07/14/06 Caché

Caché (2005), directed by Michael Haneke

watched solo; DVD rental (Netflix) @ home

With becoming the winner of the Best Director Award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival (and not just because he's French), Haneke has done so with a very provocative and unsettling thriller. What is presented to the audience is an aggressive psychological mind-warp that disrupts a usually casual family lifestyle of a wealthy French couple. Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) start to become terrorized by a series of unmarked packages that arrive at their home, which include surveillance videotapes of themselves and their house from some unknown source, along with disturbing childlike drawings of nightmarish quality. At first, since Georges has a wildly popular literary TV talk show, the couple believe it to be a prank by some strange fan. However, as the deliveries become more frequent and personal, they begin to fear for their safety. Recognizing some of the obscure footage in the tapes, Georges takes it upon himself (without entrusting his wife with the knowledge) to seek out who he thinks the culprit is...to startling effect. Georges' secrecy about his past, and the apparent emergence of someone from it, causes a rift between him and Anne, as she is most concerned about their security and well-being of their son. Georges believes the perpetrator to be a childhood enemy that feels malice towards his family for past wrong-doings, which causes recurring dark memories to surface...which leads him to track the person down and confront him. What is slowly revealed (yet, in diversionary tactics) is that the resentment toward Georges has been carried out, but maybe not by who he thinks. The film eases you from stages of general apathy, towards uneasiness, heightened awareness, and finally hits you with a violent denouement (drop a little French on you) of sorts. It is hard to determine what is more disturbing of the elements utilized here; whether it be the voyeurism, the marital strains of lies, the vulnerability that we all fear, the perversions of society, childhood demons, bloody confrontations, or just the overall twisted simplicity in telling the chain of events in this story combined with the utter lack of resolution left at the story's end. I read an interesing review on one website for this film that stated this thriller to be "only as complicated as you make it, because a huge portion of its meaning comes from what you are willing to find" within it. Maybe that's just a sneaky French way of being artisitc...but it is nonetheless interesting. While I may not be smart enough to have understood the end shots that run through the credits, it adds to your own uneasiness in watching the constant filming within the film to find meaning. Good luck, I think it's hidden (see "Caché").

4 out of 5 stars