Executscan Expected more

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

oOoBarracuda Haneke explores a number of themes that he has kept a constant focus on since the beginning of his career. The idea of familial discontent is thoroughly explored through Cache. Much like in 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, the disconnect of the family is a prevalent in Cache, as well. As in his previous films, Cache also shows a family that shares no meaningful interaction while sharing meals together. In fact, the only time there is any joy expressed at the meal table is when a dinner party takes place in the family home. It is only when people that live outside of the home come into it, that any happiness seems to exist there. The couple and their only child share no affectionate interchanges, nor do they share any deep conversations. They live together, their geographic circumstances dictate that they spend a certain amount of time together since they cohabitate, but they are all but strangers in their existence. The marriage we are invited to witness is also obviously strained. Not simply a situation of comfort that has settled in between two married people who have long ago witnessed their spark snuffed out, but the body language between the couple indicate their relationship is troubled. The subtle ways Haneke expresses their discontent are masterful. One can discern, simply by the way the couple passes each other in their kitchen, that some issue is brewing beneath the surface of their relationship. It is not clear to the audience what has happened between them, but what we are able to recognize is that the couple themselves have not properly worked through the issue themselves. Haneke's audience is shown further familial disconnect when one member of the family, Georges (Daniel Auteuil) visits his mother, whom it is clear he hasn't seen in some time and struggles through conversation with her. Georges is there simply to gain an understanding that he thinks will help him solve the issue facing him currently of the videos being left on his doorstep by an unknown person. Georges believes the key to discovering the identity of the person leaving the tapes lies in his past, leading him to consult his mother about his childhood. In essence, Georges' visit with his mother is akin to that of a business meeting. He doesn't greet his mother especially warmly, he doesn't stay and chat after obtaining the information he sought, he simply leaves, as though the one responsible for his existence is another face in the crowd. What Haneke is especially adept at through Cache, is his ability to expose how disconnected we are from each other, even when one is surrounded by people. The lack of discussion taking place through Cache, even when multiple people shared a space together was especially striking. Haneke's ability to highlight such disconnection, brought to mind instances in my own life wherein several people I knew shared a car ride, or room together and each had little to say to each other. Often such disconnect is due to the overuse of smartphones creating an inability to engage with someone that is, in body, directly in front of you rather than communicating with through a screen. Such disconnect can be caused by a number of things, however, and Haneke's ability to force the audience to examine this truth speaks to his strength as a psychological and philosophical filmmaker.Still interested in the average person's desensitization to violence, Haneke makes a point of showing the casual ways in which human beings interact with death and destruction on a daily basis. Amidst an argument between Georges and his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche), a gruesome piece of news comes across their television showing people who were killed in grotesque detail. Not only are Georges and Anne unphased by the images, but they also continue their fighting, only escalating the violence in their own home. Later on, soldiers' deaths and the carnage of war play out on screen for the entire family to see and no one is sickened by the sight. Haneke expertly reminds us that showing such minimal reactions to intense violence is not normal, and only seems as such because it is so often shown. By spending so long showing the mundane daily activities and the repeated mechanic repetition that makes up most of our lives, Haneke reveals the number of things that we do that, when scrutinized, make little sense. We should not be able to watch human beings dying in front of us, yet, due to the 24-hour news cycle and the fact that death is what makes the news, we have grown accustomed to witnessing that which is truly heinous. Cache is unique because it explores many facets of human life that don't make sense if truly given thought. Violence, and its impact on human beings, is a constant idea explored in the films of Michael Haneke. What he also analyzes through Cache is the