After watching Michael Haneke’s Cache, I felt deeply unsettled and unsatisfied. But as far as I can tell, this is exactly how Haneke wishes his audiences to feel. Part of this comes from the inconclusive narrative. The central mystery of the film is the question of who is sending a series of videotapes and violent drawings to the two protagonists - Anne and Georges Laurent. The tapes are simply exterior recordings of the couple’s house (see below), but they create an environment of fear which troubles Anne and Georges throughout the film. The author of the tapes is never satisfactorily revealed, robbing the audience of any sort of closure.
However, the disturbing nature of the film is not just created by the narrative. It is Haneke’s filming and editing decisions that really begin to irritate and unsettle us. If I had watched the film on my own (without the benefit of class lectures and readings), I would have known something was abnormal, but I wouldn’t have been able to put my finger on it. What is missing in the film is described by Daniel Dayan, in the “Tutor Code of Classical Cinema.” Classical cinema attempts to hide the existence of the camera, and to disguise the process by which the audience is placed into the film. The shot/reverse shot system is the traditional method of “suturing” the viewer into the film. A shot is filmed from a certain point-of-view; this creates an “absent” viewer noticeable by the audience. The next shot is the reverse, showing us who was doing the “looking” in the original shot. Thus, shot/reverse shot techniques are used to portray a conversation between two characters; the camera is disguised and the audience just sees alternating perspectives of two characters.
In Cache, Haneke often forgoes the reverse shot, making the camera’s presence obvious and preventing us from learning who is doing the “looking.” At the beginning of the film, we see a long take of a residence. The scene continues until the frame begins to rewind - we realize we seeing the point of view of Georges watching a tape. There is no reverse shot, so we never learn who is doing the filming - we know as much as the baffled protagonists.
Haneke jettisons the idea that camera should be non-existent and unobtrusive. His decision reverses the audience's expectations in the film. We no longer expect to be seeing unfiltered action - we expect the camera as intermediary. By the end of the film, when Majid committed suicide, I no longer thought of the scene independently of the camera. I expected it to be a taped scene being viewed by someone else. In any other movie, I would have accepted the events onscreen as unfiltered truth. However, Haneke made me consciously think of the camera that was recording the action. This is what happens when the audience gets no reverse shot. This lack of suture is not limited only a few scenes. During the dinner party, the camera remains in the same place. There is no reverse shot to suture the audience into the shot. There was an eerie feeling that the dinner guests were being watched, even though the watchers were just us movie-goers.
Perhaps I am underestimating Hollywood (and American audiences), but I don’t think a film like Cache would work in the U.S. Most of us still go to the movies to be entertained, not unsettled. Still, Cache is not Haneke’s first attempt at breaking the rules of classical cinema. In Funny Games, Haneke remade his own film for American audiences. Its certainly disturbing, I was freaked out for days after seeing it.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Funny Games
In the film, about two sociopathic murderers, none of the sympathetic characters survive - neither the wife, husband, or child. Haneke gives us a traditional course of events, only to undo it. At one point, the wife is actually able to take a gun and kill one of the murders. In response, the other murderer picks up a DVD remote, and literally rewinds the film, going back and preventing the result that most audiences have come to expect in movies. I can’t imagine this sort of thing can get mainstream acclaim, but I have no idea how successful the film was.
END Spoilers
Haneke has said that "film is a lie at 24 frames per second, but to serve the truth." In Cache, Haneke is making the lie clear to audiences that have been indoctrinated all their lives into standard cinematic conventions. In my case, I'm certainly more conscious of these film "lies" after seeing Funny Games and Cache.
2 comments:
I particularly found your post provocative. To see why look here: http://softlighthardfocus.blogspot.com/2009/02/reflexion-cachee.html
(btw thanks for noting the presence of spoilers, I didn't read that part thanks to your capitalized warnings)
Your example of thinking of a hidden camera when watching the suicide scene is in exact accord with my own experience. The scene was shot from nearly the same location (perhaps a little closer) than the earlier tape where we see the first confrontation. I kept comparing the two scenes in my mind, and was trying to figure if the camera could have been hidden again this time. The fact that at any moment of the film we could have been watching footage from hidden cameras within the narrative was a brilliant move by Haneke to make the presence of the camera felt.
I also like the Haneke quote you mentioned. Perhaps his films are more truthful because they are conscious of its lies.
I saw Funny Games and it disturbed me deeply but I didn't realize it until I went to watch the American remake and had to leave the theater after 10 minutes, because I kept on anticipating the rest of that movie.
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