Caché - 2005 - 4 Stars

Director: Michael Haneke
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche.

Even if he directed English language features Michael Haneke would never be the most accessible or popular director, but Caché has such a strong premise that it could be (and probably already has been) turned into an mediocre popular found footage horror series, fortunately Haneke puts his own stamp on a strong premise to create an exceptional exercise in suspense. Caché is about a upper-class intellectual french couple (Auteuil and Binoche) who receive an anonymous videotape at their house. They put the cassette in their combination DVD/VCR player and see a still shot of the exterior of their house during an non-specific day in their life. We don't know who is mailing the tapes, what they want or even if they are dangerous, though every thriller ever made has trained us to be afraid of this unnamed messenger ...  I realize this sounds a lot like Lost Highway, but any similarities one might see cease to exist by the 10 minute mark.

Binoche and Auteuil are worried about their potential stalker, especially because Auteuil is a minor celebrity, he hosts a public tv show that discusses literature; apparently those exist in France. Binoche's character, Ann Laurent (A Haneke trope not a Lost Highway allusion) occasionally feels like an audience surrogate as she tries to glean information from her husband, but she manages to credibly portray concern for her husband, curiosity about their situation and fear that her husband is lying to her, that we buy her line of questioning. Most thrillers require characters to be stupid out of narrative convenience; one of Caché's triumphs is that even as Binoche and Auteuil act relatively rationally they make limited progress and receive no catharsis. In typical horror movies we know to be scared because the hot girl went into a dark room by herself. In Caché there are no obvious contrivances and our leads tend to act intelligently in such a high stress situation. One would think acting intelligently would lead them out of this situation, but the characters and the audience do not get the catharsis they expect. The stalker feels malevolent and omnipresent, which creates a sense of perpetual dread. Haneke wisely avoids conventional cues that precede horrific events and rarely has more than 3 people in a scene, making us believe a fatal event could happen at any time.

Though surveillance cameras can be invasive, they have a bizarre integrity to them. No one is editing the footage, no one is even moving the camera, the frame has strict borders and it captures everything within them. There is no room for the truth to hide on a surveillance camera. Even basic tasks like fast-forwarding or rewinding show a different reality than what is presented in raw surveillance footage. There is a scene where Auteiul is in the editing room and even his low-budget show can cut out part of another panelist's arguments if they feel it will make a better finished product. A filmmaker could give the audience all the answers his film's world, but they choose how much information they dole out. Caché creates a false sense of integrity through surveillance cameras, we believe what we see in the rigid shots through the film, but Haneke is behind the curtain and he is in complete control.


Spoilers below

 I'm pretty spoiler-phobic, so I barely touched on the plot beyond outlining the premise. This movie is also an allegory about how the French treated Algerians, but I can't really touch on that without explaining a lot of the plot/ talking about the last shot of the film. If anyone is actually reading this blog and wants to discuss that in the comments, feel free to comment.

Certified Copy - 2010 - 5 Stars

Actors: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Spoilers Below - This is a movie that's plot is so light that it's almost impossible to talk about the movie without having seen it. Anyone reading this should trust me and see the movie immediately, it's on Netflix WI in Canada.

Certified Copy opens with William Shimell's character lecturing about his book, Certified Copy, which discusses replication and authenticity in art. Why is a counterfeit less valuable than an original? What is the difference between being inspired by someone and copying someone? These sorts of questions are constantly asked in visual art in exhibits like Sherrie Levine's "After Walker Evans". Personally I find those pieces of visual art to be smart-alecky and cold. At points Certified Copy feels like it might just be a formalist exercise, which can be intolerable over the course of a full length feature: once you understand the filmmaker's thesis you don't want to watch any more of the movie.

Fortunately CC is such a well executed film that it doesn't feel clever even though it is. This is my first Kiarostami film and he is an excellent technician, each shot is purposeful and showcases the themes of the movie, especially an early shot where the streets of Tuscany are reflected through the windshield of a car driven by Binoche. CC is so successful because the performances by Binoche and Shimell, the latter an opera singer who has never acted before brings the regal iciness one would expect from a British baritone, are so strong that you need to be made of stone to not emote during the film. As the film ends I thought to myself they are just people projected on a screen, why do you care what happens to them? Exactly.