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Notes from Underground

  And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment.  Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
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Hope

To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.-- Erich Fromm


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Hidden (Caché , 2005)




"By the end, fear and guilt have become palpable.You won't be able to look away."

Michael Haneke's "Caché (Hidden)" begins with an exterior establishing shot. We are looking down a narrow Paris street at a nondescript house, fairly certain that cinematic convention will soon invite us inside. But there is something odd about this ordinary, even banal, image. The camera, perfectly still, lingers for an unusually long time, and we begin to suspect we may not be alone. Someone is watching with us, and perhaps even watching us as we watch. It turns out that this is not only the opening shot in a movie, but also part of a surveillance video.


It was on a tape left at the door of Anne and Georges Laurent (Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil). They have a 15-year-old son, Pierrot . Georges hosts a public television talk show about books. She has a job in publishing. The walls in their home are lined with books, and the rooms filled with computers, editing equipment, all the tools of virtual labor.

The mysterious video is maddening. Others arrive, some are accompanied by childish drawings: A black and white cartoon head, with a slash of red blood at its mouth or neck. Who sends them? What message do they contain? 
It introduces a wedge between them -- the small point a first, then forcing a wider separation. 
Other tapes arrive, suggesting Georges drive to a particular address and knock on a particular door.




How is it possible to watch a thriller intently two times and completely miss a smoking gun that's in full view? Yet I did. Only on my third trip through Michael Haneke's "Cache" did I consciously observe a shot which forced me to redefine the film. I was not alone. I haven't read all of the reviews of the film, but after seeing that shot I looked up a lot of them, and the shot is never referred to. For that matter, no one seems to point to a conclusion that it might suggest.

I described the film as "a thriller." So it is, but a thriller that implodes, not releasing its tension in action but coiling it deeper inside. "Cache" on its fundamental level is about a family that becomes aware it is being watched. And not merely watched, but seen. The family's bourgeois home, in a side street in an ordinary district of Paris, is observed in an opening shot that lasts about five minutes.

Haneke, a masterful Austrian whose "The White Ribbon" won Cannes 2009, is a meticulous filmmaker. His camera is precisely placed, and he firmly controls what we see and how we see it. Point of view is all-important.
A stationary camera is objective. A moving camera implies a subjective viewer, whether that viewer is a character, the director, or the audience. Haneke uses the technique of making the camera "move" in time, not space. His locked-down shots are objective. When they're reversed on a VCR, they become subjective.












The Historical "Hidden" Truth: October 17, 1961

The core of the film’s mystery is rooted in the Paris Massacre of 1961. During the Algerian War, the French police (under the direction of Maurice Papon) violently suppressed a peaceful demonstration of pro-independence Algerians. Hundreds were beaten and many were drowned in the Seine River.

In the film, the parents of a young Algerian boy named Majid were among those who "disappeared" during the massacre while working for Georges’ parents. Georges' parents intended to adopt the orphaned Majid, but the six-year-old Georges, fueled by jealousy, told a series of lies to get Majid sent away to an orphanage, effectively ruining the boy's life.






The "Static Gaze" and Formalism

Haneke is famous for his "fixed" camera. In Caché, this serves a dual purpose:

  • The Voyeuristic Trap: By using high-definition digital cameras and avoiding traditional "cinematic" movements (like pans or zooms), Haneke makes it impossible for the viewer to distinguish between the "real" film and the surveillance tapes.

  • Active Participation: The static shots force the viewer to scan the frame for clues, making the audience complicit in the surveillance. We become voyeurs alongside the stalker.






The Final Shot: The School Steps

The very last shot of the film is a wide, static view of Pierrot’s (Georges’ son) school during dismissal. It lasts for several minutes, and the "action" is hidden in the crowd.

Interpretations of the meeting between Pierrot and Majid's Son:

  1. The Conspiracy Theory: Some critics believe the two boys met earlier and orchestrated the entire tape campaign. This would explain how the "stalker" knew so many intimate details of both families.

  2. Generational Reconciliation: Unlike their fathers, who were separated by lies and police intervention, the sons meet voluntarily and speak as equals. This could represent a break from the cycle of silence.

  3. The Cycle Continues: Conversely, their meeting could imply that the grievance has been handed down. The "hidden" past is now in the hands of the new generation, ensuring that the haunting of the Laurent family is not over.





Digital vs. Film

Caché was one of the first major films to utilize high-definition digital video (Sony HDW-F900) to create a "hyper-real" look. Haneke intentionally avoided the "warmth" of traditional film to emphasize the cold, clinical nature of surveillance and the sterile environment of the Laurents' bourgeois home.





Awards and Legacy

  • Cannes Film Festival: Best Director, FIPRESCI Prize.

  • European Film Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Daniel Auteuil).

  • Legacy: Caché is frequently cited as one of the greatest films of the 21st century. It redefined the thriller genre by removing the "payoff" and focusing instead on the psychological and political discomfort of the audience.

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