I found the techniques in Cache to be very interesting. Haneke does a good job at going beyond just using a camera as a viewpoint and uses objects in the movie as well. Besides watching George on TV, we can see his expression when faced with the son on Majid on the elevator through the glass. We can clearly see them both looking at each other, then staring away, and you can feel the tension within the elevator, as can everyone else, as you can see their expressions go from one, to the other, then trying not to look at either. We also look through the distorted memories of George as we enter his dreams. First we see this when Majid is coughing up blood, later when he chops the head of the rooster off then comes at George with the knife, both which we learn to be lies.
After watching the movie I looked it up on IMDB to see what other people thought of it. Upon looking to see those who enjoyed it and others who did not, I found one theory that interested me. Someone posted the theory of the tapes being part of a reality show in which George did not know it was being filmed but this was the “new project” his agent discussed with him. I thought this was interesting because then it would mean there are so many more people doing the looking than just those who come into possession with a tape (his agent and his household). However, I had a theory of my own, that somehow, Georges mother was connected to all of this, which was why all she needed to stop herself from feeling lonely was her TV, a VCR, and a remote. This would make her the ultimate viewer of everything, keeping herself in the know of what was going on with her family.
When it comes to what is actually being looked at and what lies off camera, they simply follow into each other. When you think of what lies off camera, we can go beyond just hearing the voices of George and Anne as they discuss the fact that someone is watching them, we can move towards the tension that occurs during the movie, the seemingly endless possibilities of theories about who is taping and sending these tapes, and even the feelings we get as we see some of these gruesome scenes and are left to feel as George does. When George is in the apartment with Majid, you can feel the tension between the two of them, and suddenly that tension is cut with a knife (literally and figuratively) as Majid slits his throat open. Suddenly we see blood splatter against the wall and slowly become a puddle of blood on the floor. At this point, if you’ve been paying enough attention to the movie, you can almost feel as George does. Shock, not knowing what to do, panic, slightly starting to pace back and forth, and sick, signaled by his coughing and possibly the feeling of nausea.
Haneke gives the average viewer something more than average to look at. Instead of giving an average film in which everything is laid out for the passive viewer, in this film, you must be an active participant. If you slip for more than a few moments, you may miss something important, or something that seems important. He leaves things very open, waiting for someone to interpret the movie as they’d like. The viewer also has to have a keen eye to see everything occurring, which is most important at the end, which some people miss in the lower left hand side Majid’s son approaching Perrot and talking for a few moments. However, the topic of their discussion is also left to interpretation. The more important thing here I think is his experiment of whether or not people will catch onto that without being told, which many have not.
George is also left to interpret things within the movie. We see that in the film as George receives these tapes leading him to Majid’s apartment and decides he must go. What would’ve happened had he not gone? I don’t recall the tape saying his must go; yet he did. When viewing movies and tapes and the like, it isn’t always necessary that you be an active participant or follow as the tape displays. Yet George chooses to.
The movie employs some interesting techniques although as I’ve seen on some of the reviews, people dislike it for missing the points of it, or focus mostly on the more disturbing scenes than anything else. This movie was probably my second favorite home viewing movie of all we have seen this far.
12 comments:
True, Cache is extremely stylized in a filmic perspective. This sort of "artsy" film technique as an IMDB reviewer commented is very polarizing. To people like this, the content, which in many peoples opinion is very powerful, takes second place to the style, which alienates many people.
The use of tapes as a reality is intruiging. Georges mother in a sense, is almost authoritarian in her viewings of recordings. To me, it harkens back to the command style soviet superstate of the 1970's, an Orwellian nightmare. Maybe that's just me.
Joshua Barton
PS, there is something wrong with this blog, it took me 500 tries to post my comment.
I enjoyed watching Cashe. The movie surprised me in how unalarming it was, which was alarming in itself. There was so much in the movie that I knew had it been done in a more conventional hollywood style would have been aplified to such an extent that the audience would be on the edge of their seats, anxious for the family. I found myself actually working myself up into a state of anxiousness just because I knew I should feel that way with these things going on. I watched the movie with a friend and we both commented on this.
I never thought too much about where the tapes were coming from and why they were being made. The tapes seemed to me to be a filmic device to make Georges face his guilty concious. The movie, to me, centered around the theme of guilt and forgiveness. Georges, throughout the movie, is haunted by his guilt over how he treated Majid, and it didnt even matter WHY he came to face Majid after all those years, it only mattered that he did. While Georges was obviously rattled after Majid's sucide, he also seemed relieved.
Georges' wife, too, I think was plauged with guilt. While we never explicitly see anything, I am fairly certain that she was having an affair with their friend and that her guilt was coming out in the form of distress over the tapes. In the beginning of the film she seemed more annoyed with the tapes than concerned, and I think that as the guilt of her afair began to weigh on her, the more stressed out about them she became. Also I think that their son, Pierrot, received a tape of his mother meeting her 'friend' for a date, and thats why he reacted so violently towards her.
I was also facinated with the use of the actual tapes. After the first few tapes they recieve, any scene that began without any of the core characters I suspected of just being a tape. The film made me question what I was viewing. And no matter how many times we watched a scene only to have it be rewound and paused, it never became less disconcerting.
