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Trailer here. (http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/cache/Cache_Trlr_300.mov)
International Trailer here. (http://www.filmsdulosange.fr/video/cache/cache_qtlarge.mov)
Release Date: December 23, 2005
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Maurice Bénichou, Annie Girardot, Bernard Le Coq, Walid Afkir, Daniel Duval, Nathalie Richard, Denis Podalydès, Aïssa Maïga
Director: Michael Haneke
Premise: Georges, who hosts a TV literary review, receives packages containing videos of himself with his family -- shot secretly from the street -- and alarming drawings whose meaning is obscure. He has no idea who may be sending them. Gradually, the footage on the tapes becomes more personal, suggesting that the sender has known Georges for some time. Georges feels a sense of menace hanging over him and his family but, as no direct threat has been made, the police refuse to help.
and for those who missed it in the other thread, this won best foreign film from the LA Film Critics
See also: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/
Quote from: onomabracadabra on December 13, 2005, 03:18:59 AM
See also: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/
shut up. the plotlines are slightly similar, but lynch and haneke share totally different sentimentalities. i have been waiting for this movie since it was announced. i would've seen it at the nyff, but, coincidentally, lynch was doing his transcendental meditation crap and i had to go to that instead.
Spoilers.
The ending was fucking the most abrupt ending there has been ever, right? It caught me completely off guard and I loved it for that.
It was an experience. It was a French experience. It was a Michael Haneke experience. Tragic tense and dense moments. Great acting and control. The pace was bizarre and worked. I don't think that it was ambituous enough to be categorized as great, but it is what it is.
I fucking loved the end.
B-.
Not the slightest bit like Lost Highway.
if you loved it so much, where does the b- come from?
this is a great progression for haneke. his movies seem to get better and better with every one he makes. they all send such strong messages to an audience without ever beating the audience over their heads with them or talking down to them. this movie is far subtler than his previous attempts and has been getting sold out shows in nyc the past few weeks. catch it if it comes near you. especially if you're white.
Quote from: bonanzataz on January 16, 2006, 02:05:14 AM
if you loved it so much, where does the b- come from?
Quote from: Losing the Horse: on January 11, 2006, 11:15:23 PM
I don't think that it was ambitious enough to be categorized as great, but it is what it is.
Minus a random extra u in ambitious.
no, it's not blatantly ambitious, but the subjects that are tackled in this movie are done with such finesse and ease that the subtext isn't entirely apparent until after it's done with. for that, i think it's incredibly ambitious. it's hard to make a movie about race relations that never comes out and says "this is a movie about race relations." i never saw crash, but from some of the things i've heard mentioned on this board, that movie attempts to be ambitious in its storytelling. haneke's direction is amazing, b/c his technique takes a backseat to decent storytelling. it's not about creatively put together shots or cool use of music or writing/direction which seems to shout "this is the most amazing movie ever made and you should take note!" mirroring the premise of the movie, the audience isn't experiencing everything with intense, hyper-emotional melodrama as many movies would show it, they're watching it from a voyeuristic perspective. that's what makes it so unique and so good. far better than a b- in my opinion. i'm going to see this one again before it leaves theaters (which, from what i've heard from friends trying to go see it and finding out that the next two showings are sold out weeks after its release, won't be for a long time).
Finesse is such a fine word to use. Your enthusiasm for the film makes me enthusiastic, but I disagree that it's incredibly ambitious. It's treading much the same waters that Antonioni did, or even Tarkovsky, Bunuel, Jarmusch, and definitely Greenaway and Egoyan. I imagine the NYC crowd is having a good time unwrapping the film's layers: solving the case of the tape, the unfaithful wife, the intentions of the son (both), the amorality of the situation, etc. That I fucking love too. And the genre bending of course.
B- is pretty abritrary I guess. Perhaps because I'm so desperate for films, especially contemporary, to take me places that I haven't been before it causes me to be harder on the more subtle and the more outrageous and I am missing out. Cache was certainly a good film.
Quote from: Losing the Horse: on January 17, 2006, 01:16:53 AMB- is pretty abritrary I guess.
i know. i just want people to see this movie, b/c i don't think haneke gets enough credit.
moral of the story: enuff with grading movies like they're homework. you both ended up saying great things about the movie which made me way more interested to see it than the trailer, but the B- thing is just irrelevant for any serious review. if you need to summarize your thoughts about a movie in letter format or out of five, don't bother writing anything at all so i can just skip your review.
the rating invalidates the writing and the writing confuses the rating.
