Let me just give you some maybe provoking thoughts of mine:
Caché certainly is not a film for everyone. We all know it is not a film that is shown in the big multiplex cinemas but only in small ones with "special" audiences. Haneke knows pretty well which type of people will be watching his film. His image of them (us) is one of well-educated people who would never consider themselves to be xenophobic or even racist. He thinks of his audience to consist mainly of politically liberal people, people who probably disagree with the current political tendency to keep strangers out of our "western" countries. People who don't agree with closing the frontiers of Europe, the USA and of Australia to emigrants and even refugees. Moreover, Haneke considers his audience to generally like arts and culture, just like Georges and Anne do. He considers us to be people of vaguely the same class as his protagonists with similar interests.
Caché's message is not about the stalking-plot. It is about just these people, about Georges and Anne, but also about Caché's audience, about us.
Remember that scene early in the film when Georges almost gets into a fight with the guy on a bike? The man was black and Haneke certainly didn't pick a black actor by chance. You won't hear any racist insult or something like that during the film, no, of course not. Georges is not that kind of rude and abusive person. In fact he would never even admit he is every well noticing someone else's colour of skin. But of course he does, he simply can't avoid it (like we all can't). Does the fact his opponent in that scene is black change his behaviour (which is absolutely aggressive)? Georges would deny that by all means, so would we. Can we be sure?
Remember the last scene of the film, taken in front of the main stairs of Pierrot's school? It is shot in a way that will prevent you from getting a good view over what is happening easily. You are suddenly confronted with these stairs and lots of people on them, you just can't give everyone a look here fast, they are just too many. As you will have noticed, after 5 - 10 seconds Wajid's son is showing up, walking over the stairs slowly from the lower right corner of the screen to the upper left one and takes Pierrot down to the bottom of the screen to talk to him for a minute (we can't hear the dialogue of course). At what point did you notice Wajid's son during that sequence? When he started talking to Pierrot? When he walked his way up the stairs? Even earlier, when he entered the screen? If so, why did your eyes pick him among these 20-30 people moving up and down these stairs, leaving and entering the screens? Why him and not any other of the white persons on screen?
Caché is also about our visual perception. Our eyes DO make a difference, no matter what our conscience and our brains are telling them. What Caché taught me is that we just can't escape our eyes and the mechanisms behind them. At least I caught myself during that last scene for what my eyes did.
I guess Haneke knows very well that the kind of social "liberalism" I described above might just be pretended and untrue in many cases. He does not like his protagonist Georges, he definitely doesn't create sympathetic feelings within the audience for him. He's shown as a generally cold and arrogant person. Haneke doesn't like the audience either however. We are hit by many violent cuts and sharp and sudden dark / bright contrasts during the film. Haneke dislikes both Georges and us for the wrong image we have of ourselves. The fact that he does it with his very subtle and minimalistic style instead of adding to the "liberals-bashing" committed by right-wing conservatives these days is raising my respect for the director even more.
Outstanding work, Monsieur Haneke!
Caché certainly is not a film for everyone. We all know it is not a film that is shown in the big multiplex cinemas but only in small ones with "special" audiences. Haneke knows pretty well which type of people will be watching his film. His image of them (us) is one of well-educated people who would never consider themselves to be xenophobic or even racist. He thinks of his audience to consist mainly of politically liberal people, people who probably disagree with the current political tendency to keep strangers out of our "western" countries. People who don't agree with closing the frontiers of Europe, the USA and of Australia to emigrants and even refugees. Moreover, Haneke considers his audience to generally like arts and culture, just like Georges and Anne do. He considers us to be people of vaguely the same class as his protagonists with similar interests.
Caché's message is not about the stalking-plot. It is about just these people, about Georges and Anne, but also about Caché's audience, about us.
Remember that scene early in the film when Georges almost gets into a fight with the guy on a bike? The man was black and Haneke certainly didn't pick a black actor by chance. You won't hear any racist insult or something like that during the film, no, of course not. Georges is not that kind of rude and abusive person. In fact he would never even admit he is every well noticing someone else's colour of skin. But of course he does, he simply can't avoid it (like we all can't). Does the fact his opponent in that scene is black change his behaviour (which is absolutely aggressive)? Georges would deny that by all means, so would we. Can we be sure?
Remember the last scene of the film, taken in front of the main stairs of Pierrot's school? It is shot in a way that will prevent you from getting a good view over what is happening easily. You are suddenly confronted with these stairs and lots of people on them, you just can't give everyone a look here fast, they are just too many. As you will have noticed, after 5 - 10 seconds Wajid's son is showing up, walking over the stairs slowly from the lower right corner of the screen to the upper left one and takes Pierrot down to the bottom of the screen to talk to him for a minute (we can't hear the dialogue of course). At what point did you notice Wajid's son during that sequence? When he started talking to Pierrot? When he walked his way up the stairs? Even earlier, when he entered the screen? If so, why did your eyes pick him among these 20-30 people moving up and down these stairs, leaving and entering the screens? Why him and not any other of the white persons on screen?
Caché is also about our visual perception. Our eyes DO make a difference, no matter what our conscience and our brains are telling them. What Caché taught me is that we just can't escape our eyes and the mechanisms behind them. At least I caught myself during that last scene for what my eyes did.
I guess Haneke knows very well that the kind of social "liberalism" I described above might just be pretended and untrue in many cases. He does not like his protagonist Georges, he definitely doesn't create sympathetic feelings within the audience for him. He's shown as a generally cold and arrogant person. Haneke doesn't like the audience either however. We are hit by many violent cuts and sharp and sudden dark / bright contrasts during the film. Haneke dislikes both Georges and us for the wrong image we have of ourselves. The fact that he does it with his very subtle and minimalistic style instead of adding to the "liberals-bashing" committed by right-wing conservatives these days is raising my respect for the director even more.
Outstanding work, Monsieur Haneke!