This movie was enjoyable one and kept me guessing on what would happen next. It also had a lot of filmic technique, i agree with the camera view of george through the mirror and majid's son staring at each other in the elevator and then the one guy who comes in the middle of them and feels akward when he notices them. Another interesting filmic technique is when there are those still scenes that are quiet and leaves you to figure out, whats going on? At the begining of the movie with the camera locked in on georges house with silence and then they rewound it and I thought it was my computer going bad. But those are the scenes that keep you wondering and to figure out yourself.
I also thought this movie was very entertaining. I found the cinematography to be the most interesting. If you noticed, every scene was somewhat quick, aside from the scenes that feel long due to the sense of suspense. The transitions from scene to scene seemed pretty spontaneous. This left the viewer with a sense of mystery and curiosity. I very much enjoyed the still shorts with random rewinding shots. There were many shots that were taken from George's perspective. Those shots really took me in with the film.
I feel as though there is so much to say about this film that it is hard to know where to start. Yet I have this image stuck in my head that I feel inclined to comment on.
It is related to the title of the film, Cache', translated as "hidden" in french, and also develops within the viewing questions. The image is that of the window. Or the framed viewpoint of the camera, and its relation to the world outside of that view. We see only the world which has been captured by the camera lens. Yet outside of this limited scope exists everything that may be concieved by us. I say everything because it is in the absence of anything that we have the freedom to do so. Without a representation we have the say as to what may exist. It is only when something crosses paths with view of the camera that we are shown a more concrete representation. Yet even then our perception is influenced by subjectivism.
This is especially made apparent by the film techniques used in Cache'. In the opening scene we see a stationary window of a section of street. Everything is tranquill, only upset by the occasional passerby or breeze. I especially enjoy this image of a set window, absent of any will directing it, capturing what by chance may pass through its scope. It can be translated to almost any other scene in the movie. Scenes like the first one heighten the viewers awareness of what is hidden and in subsequent shots one may retain that awareness. Haneke's whole method of viewing and creating film seems to revolve around this awareness of the hidden, leaving the fine details to the perception of the viewer.
I think this method may recieve criticism for leaving the story unresolved, yet I think for the same reasons may be praised. The image of the window and the limited view it represents of the whole, seems like a very real one. It relates to our own perception of reality in every day of our lives and also incorporates the whole realm of possible realities outside of that perception. The world is a complicated and unresolved one, as is Haneke's.
I completely agree that you have to pay attention to this film- the violence and gore kind of sneak up on you. It's the kind of movie that draws you in, and holds your attention, if only because the camera techniques dont show you everything thats going outside the frame. While the dialogue was at times dull, you could definately feel the emotion that the characters were trying to portray. while this film was not one of my favorites so far, it was certainly one of the most engrossing.
I think tension is something that is really focused on in this film through the filmic techniques. this film is enjoyable becasue of aspects like the techniques used since they keep you connected. we view the tapes as if we were anne and georges and as the movie progresses we slowly start to feel as they do while watching the tapes, becoming more curious and more aware of the feeling of being terrorized. the "no solution" ending worked really well to keep you guessing, as the last scenes unfold, you're ready for answers, ready for a reason but i think it is much more like Syd said "th tapes seemed to be to be a filmic device to make georges face his guilty concioius..." this film instills thew fact aht while you can submerged and bury events that have caused tension of some sort, the second that memory has been evoked by something, everything just comes back in full swing, creating intense feelings of guilt and other related emotions.
Something i found really interesting is when we are watching the tapes, we are filling the same place as George and his wife AND the person who created the tapes. It seems as if we are in the car, driving up to Georges old house and yet we are simultaneously aware that we are essentally on Georges side- we can hear him speaking. I think the director made this choice to get his viewers more involved in the film, to force them to consider more than just what they see and to become uncomfortable by it.
Someone made a good comment about Haneke's intentions to make the viewer aware of what is hidden as well as what we cannot see. I agree, i think this film can leave the viewer feeling like their experiance is extremely subjective because we can only see so much at once. It is also intresting to note that the tapes are entirely consructed by their creator, and George is doomed to see only what he is shown. It is a paralle with our experiance both with films and with life.
I think that this film is a great example of "less is more". The way that the film is shot adds greatly to the ovarall themes if the fim. Haneke chooses to use extremely long shots throughout the film (during the surveilance tapes and other scenes as well) and include virtually no soundtrack. This serves to make the viewer extremely self concious and aware of the fact that they're watching a film with fairly disturbing themes. Haneke leaves the viewer alone with his own confusion about what is going on and provides the viewer with absolutely no comfort in the form of escapism. While watching the film, we as viewers are given only as much information as Georges is, therefore we are in the same position as him.
This movie was very interesting to view. The first scene really threw me off at first as I insisted that the DVD had frozen. This approach helped me to feel closer with the characters in the movie because I was seeing the same things they were. As the movie progressed, I found myself constantly questioning which scenes were "surveillance" and which scenes were the present. Even before I knew if something was surveillance or not I would analyze it. The movie was actually filmed like a surveillance tape- there was no soundtrack, just background noise. I felt like this effect added to the film's impact and impression. It really helped the audience connect with the plot and the characters. Because it was shot as like a surveillance tape, we had an easier time trusting what we see because we know it has not been altered.
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