I saw this in Boston last night. Really Great, I can't stop thinking about it. It reminded me a lot of the 1988 version of The Vanishing with it's pacing and build up. I haven't been as satisfied at the end of a movie as I was with this one in a long time. Maybe it's just because I "saw" what was to be seen in the last shot and nobody else in the theatre did, but my heart was racing as the credits rolled. Thumbs Up, i need to see other films by Haneke.
Quote from: bonanzataz on January 17, 2006, 01:44:24 AM
Quote from: Losing the Horse: on January 17, 2006, 01:16:53 AMB- is pretty abritrary I guess.
i know. i just want people to see this movie, b/c i don't think haneke gets enough credit.
I second that. It's a priority. What you said about being white, too (especially now, whether you're French or American or whatever). Our own privilege is "hidden" from us, and this movie is extremely observant on that front.
SPOILERS
If there's such a thing as too subtle, this film is it. Between the videotapes, the children, and whatever connection lies between, this movie spells out far less than it should. I can't believe everyone is so adamantly stamping this as a movie about race. Were the tapes some sort of red herring to get me thinking about racism? Because the movie places such a big priority on the tapes, the tapes, why would it want to be a thriller about tapes on the surface when it's really about race? That didn't work. And even as I saw it, as a film about the effects and consequences of a childhood event, facing it all of a sudden in the present, that didn't work either. As a thriller about tapes, it sure doesn't work. This movie isn't about anything, the ending is a cop out. I'm not going to read anything more into it because the pieces just aren't there. The infidelity of the wife is mentioned, but a kiss on the hand is supposed to get me chatting away about what was really going on? The kid going missing is interesting, but the dad sums it up as going through puberty, and if it's really about his mother, we get NOTHING to suggest any validity. If not seeing it is our way of being voyeurs, well that stinks, bad cinema. The only thing that completely amazed me was the uninterrupted suicide. Technically and cinematically, that was incredible.
No, all the pieces are there....the ones you need, in any case. The tapes aren't a red herring, but they might be a bit of a subterfuge; they're a metaphor for perception than anything else (the mystery behind them ultimately doesn't matter all that much - they might as well be making themselves). The film isn't so much concerned with racism as it is (and this is true for the majority of Haneke's work, with the exception of 'The Piano Teacher') classism. Consider the recent events in Paris and apply them to this film, and it all might start to make more sense. Echoing the sentiments of Astrostic, it's one of the most satisfying films I've seen in a long time.
SPOILERS again
I've been reading some reviews, and maybe I missed something in the last shot, but which two characters are seen in the upper left talking to each other? It sounds really interesting but I don't know who they are because I didn't see it. That shot was large and you aren't given any reason to look that direction.
As for the recent events in Paris, I can see some interesting connection there, and really this film might be more effective in America if it were a black guy, because if it's about race or class there's that immediate recognition of assumption there. Arab racism doesn't jump out at me, black racism does. I'm not saying this is a problem with the film, just a cultural barrier that I'm thinking out loud about that would help me understand the film a bit more. I'm starting to see it, but I still would never call this film satisfying.
Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on February 15, 2006, 09:57:47 PM
I've been reading some reviews, and maybe I missed something in the last shot, but which two characters are seen in the upper left talking to each other? It sounds really interesting but I don't know who they are because I didn't see it. That shot was large and you aren't given any reason to look that direction.
SPOILERSHad to jump in because how can you leave this question unanswered?
It's the teenage son and the Algerian son. They interract calmly, almost in a friendly way like they might know each other - or maybe this is an act and subtle threats are happening... The Algerian son walks off, and the teenage son walks off with his friends.
I had no idea that this was something that a lot of people had missed until I started reading reviews - I just looked to that part of the screen automatically because it contained the door that the son had come out of in a previous scene when we'd been shown the same shot. When I realised it had become this big "did-you-see-it" thing I asked my girlfriend, who'd seen the film with me with me, and I was shocked to find out she hadn't noticed it either!
As for the film's social meaning, I would say that it's absolutely about classism and racism equally, because they so often amount to the same thing - which I would say the film is pointing out. It's about the comfy middle-class world being shattered - about the privileges that come with it, and those automatically denied the working classes - but the seed of this shattering is a little boy's instinctive racism.
On a side-note, I love that our main character is a literary critic - the irony that he is exactly the kind of person who would find veiled racism, or a searing indictment of the bourgeois, in some work of fiction but is completely unable to be critical about his own life in the same way. Of course, we're then left with the added irony that most of the audience for this arthouse movie - who will rightly proclaim its importance - will themselves be white and middle-class.
