Review of Caché (2005) by Sebastian G — 04 Jul 2008

This is not a film. I can say this again and again, hopefully those of you hoping to find a good flick for the evening will heed the warning. This is a stylistically strong and powerful piece of social commentary, a harrowing tale of our way of understanding the world around us, and how we treat people, and above all a treatise on race-relations.

You can doubtless find many deep messages that Haneke is trying to give us, and he does so through a medium of a mystery. The mystery, however, has nothing to do with what he seems to be conveying, and as such it fails as a film.

I enjoyed it on some level, and decided that the lack of ending was irrelevant as long as you can appreciate what Haneke was trying to do. But you really have only the social commentary to go by on this one, so don't come in hoping for a gritty french thriller.

Come in expecting tension to reinforce messages about society, rather than having the social commentary highlight the tension and mystery. Whatever you do, don't try to find an answer. You'll inevitably sound more than a little absurd trying to spin a theory around this one.