-middle class French home from a cramped and claustrophobic alleyway across the street. Cars pass. A biker rides by. People walk across. And the audience is not sure what it is they are looking for. That is, until the footage begins to rewind: a long-anticipated revelation. We are no longer simply watching the house, but a videocassette that steals a glimpse into someone’s private life.
It’s an almost mischievous trick on the part of Austrian director Michael Haneke, as he catches the audience unawares in this manner throughout the film, where it’s not the textual image, but rather the underlying subtext of the presentation that’s actually important. For instance, when watching Caché, the audience might think that the film is a tense and unexplainable whodunit. However, Caché is unhurried to reveal itself as a reverberating political allegory, so wraps itself in the guise of a taut psychological thriller.
Set in France, the film follows the well-to-do Georges (Daniel Auteuil), a television talk show host who supports a picturesque wife (the enigmatic Juliette Binoche) and son (Lester Makedonsky). When their seeming tranquility is disturbed by videotapes of their home, which are accompanied by cartoon drawings scribbled over in crimson crayon, Georges embarks on a personal investigation to hunt down whoever is “terrorizing” his family.
However, it turns out that it’s not the answers which Georges seeks that should occupy the audience, but the man himself. As he continues to dig, more is revealed about Georges than the mystery behind the tapes. Georges has guilty secrets that he is adamant to keep hidden from his wife-secrets that motivate him to trample over whatever little people stand in his way, specifically an ill-treated Algerian immigrant.
Eventually it becomes Georges who terrorizes others, for a cause that he claims is the protection of his wife and child. Yet his wife and child are no more comforted by the distance that Georges places between them and himself.
Although Haneke’s film makes obvious references to the mistreatment of Algerian immigrants in France, there remain further echoes of a certain head of state from down south. The quickness of Georges to point his finger at the Algerian, along with the manner in which he instills fear into his own family in order to hide his own dirty laundry, resonates with methods used by the current American president.
However, Caché is not simply a didactic exercise posturing to preach about current global affairs. The film is a haunting portrait of the malicious upper class, which will always find an excuse to impede the lower order.
In keeping with his adopted thriller blueprint, Haneke’s film offers no easy answers (or possibly no answers of any form), leaving the audience on the verge of a spasm in trying to salvage the next clue.
A memorable conclusion, which deftly echoes the opening, will leave the spectator either feeling duped or embraced by an evocative political thriller that could only come from those impish Europeans. Repeat viewings of this film are certainly in order.
Caché
Directed by Michael Haneke
Starring Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche
Rating: VVVV