I was genuinely disappointed in this film. Michael Hanaeke has already made a film of the first rank for me in The Piano Teacher. The problem for Cache began with me when I started to feel the similarities of Antonioni's Blow Up. Everyone regards Antonioni's later work with equal praise as L'Avventura and L'Eclisse. There is no merit for that praise. Antonioni's downfall began with Blow Up and continued to get worst with every film.
People argue whether the main concern of this film is either racism or classiscm. I say neither. I say the main concern of this film is genre - specifically the thriller. Hitchcock was infamous for using actors who had credible careers as romantics or heroes and turning their image upside down and showing them in roles at their most squeamish and volatile. The shock to the audience was that Hitchcock was using actors against type cast and showing them with little mercy. Michael Hanaeke is taking a similar advantage of the audience here by using two of the most famous and beloved French actors to star as the husband and wife who are held hostage to a mysterious stalker. The focus of the story is their disintegration from each other and finally from themselves as the turns around become too much to personally bear.
People want to argue that there is more to this story. The problem is that the film is too vague to be credible for any other theme. The charge of racism stems from the lead character (Auteil) avoiding his past problems with Magil because he was an orphan and an Algerian who was connected to the family but not wanted by him. Auteil further continues to show this by showing little understanding for Magil later in life when he assumes he is the stalker. The classism charge really includes the same charges as the racism ones but includes the need Auteil has to protect his family and not involve them with Magile. Thing is, Auteil manages to shut out many characters in the movie including his wife from any personal confidence. This leaves me to believe the major distrust is with himself and he would have acted this way to any person - regardless of class or race. True, the problems start from a racist standpoint, but family history can be volatile to orphans in other ways as well. I think Auteil's resolve to shut himself off from everyone would have been the same.
Back to Antonioni. Blow Up had the look and feel of Antonioni film, but it was a shell casing to a genre story. Antonioni lost the amazing art he created with L'Avventura that beautifully merged film to painting like never done before or since. Blow Up tried to transfuse the genre to a pacing and focus that would give it credibility. Atonioni wanted to take the inner identity of the genre and re-tell it without focusing on the all usual action. Melville was doing similar things at the time but he had nothing on Antonioni. The difference is that Melville's transformation from his main period in the 50s to the 60s was actually a progression. Antonioni was making a transgression. Cache wraps itself around a similar austere shell and while it has two good performances, it has nothing unique to it to really recommend it. Its existence as a thriller keeps it from plunging into the darker terrain of the story. That is what The Piano Teacher was able to do.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on July 22, 2006, 02:14:48 AMPeople argue whether the main concern of this film is either racism or classiscm. I say neither. I say the main concern of this film is genre - specifically the thriller.
I would be one of those people if you are claiming that Cache strives to be or is a thriller. The term "thriller" would lead to the assumption that there is a puzzle to be solved or there is a mystery going on. The tapes and their author, whether Anne is having an affair, why Peirrot disappears for a night, etc. are simply the means for studying the behavior of these characters. I really don't think the point was for us to determine answers to these questions. If that was the point, the film is much too ambiguous. Note a famous Haneke quote: "My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus." This philosophy assuredly applies to Cache and offers instruction for its interpretation.
Because the focus is rightly on the characters and their behavior toward and interactions with each other, it is absolutely about race and class. Georges' guilt is manifested in his dreams, but he still shows no sign of making things right with Majid. I don't think their race, and related social class, are merely coincidences in an unfolding mystery we are tasked with solving.
On a side note, I read the final shot as hopeful (perhaps naively so) in that the new generation, Peirrot and Majid's son, seem to be interacting in a friendly manner.
Quote
"My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus."
Haneke is just disassociating his work from typical American movies. There is no reason to believe that Cache still can't be argued in the context of a thriller. Europe has gone a long way to define its meaning of exceptional genre work. Exceptional thrillers do exist. Look at my previous analogy of Blow Up. I doubt neither Haneke nor Antonioni would argue that Blow Up isn't a thriller. I also doubt that Haneke would argue that his film has higher aspirations than Blow Up. The world of European cinema has given a context to genre that is lacking in the United States. It can allow for greater themes and discussions to be pursued.
I do argue against Antonioni's experimentation in genre though. He started the 1960s at the peak of the film world in avant garde filmmaking and by the end of the decade he was making films that were half the value of his greatest work.
Quote from: Sunrise on July 25, 2006, 05:05:48 PM
Because the focus is rightly on the characters and their behavior toward and interactions with each other, it is absolutely about race and class. Georges' guilt is manifested in his dreams, but he still shows no sign of making things right with Majid. I don't think their race, and related social class, are merely coincidences in an unfolding mystery we are tasked with solving.
This is the heart of the argument.
