Unconventional Wisdom

Renowned director Michael Haneke tells a classic “Who done it?” tale in his 2005 French language film Caché. Georges and Anne Laurent (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) are under surveillance by a party unknown to them. The family receives these surveillance tapes of themselves along with peculiar childlike gory drawings. A videotape showing Mr. Laurent’s mother’s house leads him to suspect his adopted brother Majid (Maurice Bénichou) with whom he had a tremulous relationship as a child and has not seen in many years. As the movie progresses, secrets from Mr. Laurent’s childhood come back to haunt him as he tries to hide the truth from his concerned wife, who may or may not be hiding a secret of her own.

The mystery genre is the only conventional device in this movie. Caché breaks all the traditional narrative and cinematography rules. Daniel Dayan defines the basic statement of classical cinematography like this in his article The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema: “a unit composed of two terms: the filmic field and the field of the absent-one. The sum of these two terms, stages, and fields realizes the meaning of the statement.” Throughout the vast majority of the movie, Haneke and cinematographer Christian Berger withhold the reverse shot the audience is used to receiving in films. Pascal Bonitzer would go so far to say that, because of this, the film is missing a fundamental element. In his article, Off-screen Space, he writes “Off-screen space displays a scene’s center of gravity. Thus an off-screen ‘presence’ can only exist (only ‘consist’) in accordance with a certain displacement. This displacement, which constitutes the off-screen space, is a fundamental resource of the classical film scene.” So if Caché is missing half of its meaning by not ever acknowledging the off-screen space (or the absent-one), how does it function?

Before we tackle this imposing question, it is essential that we first understand the conventional shot-reverse shot pattern. To paraphrase Dayan, in first shot the missing field imposes itself upon our consciousness under the form of the absent-one who is looking at what we see. In the second shot, the reverse shot of the first shot, the missing field is abolished by the presence of somebody or something occupying the absent-one’s field. So without the reverse shot, this mysterious absent-one’s field is never filled. The audience only gets half the story, and we are never fully sutured into the film. We are always aware that we are on the outside looking in.

This awareness is made evident from the beginning. The film opens with a long establishing shot of a few houses as they appear from across the street. There is minimal action in the frame, and we hear dialogue, but never see where it is coming from. The audience feels odd because they have been waiting to be sutured into the film for so long by now. Only after what feels like an eternity do we realize we are watching a tape when the mysterious voices rewind it. The camera hardly ever moves. When we are (finally) let in the living room where they are watching this tape, we still do not get pulled into their conversation. When one voice shows the other voice the odd childlike drawing that accompanied the tape, the camera cuts directly from the videotape to the drawing, and we never see the two people involved in the exchange. Haneke and Berger keep us at this distance throughout the rest of the film.

So now we can return to the original question. If this film is missing half of its meaning by not ever acknowledging the off-screen space (or the absent-one), how does it function? On a narrative level, it functions because Anne Laurent knows less than we do. Mr. Laurent purposely lies and withholds the truth from his wife on several occasions, and she is well aware of this fact. She, like us, is very frustrated by her lack of knowledge. She projects our frustration on screen through her tears and other coping mechanisms. But we can take solace in the fact that we actually know more than she does. We get to see Mr. Laurent go visit Majid and we understand that he suspects Majid is the one terrorizing the family when Ms. Laurent has no idea Majid even exists. Without her character, the audience’s frustrations would grow exponentially, and they would lose interest in the film.

On a technical level, this film employs countless point-of-view shots. The whole opening sequence that I described is from one character’s point-of-view. We watch the television screen as they watch the television screen. We see the drawing as they see the drawing. We are the constant third-person presence who watches everything transpire. In the dinner party scene, we do not have a spot at the table–we see a variety of angles and observe everyone. We watch the film through the camera. Obviously, all films are watched through the camera, but most of the time we are not aware of this because we are sutured into the film. Haneke and Berger never tie us in.

Even though the film operates on an unconventional level and withholds shades of meaning we are used to receiving, it is still effective. Once the audience accepts the fact that they will never be submersed into the action, they can sit back, watch the film and enjoy and appreciate the unique style and story it presents.