fear of constant surveillance and the paranoia that brings. As little sense as it makes that every waking moment of life is monitored by cameras, that's exactly the world we are entering into as technology progresses. We carry with us devices that constantly track our location, adapt to our search patterns, and have the capability to record our voice, or the voices of others in an instant. What once seemed illusory is now commonplace, to expect that every movement made outside of your home will be tracked by cameras positioned to never miss a single step. Privacy has gone by the wayside, and largely voluntarily, as the average person has multiple social media platforms they utilize bringing people into their personal lives and openly sharing details strangers would have never before been privy to. Despite the fact that we invite such transparency with our own lives, it is the times we do not invite it that makes us uncomfortable. For instance, Georges is filmed for his work, constantly inviting an audience to view him and offer scrutiny. The tapes he finds on his doorstep, however, when it is made clear that someone knows his comings and goings and films his front porch without George's nor his family's knowledge is unwelcome. Haneke invites fierce introspection here, forcing us to consider that our own relationship with technology may be a hypocritical one.The nuances of ethnic differences is another mainstay in Haneke's work. In Cache, however, Haneke more fully explores the racial differences among people while simultaneously offering criticism to the class structure and how both influence our relationships with others. There is an intense and thought-provoking scene wherein a disgruntled Georges, crossing the street, is threatened by a person of color on a bicycle whom Georges feels was riding by too close to him. The two share a heated exchange before being goaded by Anne into agreeing that they were both in the wrong, and should each proceed into the street with more caution in the future. Race is never mentioned throughout their argument, which is actually the most poignant statement Haneke could have made. It seems as though Georges selected that encounter in order to blow off some steam, and picked a person he deemed socially beneath him as the target of his abuse. In addition to that troubling probability, Haneke is also making a powerful statement on social liberalism. It is the person that describes themselves as socially liberal that will pride themselves on not describing a person using their race or ethnicity. Who knows, however, what occupies the private thoughts of these social liberals. Does Georges ever think anything racist, and simply refrain from vocalizing it? Haneke also calls the viewers attention to race and how we interact with the racial tension around us by constantly highlighting such issues on the television sets constantly playing in the background. Perhaps Georges' social status and class are all that prevents him from shouting racial obscenities when he engages in altercations on the streets. This focus on this particular snag of social liberalism is one largely ignored but adeptly explored by Michael Haneke.Michael Haneke is a filmmaker who consistently wants to take his audience to a higher plane. Philosophy and psychology, though governing the human condition, are often overlooked as thematic elements in film. Haneke's direction focuses solely on the larger contemplations of existence in a way that encourages the audience to think about their own place in the world and how they interact with others. Crafting films that provide for such a breadth of self-analysis shows Haneke's fondness for his audience. By so strongly encouraging such self-reflection, watching Haneke's films is always a profoundly meaningful experience. Michael Haneke depicts the most mundane parts of existence, the banal chores, and the least exciting aspects of life. These monotonous moments are not the ones we choose to fill our photo albums with, but they do make up the largest portions of our lives. Inviting such introspection, and spending so thorough a time filming the long takes of the most tedious tasks, Haneke is not a filmmaker visited for a quick thrill. One of my favorite scenes I watched this year was in Twin Peaks: The Return where the audience witnesses a nearly three-long scene wherein someone is sweeping a floor. The only point of interest comes briefly in the scene in which someone makes a phone call in the background, providing little details. I adore this scene so much because it is so unexpected. Watching scenes such as this also requires the audience to slow down and be more present in the moment they are witnessing. Michael Haneke makes entire films based on the notion of slowing an audience's expectations and forcing them to turn the mirror on themselves and examine their collection of items stored in a hidden or inaccessible place, or, their cache.