I still don't believe the film is about racism or class at all. I haven't heard one logical argument that would lead me to believe me so. The main focus of the film is about this family having their lives turned upside down. It is about the process of the father becoming so disconcerted with the stalker that he distances himself from his friends, family and finally himself.
The fact that the problem is a situation that involves class and race is of secondary importance. It really doesn't begin to describe the film. I've heard people use the saying that "every action is political". Sure, an argument can be mustered that every action has a political connotation because of the society we live in, but that saying doesn't begin to describe most situations. Its a heavy handed insert of a theme or an idea merely because the situation glides across it in some way.
The same thing is applied in this film. Cache doesn't have enough details to its backstory to say that the pain Georges is going through is a strictly racial or social problem. It only has enough details to say it is caused from a childhood problem he never had a chance to make right. In my original review I argued that even if the details of race and social ladder were changed I still think Georges would have gone through a similar anxiety because a stalker was tormenting him. I haven't heard a rebuttal of that argument yet.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on July 26, 2006, 12:38:55 AMThe world of European cinema has given a context to genre that is lacking in the United States. It can allow for greater themes and discussions to be pursued.
Generally I think this is true.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on July 26, 2006, 12:38:55 AMThis is the heart of the argument.
I still don't believe the film is about racism or class at all. I haven't heard one logical argument that would lead me to believe me so. The main focus of the film is about this family having their lives turned upside down. It is about the process of the father becoming so disconcerted with the stalker that he distances himself from his friends, family and finally himself.
This is where we will probably have to agree to disagree. I read the cause of Georges' unraveling to be the latent guilt he feels from his instinctive childhood racism and jealousy (which has, at least unconsciously, carried over to his adult life). The tragic element of the narrative is that while he feels this guilt he has no way to cope with it and cannot consciously recognize it. That is why his behavior toward Majid and Majid's son does not change even though the audience can blatantly see what affect his guilt has caused. It is also HIS cause for the distancing you mention above. The tapes are just a means to draw the audience in and discover what's going on, or went on, in Georges' past and how it shape's his adult behavior. I do think that Anne is more affected by the fact that their is an anonymous terrorist out there creating and delivering these tapes. But then again she doesn't know the whole story.
Haneke supplies just enough detail to allow the audience to draw its own conclusions and often times disagree.
Sunrise has this movie nailed right on the head. The story is not in the slightest "about the process of the father becoming so disconcerted with the stalker that he distances himself from his friends, family and finally himself," it's about why he undergoes this process. "Cache" is only a thriller inasmuch as it appropriates the plot beats of the thriller to tell a story about not an external discovery, a "mystery", but an internal discovery, that of a man finally facing a lifetime of suppressed guilt. And that guilt is deeply rooted in racial and class issues. To deny that is to deny the text itself, which Haneke liberally (pun sort of intended) sprinkles with such moments as the story of the Algerian massacre and the lengthy news broadcast about the Iraq war.
In a way, the story is very much about liberal guilt. As a child, the main character thought of Majid as beneath him, and let his bigotry get the better of him. Then, when faced with the results of his actions, he can't face up to it; he doesn't think of himself as being someone like that, so he can't outwardly admit to the guilt that's clearly destroying him internally.
What Haneke does that's really interesting, and that seems to have utterly bamboozled GT, is to let the subjects of race and class sneak into the story, mirroring the dawning realization that the main character experiences (though never admits to). The most disastrous thing he could have done would have been to have some big scene near the end of the movie where Majid's son has a long, "Crash"-like monologue about the dangers of soft bigotry, something a lesser film would have found irresistable. Instead, he just lets the story tell itself: the story of a man who thinks he is above such things, but finds out otherwise.
And wow, the final shot makes a hell of a lot more sense having read this thread. Damn my regular-sized television, I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to be seeing there. It's nice, sort of a "Lady or the Tiger" kind of ending. The meaning you take away from it is entirely dependent on how optimistic a person you are.
Quote from: polkablues on August 20, 2006, 01:21:54 AM
What Haneke does that's really interesting, and that seems to have utterly bamboozled GT, is to let the subjects of race and class sneak into the story, mirroring the dawning realization that the main character experiences (though never admits to).
Don't mention my name like that only in passing. Your comment to my "bamboozlement" is too glib to be accurate. I made points. I made arguments. Honor that before you single me out as the one who doesn't understand. If you wont then just do your review and don't mention my name.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on August 20, 2006, 08:08:18 PM
Quote from: polkablues on August 20, 2006, 01:21:54 AM
What Haneke does that's really interesting, and that seems to have utterly bamboozled GT, is to let the subjects of race and class sneak into the story, mirroring the dawning realization that the main character experiences (though never admits to).
