March 27, 2006

Ah… back to the real unreal world…

I'm going to start slowly as I get back to speed.

Michael Haneke is full of shit.

Of should I say, Michael Haneke has sold a load of excrement to critics desperate for relief from the intentionally banal.

Let me try again. Michael Haneke seems to have offered the press a rather clear explanation of the emotional text of his film and the critics, in particular, seem to have taken it way, way, way beyond the simple offering he made.

Cache (Hidden) is well made, well acted, and well worthy of a viewing. But it is also the most overpraised, underanalyzed movie of 2005. (I finally caught up with it in Bermuda.)

I keep reading "reviews" that tell us that this is a film about terrorism. But there is not indication of this other than Haneke saying it at the press conference. As a result, not one of the reviews or features I have found so far has been able to make the case in anything but ambiguous superlatives that don't seem to add up to any more than leaps of faith… or leaps of desire.

The true antecedent to Cache (Hidden) is not 9/11, but Eyes Wide Shut. The biggest difference between the two, other than the fact that EWS is infinitely more daring and audacious in the effort, is that Haneke told everyone what he wanted people to think the movie was about and Kubrick took his clues to the grave. Both films are structured as epics of unreality. To literalize the videotapes that drive Cache's surface narrative is to completely miss the real goals of the film. Eyes Wide Shut's waking dream is about fidelity. Cache's waking dream is about guilt pulsing back to the surface as an adult.

Amazingly, as I found myself thinking this in Bermuda, I seemed to be at odds with various reviews by writers I respect. But as I have returned to my office computer, searching for Haneke's actual words in Cannes - where the film premiered last year - it seems that he and I are, at least in these clippings, in agreement on the most fundamental level.

As quoted in indieWIRE - Asked by one journalist about the film's connection to theme of guilt, specifically related to past issues between France and Algeria. "This theme is present in the film, (but) I would not like this film to be taken as a film about this subject, for me it is a very personal film about guilt, about how one deals with the problem of one's own guilt -- is he story of a man (who) has this problem, he faces up to this problem."

Perhaps saying, "don't see it that way," is the best way to get people to see it that way. Perhaps Mr. Haneke really is, in the end, full of shit and playing both ends for the middle. I don't know the man and I haven't talked with him about it. But I suspect the groupthink of critics in a Croisette cluster who wanted Cache (Hidden) to be about more than the sum of its pieces might have been even more responsible than Haneke.

Ironically, Cronenberg's A History of Violence, also premiering at Cannes, walked a similar tightrope. But while it was well reviewed, it didn't get worked over with the superlatives and in depth analysis reserved for the less showy, more ambiguous French film. Both films have a veneer of falseness. Both films speak directly to the haunting nature of the bad deeds of our pasts. And for me, the Cronenberg speaks far more directly to the real issue of this moment in history… what happens when we can't go back into our denial-heavy dream state?

The notion of Cache as a film about 9/11 or Middle Eastern terrorism cannot stand up to any real focus. No matter how you feel about 9/11… even if you believe completely that the NATO countries have it coming… the notion of America having some responsibility for being attacked by Osama bin Laden's minions is quite different than carrying a long-lasting guilt, like the French carry for the Algerians that were slaughtered on October 17, 1961 and who were treated with remarkable disregard in death. (In the film, the lead character is faced with his guilt, which rolls back, in the bigger picture, to the 1961 massacre that left a child an orphan in his family's care.)

The American analogy is slavery, the civil rights movement, and the anti-Vietnam protests of the late 60s, not Iraq or 9/11, try though some may to make this year's history fit. What happened in France in 1961 reads like a combination of Kent State and Chicago's clash in Grant Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The French police felt they were under siege by French Algerians. Curfews and other abusive tactics had been established against the Algerians for years by the time the massacre happened. Besides the murdered (between 40 and 400, depending on whose reportage you believe), there were about 10,000 people detained by the police that day as well. The Police Prefect responsible for ordering his police to shoot into the crowd that day was also convicted, decades later, of deporting 1560 French Jews in the World War II era, leading to their death at the hands of the Nazis.

If you really, really, really want to see America's role in Iraq as colonial, you could pretzel yourself into making a connection. And Osama bin Laden would certainly accuse America of colonialism. But 9/11 was not a response to Iraq. It was a response to American influence in the Middle East region. And again, you can build a road through Israel, in particular, to the idea that American influence has caused the loss of Arab lives over the years, since Israel is seen as both a colonialist state and as colonial pawn of the U.S. But even the most ardent anti-Zionist can hear the connective strands to Cache (Hidden) snapping as we continue this conversation.

Even the American Indian experience is a stretch, as the new American genocide against the Native Americans was driven by expansionist greed and not xenophobic, self-focused aggression.

The irony of this exploration is that I like the film more and more as I write about it here. But I am also all the more disappointed in the "strong political agenda" comments that have been such a big part of the discussion on the film in the critical community.

Yes, Cache (Hidden) is about all of us. Even on the most personal level, I identify with the story. Having grown up with a parade of household staff hired by my parents, I often wonder about how those people experienced their employment. And in the cases in which employees had children and/or were from ethic minorities, I wonder how that fit into the conversation. I never had any encounter as clearly defined as the one in Cache (Hidden), but I can see how the threads touch me as more than metaphor.

But I digress… a little…

The link between Eyes Wide Shut and Cache (Hidden) is, to me, crystal clear. And for me, hearing debate among people who claim to love and have insight into this movie arguing about who shoots the videos in the film is a lot like reading an attempt to analyze just what happened to Dorothy in that house in Kansas. You know, it wasn't really a tornado, but her older cousin Joey, represented in the film by the lead flying monkey, which caused her to disconnect from reality, desperate to find a way to trust her family again. The videotapes are no more a literal device than the orgy was in Eyes Wide Shut than Brad Pitt was in Fight Club than Dorothy's unconsciousness dream was.

Guilt is universal. It can be applied anywhere and everywhere. But to expand past the personal to the political is a different task. Back in Bermuda, one of the juror's had strong feelings about the metaphoric significance of the jury-prize-winning The Proposition, in regards to Iraq. And towards that end, offered some concrete ideas. That is a trip I am willing to take.

Good to be back…

EMe.