Cache

Cache, directed by Michael Haneke, is a very interesting movie with many interesting elements to it and the first one I am going to discuss is what is hidden in this film. The camera is often hidden in the film, the majority of shots are from the POV shot of a surveillance camera viewing an area or a person from a discreet location. The plot itself is hidden and slowly reveals itself throughout the film. The characters are also hidden, when the film is in the POV shot of the security camera you often just hear the characters voices and don’t see their faces. At first you don’t know who or where they are. Whoever is terrorizing these people is keeping themselves hidden. I suppose what is really hidden though is the person behind the camera and that’s a meta commentary on media I believe. There’s a person behind every camera and they control the screen that we are seeing and often dictate our emotions and they get to stay hidden. That is a possible meaning of the title, but it really could have so many meanings.

Cache has some scenes that are very gruesome and gross at points and very vivid with its gross scenes. There’s the quick scene of the chicken getting its head cut off. There’s grotesque language and descriptions as well. George uses the word jigaboo to describe Arabs at one point and at a dinner party a man describes in great detail a dog getting hit by a car. However, the most gruesome scene is the scene where Majid slits is own throat is undoubtedly the most grotesque scene.  George walks into Majid’s apartment and Majid says “I wanted you to be present for this” then slits his own throat in front of him and blood splatters on the wall and it makes the same splatter mark that was in the drawings. You are then forced to watch as Majid slowly bleeds out. It is very gruesome and adds a lot of shock factor to a somewhat dull movie.

Cache’s commentary on voyeurism is very interesting. You often aren’t sure when the shot is a POV shot from the point of view of a camera until the movie lets you know you are through the characters rewinding the footage you are being shown. The main characters are being terrorized by being watched and observed by an anonymous individual. This individual is recording them and sending them videos of their every day activity. The main characters solution to this problem is to set up a hidden camera and record outside their house to see who is recording them. 

The film makes you feel very uncomfortable kinda of like rear window, in particular the scene where you are just watching Majid cry alone in his apartment. When this scene happens you are immediately aware that you are watching him through the lens of a hidden surveillance camera, which immediately makes you feel uncomfortable. Then the scene gives you context of what you are seeing by having George say the last line of dialogue of their previous conversation, he then leaves the room and Majid is alone sitting at the table. He then begins to sob and cry and you are forced to just watch him break down and it makes you feel very uncomfortable. 

It’s interesting how much he’s being bothered by someone taking videos of him when he’s a very famous tv personality who’s job is to sit and talk in front of cameras. In one scene, you think you might be viewing George from a surveillance camera, but it turns out to be one of his talk show camera that you are viewing him through. This happens a lot in the movie, where you think one scene is just a regular scene not being shot through any sort of point of view but then it switches to the person watching what you are being shown on a screen. An example is whenever they are watching the videos that are being sent to them, at first the video is filling up the whole screen and you think that it is sequential in the movie, but then it starts to skip or rewinds and then you are shown the people viewing it or hear the people talking over it.