Don't mention my name like that only in passing. Your comment to my "bamboozlement" is too glib to be accurate. I made points. I made arguments. Honor that before you single me out as the one who doesn't understand. If you wont then just do your review and don't mention my name.
That was in direct reference to your prior posts on the film, in which you argued a point which I attempted to rebut in my post. For clarity's sake, I'll quote you:
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on July 26, 2006, 12:38:55 AM
I still don't believe the film is about racism or class at all.
Then I'll quote me:
Quote from: polkablues on August 20, 2006, 01:21:54 AM
...that guilt is deeply rooted in racial and class issues. To deny that is to deny the text itself, which Haneke liberally (pun sort of intended) sprinkles with such moments as the story of the Algerian massacre and the lengthy news broadcast about the Iraq war.
Point/counterpoint. And "bamboozled," while a funny word, meant exactly what I meant it to mean -- that I believe the approach the film takes in developing its themes misled you away from what those themes actually were. At no point was any of that intended as disrespect to you, just as a counterargument to your analysis. If I phrased it in a way that offended you, I apologize. But I stand by the point itself.
Quote from: polkablues on August 20, 2006, 01:21:54 AM
...that guilt is deeply rooted in racial and class issues. To deny that is to deny the text itself, which Haneke liberally (pun sort of intended) sprinkles with such moments as the story of the Algerian massacre and the lengthy news broadcast about the Iraq war.
For me, those sprinkled moments hardly go the length of defining the text. I've said before that beneath the surface of this film may be such things as classism or racism, but I do not believe the film is driven by those themes. That would mean the film would be an idea work. It would try to find a new way to define racial tensions in France. Or even the tensions of those who are dealing with the aftermath of Algerian blow over. It does not. It is a character study of these characters at their most uncomfortable. The suspense porthole which it looks at pain and anger has more relation to Hitchock than any serious artist. Its a quasi attempt at realism for a family on the fringes of breaking apart and a man being driven by his past insecurities. The classism or racism subtext only stands as light ground which the film stands on. It hardly differentiates differentiates the drama from what almost any other subtext could have provided.
On the point of personal offense, none taken. I just find myself easily quoted because everyone seems to assume I disagree to just disagree. Its very annoying.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on August 21, 2006, 01:45:05 PM
Quote from: polkablues on August 20, 2006, 01:21:54 AM
...that guilt is deeply rooted in racial and class issues. To deny that is to deny the text itself, which Haneke liberally (pun sort of intended) sprinkles with such moments as the story of the Algerian massacre and the lengthy news broadcast about the Iraq war.
For me, those sprinkled moments hardly go the length of defining the text. I've said before that beneath the surface of this film may be such things as classism or racism, but I do not believe the film is driven by those themes. That would mean the film would be an idea work. It would try to find a new way to define racial tensions in France. Or even the tensions of those who are dealing with the aftermath of Algerian blow over. It does not. It is a character study of these characters at their most uncomfortable. The suspense porthole which it looks at pain and anger has more relation to Hitchock than any serious artist. Its a quasi attempt at realism for a family on the fringes of breaking apart and a man being driven by his past insecurities. The classism or racism subtext only stands as light ground which the film stands on. It hardly differentiates differentiates the drama from what almost any other subtext could have provided.
On the point of personal offense, none taken. I just find myself easily quoted because everyone seems to assume I disagree to just disagree. Its very annoying.
I don't think the classism or racism here is subtext at all. It's all over the place. The incident with the black guy in the bicicle, the mentioning of the 60's incident where his childhood playmate parent's died, the news on tv behind them on several points during the movie.
There is a clear, if not indictment, at least criticism of french (maybe even european) burguoise society and the way they have gotten a free pass over their opresive crimes toward other cultures and minorities throughout history. I've always been bothered actually when looking at countries like France and Spain and their wealth, by how no one wants to mention where all that wealth actually came from, and how their crimes of the past still affects economies of millions of peoples all over the globe. It's a harsh reality we all have to deal with. The main character in Caché thinks he's through with it but he ain't, and just the realization of knowing he's being wacthed is enough to trigger his guilty feelings. It doesn't matter if is a black, arab, mexican, australian native...we all share the same story of being pretty much destroyed and serving as the future bank account of the richest nations in the world.
The thriller aesthetic is important to the film. But mind you is not that overplayed through it. The film has no music, no chases, no real hang ups in a traditional way. In fact I guess it tries not to be a thriller, but is kind of useless to do that, since the anonymous videptapes are so disturbing that you can't help but feel some sort of anxiety towards "solving" the "mistery". That makes the audience get involved in a traditional way while all the other info is permeated, and also, and this is important, is the device by which we, the audience, by trying to "solve the mistery" and find a guilty party, a villain, can't help but filter that through our own racial prejudices.
