As reliable as Old Faithful, this year’s Academy Awards mini-controversy erupted over the Academy’s apparent snubbing of one of the year’s most deserving foreign films.
This year’s film was deemed ineligible for Oscar’s Best Foreign Film category. The emotionally taut Cache (French for “hidden”) is not only, I’ll wager, one of the very best overseas affairs, but one of this year’s finest most well-crafted films anywhere.
Though I’m sure Austrian auteur Michael Haneke is disappointed over the Academy loophole (Cache is technically an Austrian film, so the fact that the movie’s primary spoken language is French violates an obscure international entry bylaw), I get the impression the outrage over the apparent slight has only increased the film’s allure.
In any case, Cache opens in mysterious fashion. The opening credits are typed across the screen and, for about a minute, all that appears is one handheld camera shot aimed down the street at a quiet Parisian residence.
Characters begin to speak and those wiggly VCR lines come across the screen as the picture rewinds itself. Here, as is the case at other intervals, we are watching what characters in the film are watching – in this case, a voyeuristic silent recording.
It seems Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife, Anne (Juliette Binoche, Chocolat), are being terrorized by a stalker who continues to leave seemingly innocuous but no less creepy video tapes on their doorstep, each depicting the outside of their dwelling.
This description may sound familiar, as it is almost identical to the start of the David Lynch film Lost Highway, starring Bill Pullman. And seeing as the protagonist’s last name is Laurent, a name present in Lynch’s film, we can surmise that Haneke is paying homage to the Mulholland Dr. director (though some blogs have suggested it, the idea that Cache is a Lost Highway rip-off is absurd).
The tapes continue to come, but the images begin to change. One video depicts Georges’ childhood estate; another, an apartment hallway. As Georges pieces the clues together, issues of trust with his wife, love with his son and denial of his past surface, each increasingly more troubling.
This film thrives in its everyday reality. It feels Hitchcockian at times, but eerie, tranquil and human all the time. And the across-the-room, unflinchingly steady camera angles have you constantly wondering if you’re watching a movie inside a movie.
Though some of the actions of the characters, like driving and eating, can be tedious to watch, the film has the feel of a book you can’t put down. It may not fulfill all of its promises (probably intentionally so), such as its commentary on French and Algerian relations, but at least it has big promises.
If you pride yourself on being a foreign-film aficionado or just want to brush up on your French, Cache is a treat, and well worth the trek to one of Washington’s hoity-toity theaters. If you’ve never seen a foreign film, Cache is as good a place as any to begin your eventual obsession.
Movie: Cache | Rating: R | Verdict: B+
Contact reporter Patrick Gavin at gavindbk@gmail.com.