nesovic_marko An absolutely horrendous attempt to deliver the essence of European philosophy onto the picture. Though, it really is much like western philosophy - a lot of work, many fancy words and strenuous logic for something very ubiquitous and bland. Like a kitchen without salt and pepper. If you like eating tasteless food and condemn yourself for using salt while "children in Africa" are starving, then go ahead. Watch this.France, wine and thousands of books in the apartment are supposed to make me feel as if something particularly intellectual is happening here? NO! If this were a comedy, it would've been a good movie. But, what can you expect of the old rust which attempts to make its marking in this world once again, and appeal to the quasi-sophisticated public? The idea offered to the viewer would have been better off as a 1000 word essay. The plot is neither inviting nor intriguing, but I guess that it could appeal to those who find sweetness in pointing out deliberate things.Perhaps the audience which enjoys Haneke's work will enjoy this one as well, but me, I'd re-watch a Wes Anderson flick over this.

quinimdb The film opens with a long shot of a street with many people and cars passing by. It seems rather unimportant, but we scan the screen to see if there's something that we're missing. It is then revealed that we are viewing from the point of view of some sort of stalker, and a couple is watching this tape that this anonymous stalker gave them. The house in the background is actually theirs and they're being watched.But, by who? Well... us. Yes I know that may sound obvious, but this film exposes the voyeurism of cinema in a much more subtle way than "Funny Games". From the opening shot it is established that WE are the anonymous stalker. And there is more evidence to support this, such as after the main character, Georges, walks outside to see who had just rang the doorbell. He walks outside and doesn't see anyone, but the camera stays behind him the whole time. When he turns back around to come back inside there is something at the bottom of his door and who was the only one behind him? The camera. Us. We see a private conversation between Georges and the man he suspects to be the stalker, and later it is revealed that there was a camera in the room, and they receive the tape that involves this footage. You would think that the man that was the suspected stalker would've sent it, but there is an hour of footage after the conversation of him just crying. Yes, someone was watching that conversation, but it wasn't him or any other character in the film, it was us.The film blends the world of the film and our world, including real events such as the Paris massacre of 1961 and news reports (more on those later), not including any soundtrack, using long, slow shots with long periods of silence and mundane moments. This creates an eerie sense that we are watching real people, and it lays bare the voyeurism of cinema. The long shots and lack of soundtrack also add to the incredibly slow building tension of the film that can easily get under your skin.Every nightmare the man has in this film is seen by us as it happens, which leads me to believe that we are causing this. This whole thing starts happening because we are here watching the movie, and without these horrible events, there would be no movie. So we are actually the ones that cause this man's paranoia. He has a conversation with his mom, who describes that she isn't lonely because she has TV, and it's better than real life, because if her friends on the TV get annoying, she can just switch it off. We could do the same, and technically this man's torture would be over, but we don't. We continue to watch his suffering because we want to know what happens next, and we secretly enjoy it.Georges begins to suspect that a boy from his childhood, Majid, is the stalker. Majid's parents worked for the Georges's parents, but when they died in the Paris massacre of 1961, the parents felt like they should take Majid in. However, Georges didn't like him, so he tricked Majid by telling him that Georges' father had asked for Majid to kill a chicken, but when he did it, Georges told his parents Majid did it to scare him. He was kicked out of the house, but years later, in an ironic twist of fate (and in the most genuinely shocking moment in any movie that I have seen), Majid says he had nothing to do with the killings and then slits his own throat in front of Georges, scaring him for real this time. And just like the french government denied responsibility for the Paris massacre for 37 years, Georges denies responsibility for Majid back when he was a kid, and he denies any responsibility for Majid's suicide.But there is always something that tells me his suicide is partly the viewer's fault. It seems the only reason he does it is to fulfill the foreshadowing, which wouldn't exist if it weren't for us. We all think we're exempt from responsibility, but we had a hand in it as well.Caché has layers upon layers upon layers to uncover, and there are many moments I'd like to discuss (such as the Barbara Contini news cast and the final 3 shots) but let me just say, there is way more to uncover that I did not discuss here, and there are definitely some things that I didn't catch. It's a subversive an enigmatic psychological thriller, and it not only exposes our voyeurism but our apathy to the horrible events that happen around us, and how the subtle racist undertones in the main character is reflected in all of us.

george.schmidt CACHE (HIDDEN) (2005) * (FRENCH/SUBTITLED) Overcooked soufflé of deceit; another reason to hate the French.I must admit that I am a foreign film snob. It's my Achilles heel (and no it has nothing to do with reading subtitles!) but I know that 90% of all the foreign films I cave into going to see leave me cold and quite Xenophobic in the process. Something is lost in the translation and the worst is when I listen to other critics especially if there is a large majority cajoling unsuspecting viewers to see something universally praised as being one of the year's best. I'll save you all the pain : it is one of the year's worst! There I've said it. Oh and for those who have problems with the French; another reason to despise them!The storyline focuses on a well-to-do French couple of the bourgeois set Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil), a literary TV host a la Charlie Rose and his pretty wife Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche), a publishing type, whose quiet, seemingly perfect life find themselves upended when they receive a mysterious videotape that seems to be a surveillance of their upscale home. At first Georges thinks this nothing to be concerned about - some harmless prank perhaps perpetrated by their teenage son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky) - but as the tapes keep coming they get more disturbing (a crudely childish drawing depicting a child vomiting blood, among other artistic inclusions add fuel to the fire). Anne insists they go to the police but they in turn inform the couple that nothing can be done unless something actually goes into action (i.e. a violent act upon their persons). So what do they do? Argue! Deceive one another, keep secretive (Georges has a skeleton in the closet concerning his family and a foreign family that were his servants which tie into French history's dark little secret too) and in general get progressively stupider as the potboiler continues to percolate. Well not exactly. I honestly couldn't care less what was transpiring. The tapes were boring and stupid as were the main characters who grew in annoyance and carpingly petty until the film's one truly jarring moment of violence (I literally thought seconds before the sequence, "Jesus when the hell is there going to be some action in this f*&$er!??!") that will knock one for a loop but even that aftermath things escalate into idiocy. And the 'don't blink' ending frankly is borderline inane. I just simply hated this film and only give it its rating due to the swift violent moment that frankly felt part of another (better) film in the long run.I do not know anything about the film's director Michael Haneke except that I can only surmise he will cash in on this when there is the inevitable Hollywood remake. Until then don't bother.