Review of Caché (2005) by Rosemarie S — 26 Aug 2009

4: This was the second time I've seen this particular masterwork from one of my favorite, and one of the most unique and interesting, directors working in the cinema today. I'll have to rewatch a couple other films of his to be sure, but I think I may have hit upon something this time around.

The picture was not nearly as engaging and remarkable the second time through and I suspect the same may be true of some of his other films as well. It isn't that they aren't deep and complex works, but they astound one so much the first time around that they are inevitably diminished upon subsequent viewings.

This isn't necessarily a negative thing, but it is markedly different from much of the work I most greatly admire. There is definitely something to be said for a director that so shocks the audience that they can never attain that same level of enjoyment and freshness again though.

Haneke is a master provocateur. He knows just how to set up an audience for the ultimate shock value. His films are remarkably well composed and beautiful. They are usually very deliberate and plodding.

It often takes quite a while for the story to unfold and it usually does so rather slowly and unremarkably at first. The distance at which he places the camera certainly gives the viewer a radically different perspective from what one typically finds in the cinema.

Take the flashback scene towards the end in which Majid is taken away from the estate house by the two people from the orphanage. The camera is entirely stationary and quite far away from the action. Most directors would have cut the scene into little pieces and gotten up close and personal with the characters and action.

Haneke denies us this and makes us feel more like voyeurs and quite detached from the action. Contrast this with the violence of the blood spattering onto the wall in the suicide scene and one gets a sense of the range of Haneke's work.

Auteiul and Binoche are very well suited to this type of film. They work well both as a couple and as individuals. The surveillance video sequences here are so perfectly framed and so exquisite one almost wants to capture them and frame them on ones wall for permanent enjoyment.

It doesn't hurt that this was an exceptional print and transfer onto Blu-Ray (shipped from France). It's definitely one of the cleanest and sharpest discs I've had the pleasure of viewing.

It's rather odd, but the color scheme and clarity of the images reminded me a bit of Let the Right One In and I've Loved You So Long, both European films as well. The camera is remarkably steady and stationary throughout key sequences and often really does end up forcing one to search for the hidden meanings in the picture (such as in the closing sequence, which really leaves open so many possibilities for the future).

It's a scintillating, but simple story, which is just as it should be. I would have been interested to see what Hitchcock could have done with a Haneke script.