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Directed by: Michael Haneke Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou, Lester Makedonsky Let me begin by saying that this is, bar none, the worst movie I have ever seen. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about the movie, and went essentially because it was the only movie playing at the time and I had a free ticket at the theatre it was playing at (which usually does not disappoint). The movie (entirely in French, with subtitles), gave me a bad feeling from the very beginning, when it had a very long (I'd estimate 10-12 minutes) opening sequence that was just one shot that credits were VERY slowly written over. Pay attention, moviegoers, because the film LOVES this one shot and will return to it over and over again. The plot is bare-bones at best, and doesn't even begin to explain itself until approximately 3/4 of the way through. The director clearly intended this to be "suspenseful", but I was instead just completely uninterested and, frankly, bored. (For those wondering, it's essentially about an actor whose family starts getting mysterious "threats" in the mail consisting of surveillance tapes of his house and crude drawings about events in his childhood.) The characters have essentially no development whatsoever, and we learn so little about their backgrounds or motivations that I didn't feel for them at all. Rather, I grew to greatly dislike most of them. The ending is VERY abrupt, and doesn't even begin to solve any portion of the movie. It doesn't even come off as a "make your own decision" sort of ending (like in Before Sunrise), but rather came off as the writer deciding to just give up and end the movie halfway through. When the end credits started rolling, the audience booed and went outside to yell at the theatre employees. I want to re-iterate that: the audience at an art theatre, the kind who will love anything that has subtitles, booed this movie. To further add insult to injury, the subtitles are a thin, plain white with no outline, making them nigh-impossible to read in at least three scenes I can remember. I could just barely make them out by squinting. The only people I could see milling around in the lobby who seemed to enjoy this movie were the ones making up cliched, overly-complicated self-contradictory explanations for the movie, none of which would have actually worked if implemented. As an addendum, I checked to see if the local "alternative weekly" paper in the lobby would have a review of this movie. It did. However, the review was entirely praise about the director's previous works, and gave me no indication whatsoever (even names of the characters) that the reviewer had even seen Caché. They gave it five stars. RATING: 0 PROS: I laughed once, unintentionally, during the suicide scene. Other than that, none. CONS: No character development whatsoever, drags on and on, terrible ending, barely-legible subtitles. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://imdb.com/title/tt0387898/ [Edit to further explain "PROS": I say that I laughed once, unintentionally, because I did. The suicide scene was completely random and out-of-nowhere, which elicited an uncomfortable laugh at the unexpectedness of it.] AmiYumi fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Jan 29, 2006 |
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Jan 28, 2006 03:45
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just came back from seeing this movie. what do I say about it? This is a contradictory film. The reviewer above says this is the worst movie they have ever seen. I would say that this film is flawed, but way better than most films. This movie is about suspense. Keeping you in waiting in suspense. If you aren't kept wondering about what this movie is about while watching it, then you have no imagination. It takes some patience to watch this film, because many aspects of it are hard to endure. This film is partly existential and partly surrealistic. It's attempting to be high art, and I'm not really sure if it succeeds at the enedeavor. The acting in this movie is good, and the director does a good job in developing a "story" if you can call it that - until the very end. You are left with a bad taste in your mouth. At first when this movie ended I thought - well, that was a total waste of two and a half hours. Then, I read Roger Ebert's review of this film and some other stuff on rottentomatoes.com because I just wanted to see why everybody else thought this movie was a masterpiece. Well, what I read wasn't what I thought I was going to read. I understood why people could really like this movie, because it does exactly what ebert says: quote:"I think it works precisely because it leaves us hanging. It proposes not to solve the mystery, but to portray the paranoia and distrust that they create. If the film merely revealed in its closing scenes who was sending the videos and why, it would belittle itself. We are left feeling as the characters feel, uneasy, violated, spied upon, surrounded by faceless observers. When I read this, I think I began to understand this film. I still feel that I am uneasy about alot of things after seeing this, but I feel that regarless of whether you love or hate this movie, it is a movie that people will be talking about for a long time. This movie is amazing, however, for one important scene. There has never been another scene quite like the one where we see a man taking his own life. It's disconcerting, revolting, and shocking (I don't know how anybody could laugh at this scene - yes, this is for the poster above) But, in my mind, this was an interjection of awesome proportions into film history. The scene is so well acted and also totally unexpected. Definitely a moment you can't miss experiencing in a theater with other people. I am less aggravated about this now than when I left the theater. I wouldn't call this film a masterpiece, but it's like a trompe d'oiel. It fools you into thinking that there's more to this than meets the eye. You're never really sure if there is or not. It's utterly disconcerting. But I guess it's supposed to be. My score: acting: 4/5 cinematography 3.5/5 suspensefulness 4.5/5 story 3/5 overall: 3.75/5 an interesting but aggravating movie with several amazing reedeming values.
