Caché Reflection
The role of digital media in French film Cache, directed by Michael Haneke, is overarching. The mystery film opens with the delivery of videotapes to the house of a wealthy Parisian family. These videotapes begin to unwrap the hidden secrets of Georges Laurent’s past. These videotapes, which are accompanied by violent drawings, are threatening to their family.
The surveillance footage that arrives at their house is small in comparison to the director’s camera that is filming the characters and driving the narrative. It is meta-filmic in its purest form: in the world of the film, the characters are aware that they are being filmed by an unknown entity, however, they are unaware that their lives are being captured by Haneke’s camera and projected onto the big screen. Of course, the actors are aware that they are acting in his film, but the characters are unaware of the looming force that is filming their every movement, rather than just the snippets they are receiving in the mail. This connects to the topic of the week: privacy concerns. What in our world is private? We are aware that we are sharing aspects of our daily life with the internet, but what are we sharing that we are not aware of? We have a majority of the autonomy over what we share on our social media, particularly on Instagram and Snapchat. On Facebook, however, we cannot control what other users share on our timelines or post of us. Although, we can determine whether or not they appear on our timelines for our friends to see.
Is our privacy a right or a social construct? What is privacy and how do we control what is released into the world or not? Privacy is also subjective--what one considers private, is most likely not relevant to the life of another. In the film, the (imagined) Laurent family’s privacy is stripped from them for the purpose of the film and because of a well-kept secret that destroyed the life of another human. This other person invaded into their space and lives, just as we as viewers do, and watched them for his own personal gain and revenge. As viewers, we are watching for our own entertainment. While this is a film made for our consumption as viewers, this is a topic that is often raised when discussing documentaries. Where do the ethics lie when it comes to filming an individual or a group’s lives? How does a filmmaker construct the entire life of an individual and frame it so that it captures every aspect of their existence? Is this an invasion of privacy, even if they have their consent?