SPOILERS
My guess is that even though the film offers little evidence of who actually sent those tapes, most of us can't help but point our fingers to certain someones just because we naturally empathize with the main characters...But the thing is, we never know who sent them cause the movie is not about that, it's about the guilt this guy has for basically being privileged at someone else's expense, or at least of damaging that person for life...
By the end, he goes to his house and decides to close his drapes and get naked in bed, under the dellusion he's hidden, but he will keep being observed and it will keep haunting him...
That last take could mean a lot of things, but one that it does says with clarity is that nor his son or the other guy's son sent those tapes, cause they seem to be under surveillance too...maybe Haneke himself is sending those sick tapes...wasn't he the guy who in Funny Games gave a character the power to rewind the movie as it played?
END OF SPOILERS
Alexandro, I was thinking that exact thing you stated in your spoiler there. Not that it matters who sends them, but that's how I felt.
Quote from: Alexandro on August 24, 2006, 07:58:27 PM
The thriller aesthetic is important to the film. But mind you is not that overplayed through it. The film has no music, no chases, no real hang ups in a traditional way. In fact I guess it tries not to be a thriller, but is kind of useless to do that, since the anonymous videptapes are so disturbing that you can't help but feel some sort of anxiety towards "solving" the "mistery". That makes the audience get involved in a traditional way while all the other info is permeated, and also, and this is important, is the device by which we, the audience, by trying to "solve the mistery" and find a guilty party, a villain, can't help but filter that through our own racial prejudices.
I missed this post.
Cache is still is a thriller. By separating Cache from the thriller mold because it has no music or traditional hang ups of the genre does not truly separate it from that genre. Blow Up, as I talked about before, also has the same left outs that Cache has. It also has the same inclusion of being wonderfully made. European filmmaking has always been able to glamorize well made genre studies.
The problem is no genre study has been able to be a deep reading of human society. Each person who responds to me continually gives me more scenes that is supposed evidence to what the film is about. It is evidence of absolutely nothing.
Take for instance the film, "Children of Heaven", an Iranian film. The film is a send off of the Bicyle Thief but with a little boy who must get his sister a pair of shoes so she will be able to go to school. The two children live in a family that is very poor. They can't afford many means of living many of us would call very basic means. Is the film a good study in Iranian culture? Absolutely not. Their poverty is interchangeable with problems in many societies and cultures. The basic problem of poverty to afford shoes is nothing unique or even very interesting. The details of the school they go to, the living conditions they have to stand and the city they run through are all just background details. Change some specifics and you easily could have an authentic story set in the United States instead.
The same problem is in Cache. The film focuses on the relationship of the husband and wife and their mysterious stalker. All the other details of race and conflict really become irrevelant. Yes, they are prevelant and through out the film but they are background decor that is interchangeable to other settings and situations. Let me pose this question: What about the details of this film is unique to the racism in France? Sure, a couple lines here and there, but as far as I could tell, nothing that was important. The main identity of this film is the structure it resides in, the thriller. All the other details are less important because the situation of racism is in every country. There isn't a context to this racism that is highly unique or even thoughtful. The argument against that stance is that all drama is possible to be interchangeable. Yes, an argument can be made to say anything is interchangeable. The problem is that good dramas begin with focus on the characters and ideas first. They apply roots that ground the film in their settings. Cache is grounded in a mystery story.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on September 06, 2006, 02:47:45 AM
Each person who responds to me continually gives me more scenes that is supposed evidence to what the film is about. It is evidence of absolutely nothing.
Sarcasm warning:
Yes, heaven forbid one refers to the text in one's interpretation of it.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on September 06, 2006, 02:47:45 AM
Let me pose this question: What about the details of this film is unique to the racism in France?
Nothing. It's not a film about racism in France. It's a film about racism in humans, set in France. To follow your "Children of Heaven" example, I would argue that the fact that the story could be authentically set anywhere is a virtue, not a failing. For that matter, I don't think that your ideal culture study is even possible; even if you were to make a documentary of the situation, rather than narrative fiction, any other person in any other culture could still have the capacity to identify with it. The problems humans face, across cultures, are remarkably the same (just change some specifics, to borrow a phrase).
The issue I'm having with your attack (maybe the wrong word, but it'll have to do) on genre is that it seems to allow no space for universality in storytelling. You seem to be suggesting (and let me know if I'm wrong) that for a film to do justice to its subject, it has to be so specific as to apply to nothing
but its subject. But isn't the whole purpose of narrative storytelling to create universality through specificity? To tell us about ourselves by telling us about others?
