Somebody is watching you

It is perhaps the greatest fear, that someone might be watching us. But even worse, that they let you know you're being watched. Each action we take it's being recorded: the scans in the supermarket, the credit card swipes, the trips to the gym, who sends e-mail, web pages visited. What if suddenly, a list of those things were delivered at your doorstep. Even worse, what if something that you did in the past -way in the past -came to haunt you? What if you were a child and everything was a seemingly innocent prank, and it came back to you years later, like flood gates that open and deluge your entire life? That's what I get from Caché, but also (and this from Haneke’s interview) the guilt that permeates the film. A guilt that is not only personal –the boy who was sent away –but also the guilt of a whole class, social injustice committed years ago, a collective guilt of sorts, as Jason pointed out in his e-mail.

Cinematically, I like the repetition of red: in the drawing, in the boy bleeding in the dark, and the rooster being killed. Then, there is the crucial moment in the film, dramatically at least, the moment that makes the story possible: sending the boy to the orphanage. It is the most striking of Haneke's treatment. He positions the camera in a long shot. It is as if he is playing with the entire concept of peering inside, or looking in. He makes us want to see what's happening, in close-up, but he doesn't let us. Instead, we become participants of this desire to be there, close to the action, spying. We suddenly become what we have been reproaching all along. We didn't like the spying, but when it’s time to look inside others’ private life, we don’t mind to set aside our principles. We want to see it. We are as bad as the guy next door with the binoculars, or the one sending the tapes. We all want to be Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window.