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Jan 29, 2006 06:16
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Just finished this movie and I've been debating whether to review it now or wait to let it sink in. I might as well do it now to get some things out and see if they change later on, however, this may contain some light spoilers. I did not like this movie. It certainly was not the worst movie I've seen, I saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I agree that this movie is about suspense and the way it affects and controls the people involved. But after watching this movie, and having all the suspense lead up to essentially nothing, I was left feeling very empty. I watched this movie based upon a chance reading of Ebert's review while browsing his site. It has been a while since I've read it, but when I saw it available for rent, I knew I had earmarked it. Seeing the review again, and with the summation being what was posted earlier, it does give a different light to the film. Having read other reviews, there is also the mention of the theme about guilt, in particular stemming from racial tensions of the French and Algerians in the mid-century. The problem I see is the conflict between these two themes, both of which I see present in the film, but neither seem to work well with each other. I was definitely left in a "violated" state after watching the movie, but it was not in the sense that I empathized with the feelings of the characters, unable to find out who was terrorizing them. Instead, I was frustrated that I had watched that movie and seen the situations presented all while unable to change them. The actions taken by the characters played out at times like a bad (or good depending on how you look at it) horror movie, where they made the wrong decision simply to forward the story. Why do they make such decisions? I felt they did them out of guilt, letting their personal feelings get in the way of resolving their problem. These decisions to hide their past, in the case of the husband, seemed to be only out of embarassment or their own unwillingness to confront what they have done. I see this as the allusion towards the conflict between France and Algeria, with the refusal to come forward, etc. But should it be excused that one theme is only continued so as to promote another theme? It just didn't sit well with me. I could have gone down one path or another, but not both. It had some interesting shots in there (although I felt many lingered for the sake of lingering, which may or may not have been the point), and I enjoyed the acting. Overall, I wouldn't actually recommend this film to anyone unless I wanted someone to talk about it with just to see if I missed anything. Overall: 1.5/5 lessthankyle fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jul 14, 2006 |
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Jul 9, 2006 09:09
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Americans get pussyhurt at open-ended endings. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 14, 2006 16:57
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We've had a couple threads on this and in cinema discussion so I'll distill what I said there: This isn't an easy movie. This is a movie that makes you work, and if you don't want to work you're not going to like it. This doesn't mean you're inferior, or people who "get it" are intellectual snobs who fiddle with their monocle while drinking tea with their pinkie out. It just means you have to put more effort into following it. The question is, why bother following when a normal movie is generally designed to be as accessible as possible? Well, if someone makes a movie like this, why not? I belive Cache was designed to offer a very stark and uncluttered view of suspense, to capture those awkward moments that might really happen if you were in that situation. What I liked about it was the lack of suspense cliche's, like overbearing music, jumpy cuts, etc. Each long take builds more and more pressure, especially in the suicide guy's apartment. Even the long shots in the hallway leading up to the door made me nervous. To tell the truth I didn't sympathize with many of the characters, the kid's kind of annoying, the wife freaks out, and the actor guy is deceptive as all get out. But it felt real in a way that Ginger Snaps 2 failed to do; the awkwardness and fear seemed that much more potent because of it. Add to that the subtle cues that you're never sure of the meaning of (the woman in the schoolyard at the end, some details in the long shots of the house, etc.) and it makes for a pretty neat movie. Yeah, it's unconventional, and no, it'll never be a popular choice. But it was still ballsy to do, and I feel, still entertaining. Cache means "hidden", and that's the point of the film. Everything in it is hidden, and it's up to you to find it. And there's no easy way to tell when you have found it. 4/5
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Jul 15, 2006 22:11
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