Maybe it would help me if you could give an example of a film that fits the criteria you're looking for, because every one that I can think of would be struck down when your argument was applied to it.
Quote from: polkablues on September 06, 2006, 07:14:32 PM
You seem to be suggesting (and let me know if I'm wrong) that for a film to do justice to its subject, it has to be so specific as to apply to nothing but its subject. But isn't the whole purpose of narrative storytelling to create universality through specificity? To tell us about ourselves by telling us about others?
Yes, I believe a film has to be specific. I also believe to be specific is the only way to become universal. I think you simplify unversality though. Can the subject of racism alone be enough to truly make it universal? I don't think so.
You focus on identification. I don't think it is very important. Problems around the world are manifested within basic human emotions that lend themselves to be identifiable for everyone. It is a default sensibility that is already engrained into all of us.
The greater trait is to be understandable. When I argue that a film should be as specific as possible I also mean specific in ideas. The detail shouldn't only be emotional. The fact is that the nature of racism is different in every country. Take for instance the situation in England with terrorism. Its being understood that England is better breeding grounds for terrorist cells than the United States is. England has a problem with its Pakastani population. The younger Pakastini population is becoming disenfranchised by the country. Most Pakastanis consider themselves Pakastani first and English second (even if born in England). The fact that England is based on a population that only belonged to one church (the Church of England) is saying that religious toleration isn't the same in many European countries as it is in the United States. Most of the those countries are based on one people and a church being dominant. The United States came from a Puritan background but was an escape route for people seeking religious freedom. The United States isn't perfect in racial tolerance by any means, but it has some good things to it.
So I would argue that the nature of racism isn't interchangeable at all. The deeper problems of England have very little to do with the problems of the United States. You could tell a story that did address racism in general terms of just emotonal content, but I think that avvoids greater issues. I think it also makes for a film that is less satisfactory. The universal aspect of Children of Heaven isn't a plus. Its so easily identifiable because the film does skimp on the details that would make it unique.
OK, I'm very nearly tired of this debate. I've already come to the understanding that I see this film as a thriller while others don't. Blow Up didn't take on the greater issues that L'Avventura did and neither does Cache take on the greater issues of racism. My original point that the film could still be fine but the limited focus would keep it from being a masterwork. I think Cache is fine in many respects but more importantly I think it reminds me of my original problems with genre.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on September 06, 2006, 09:39:42 PM
OK, I'm very nearly tired of this debate.
I'm glad you came this far, though. I'm starting to see your point much better than I could early on.
i watched this last night. my 2nd haneke after Funny Games a few months ago. a thrill-less thriller, but it held my attention. SPOILER i loved that 1 1/2 hour in something truly shocking happens. END SPOILER as a provocateur, so far i prefer Haneke to Von Trier.
Quote from: Pubrick on September 07, 2006, 07:06:09 AM
sorry i havn't seen this. otherwise i might've helped you see GT's point 10 posts sooner.
are you vying for the title of "Official GT Translator"?
Quote from: RegularKarate on September 07, 2006, 02:03:32 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on September 07, 2006, 07:06:09 AM
sorry i havn't seen this. otherwise i might've helped you see GT's point 10 posts sooner.
are you vying for the title of "Official GT Translator"?
It even goes beyond that, though; he's the Tom Cruise to GT's Rain Man.
Howard circling 'Cache' remake
Director eyes French film
Source: Variety
Ron Howard may unlock an American version of "Cache" for Universal.
Brian Grazer will produce the remake for Imagine, which acquired the rights from Plum Pictures, with Howard eyeing to direct. Plum's Celine Rattray will exec produce, along with Randy Simon, and Plum's Galt Niederhoffer and Daniela Taplin Lundberg will co-produce.
Michael Haneke wrote and helmed the French original, which starred Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche as a couple who find increasingly violent videos on their porch. Haneke won best director prize at Cannes in 2005.
Sony Classics released it Stateside late that year and the pic, also called "Hidden," went on to earn $3.6 million at the domestic box office. Universal version, to be set in the U.S., is expected to amp up the suspense and consequences.
Howard has several other potential projects in the offing. Besides "Frost/Nixon," the bigscreen adaptation of the play, there's "Angels & Demons," the follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code;" and "The Look of Real," a look at the garment industry that could star his daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard.
Gotham-based Plum optioned the rights to the story in December 2005 as the pic was about to make its Stateside bow (Daily Variety, Dec. 13, 2005). Plum also produced two recent Sundance acquisitions, "Grace Is Gone," which The Weinstein Co. bought for $4 million, and "Dedication," sold to TWC and First Look for $4 million.
