Brief Review of Cache
I’ll be putting up a 500 or so word film review every couple of days for the next few weeks. Here is the first one. Enjoy, or not. I don’t care.
Oh and spoiler alert.
Cache: An Interesting but Underwhelming Film
While watching Cache, it quickly becomes apparent that Haneke was trying to produce a work of art rather than a conventional work of cinema intended for primarily entertainment purposes. With this in mind, I can accept the lack of drama, suspense, and action within Cache, but in return I expect a powerful and moving message. I feel that Cache, while dancing around some interesting themes, never delivered this payoff.
Haneke maintained a relatively slow pace throughout the entire film, and the complete lack of a score made each moment seem to drag on even more. Conversations were only sometimes vehicles to propel the plot forward; in many cases they meandered and lingered on as real conversations would. I’m assuming that Haneke did this with intention, and there is something to be garnered from these seemingly tedious scenes. The problem I had with this is while there may have been messages contained within, Haneke never made me care about the characters, so ultimately my apathy towards them translated into apathy towards his message. The film illustrates how easy it is to disrupt individuals’ lives through fear and the power someone who is anonymous has over someone who is not. The antagonist is an anonymous entity who is watching the Laurent family. Simply the fact that someone was actively watching and communicating with them is enough to inspire terror. This can be generalized into the collective fear humans have towards the unknown. Georges Laurent takes the stereotypical male strategy of coping with fear, and becomes angry. Georges finds a target for this anger despite having inadequate proof and makes threats, possibly to try to prove to himself that he is still in control and the alpha within his family. One can tease out notions of humans’ unhealthy responses to fear and the damage it can do to their relationships with others. These themes of fear and the unknown would be interesting except for the fact that I felt fairly apathetic towards the characters. Georges is not a good person, but not bad enough to inspire any feelings of enmity either. His wife and her possible extra-marital affair are trite, and their son is completely forgettable. The only character I really felt any emotional attachment to was Majid, but I never really got to know him, since he cuts his throat. This scene shocked and saddened me, but the film did not provide a look into Majid’s head or why he was taking this action. Had a message been attached to Majid and his death, it would have had a powerful effect, but instead Haneke decided to put most of his efforts into developing the forgettable Laurent family.
In summary, the film looked at some interesting topics and provided one powerful scene, but holistically it fell short. I can’t think of a reason I would recommend this film to anyone. Then again, the film is called hidden, so maybe I missed the hidden meaning, but if you hide a meaning too well, then what good is it?
January 7th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Interesting post. It inspires memories of Cassavettes films I was very bored by, but also a feeling of wanting to try my luck and at double checking your work and trying to decode the message myself.
January 8th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Why is it called Cache?
January 8th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
It means hidden in French. I’m not sure if that refers to the hidden meaning in the film or the fact that the stalker was hidden from the Laurent family.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
So you wouldn’t recommend this, because you’ve got me (and maybe Khaki) interested?
January 9th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
I wouldn’t, but then again there are a lot of things that Scratch and you have loved that I would not recommend.