Caché (2005)

This may have been the most esteemed movie of the 2000s that I hadn't seen yet. I almost said "popular" instead of "esteemed," but it's mainly popular with the analytic types; its IMDb rating is a respectable yet hardly superb 7.3. With reviewer comparisons to Rear Window, I had to take a look.

An anonymous source sends videotapes of the outside of a home to its occupants, sometimes accompanied by crude drawings of an apparently violent nature. In the eyes of the Parisian police, this is not enough of a threat for them to do anything. Georges thinks of a prime suspect, Majid, but is reluctant to tell wife Anne who and why, much to her impatience. The reason pertains to a very old shame of his.

Adding to the suspense factor a little is tween son Pierrot. He's aloof from his parents (to a degree I'd sooner expect from a 15-year-old) and might not even be aware of the videos and drawings, but he could be a weak spot if the messenger is leading up to a more drastic measure.

By the halfway mark, we know for sure what the drawings are about. I won't say exactly, but they concern what Georges did at age 6. Once I learned that, I was inclined to lump Caché with Oldboy and The Keeper of Lost Causes as one of those foreign films where the villain holds a ludicrous grudge for decades. But compared with the others, Majid's pretty light on vengeance. He doesn't even seem angry or smug to me, just bleak. I almost feel sorry for him.

In fact, while Majid does eventually get, shall we say, overly dramatic, he and his young adult son repeatedly deny any prior knowledge of the messages. We never learn who else could be making them or how, and the ending feels a bit unresolved. This is the sort of thing that film analysts eat up but more casual moviegoers find unsatisfying.

Then there's the cinematography. When you see a long shot with no camera movement and not much going on, you can bet it's a video (not always of the home mentioned above). Those and a few other slow scenes do add a sense of realism in spite of the oddity of some human behaviors. Unfortunately, they do nothing to ratchet up the tension; they just bore me. Also, don't put much stock in the authenticity of flashbacks.

Many discussions of Caché emphasize Majid's Algerian background. The way Georges once wronged him is allegedly emblematic of sordid French history. That would explain why an event Georges barely recalls remains unforgiven for the way it affected Majid ever after. Personally, I gave little thought to this as I watched, because we're dealing with two individuals here, and the way Georges tells it, he wasn't motivated by bigotry. If the point is to make people feel guilty for the actions of ancestors, I'm not impressed.

My only past experience with director Michael Haneke was The White Ribbon, which I only vaguely remember as being dark. I might remove his one other work on my queue, Amour. Then again, it took four tries for me to start liking Denis Villeneuve....

ADDENDUM: I had forgotten the nearly complete lack of background music. I'm OK with that, but it might affect your desire to tune in.