Peter Cramer is overseeing for Universal; Karen Kehela Sherwood and David Bernardi are doing the honors for Imagine.
I really hope this doesn't happen.
ditto
Yeah, say goodbye to all the subtlety that I didn't get.
Not being sarcastic, I actually really appreciate the film. A remake would ruin all the subtext.
Quote from: Ginger on February 16, 2007, 06:01:00 PM
I really hope this doesn't happen.
When was the last time Ron Howard did something that pleased you?
Therefore: this will happen.
Well that was a masterwork.
I think one hour in I started to realize that the tapes were a red herring. This was much more a moral tale than a thriller. It has been often told this was about racism and classism, and it is, but I believe it is more importantly personal. How do you deal with guilt. How guilt and shame always are "hidden" in your head. Oh you go through life without much thought about it, but once in a while something happens and it springs back.
I think the tapes were a tool, sent by no one. Magical in a sense. Maybe sent by the devil, to see what would happen. The first tape was about nothing at all. There was nothing with it, no paper, nothing. Then, the tapes and the papers became what George (Daniel Auteuil) feared they would be, in a way.
If I put myself in the situation and receive a tape like the first one they received, I know who I would suspect. I know there is only one person in the world who could do that. But is it true? It could in fact be anyone at all. It could be nothing, a mistake. And that is what happened to George. There is no reason why Majide (sp?) would send him tapes that would guide him to his place. This makes no sense and during the movie I could not understand why he was so sure it was him. I think he accused him so relentlessly for all the faults in his life to deal with his guilt. "I fucked his life up, but he's just as bad so I'm not evil." Something like that.
Anyway I'd like to think and talk more about this. Anyone?
PS: At one point I thought the tapes came from his mother LOL
I agree with Pas, GT and others who talk about how the tapes themselves are irrelevant. Like they have said, the movie isn't about what's in the tapes, or racism, or political statements at all. Those are themes that specific to the lives of the characters and just happen to be the topics that come up when they are confronted with larger theme of the film, which is the nature of observation. This is a film about how there mere act of knowing that you are being watched can unravel a seemingly perfect family. I think this is pretty clear through several instances, mainly the generally non-threatening content of the tapes (not the implied threat that someone is taking the time to make them), the deliberate choice to shoot the movie on video and blur the layers of observation happening (the stalker to Georges, us viewers to his life unraveling), and the general stylistic lack of things like music or noticeable editing to cue us into how we should feel about what we are seeing. The tapes are creepy not because of what they show, or how Haneke shows them, but mainly in the fact that they exist, that the idea of someone watching our lives from afar is a disturbing idea in and of itself. Think about it this way: if the tapes kept coming without the drawings, would you still be disturbed by them? Of course, the drawings merely being a specific device to point us in the direction necessary unfold the narrative of Georges' past.
To think about this more (and likely make some thematic leaps that others won't support) I think this film has some similarities with Peeping Tom in its implication of the audience as a "passive" observer. Here we are watching the movie and naturally trying to make conclusions to explain what we are seeing, when the film deliberately doesn't give us all the information we need to do so. And yet we still make assumptions and fill in the blanks as we need to try and deduce intention and meaning. And this situation happens all the time in real life, when we are given limited information on people or a place and yet make broad assumptions merely to have rules of thumb to live by. Stereotyping as a natural, and logical human process. But like the Coen's interpretation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, that the act of observing fundamentally changes the observed (and thus deductively says more about the observer than the observed), this movie calls into question the accuracy of these conclusions. Now I don't think Haneke explicitly made this film to have us question stereotyping in our lives, but his calling into question the lenses of "observation" was merely an intention to expel the myth of the completely detached and objective observer to any situation.
I have read a review of the film by Roger Ebert and it's pretty hilarious.
Quote from: Roger Ebert
Where is the first camera hidden? [...] That would imply access to the building, but let's not even go there. The point is, we can clearly see that a camera could apparently not be hidden there. It couldn't? Well, a camera was. Case closed. And it must have required an electrical outlet, since it had to run for long periods. We can eliminate the possibility that it's motion-sensitive, because it runs when there's no motion.
I guess some people think this film is about electrical outlets and motion sensoring. Mostly about electrical outlets, though, because we can eliminate the possibility that it's motion-sensitive, thanks Roger.
I am willing to accept that some people would think that the tapes were made by Pierrot and Majid's son. I just find it almost takes away the whole point of the film. Maybe I AM reading too much into it after all. But to pretend that this and that is impossible because of electrical outlets is just astoundingly insane to me.
Roger Ebert channeling bigideas!