Don't expect bloodshed or screaming girls running from serial killers. Compared to recent carnage-laden horror films like "Saw 2," the French film "Cach?(c)" is not what some might expect from a modern-day thriller.
It is not for everyone, but for audiences that crave thought-provoking films, "Cach?(c)" gets the job done.
Michael Haneke, who won the 2005 Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for "Cach?(c)," puts the viewer on a ride that is both strange and gripping.
Paranoia escalates as Georges and Anne, a Parisian couple, receive mysterious drawings of heads spilling blood, and phone calls from a mysterious caller. With each arriving package the footage gets more personal, compelling Georges to conduct a manhunt in order to find the person behind it all.
Georges (Daniel Auteuil of "Peindre ou faire l'amour"), a host of a literary TV show, is convinced that a stranger is targeting his family.
Tension builds at home when Anne (Juliette Binoche of "Chocolat" and "The English Patient") becomes jittery, accusing her husband of dishonesty while having her own affair with a family friend. Furthermore, their son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky) disappears one night, sending the parents into hysterical search.
Haneke builds an elaborate structure for a mystery with a chase between the victims and an untraceable harasser. He drags the audience around with clues, a suicide, and vague flashbacks that lead to more questions than answers. Haneke teases with even more eerie videotapes being sent to the shaken family.
The plot has many beginnings but none that reach the finish line. Possible suspects, clues, and mysteries all become lingering traces in the back of the mind of the audience, building a framework for ordered chaos that's prescribed by the skillful Heneke.
Don't be quick to assume that Haneke erratically tosses the plot around like directors such as David Lynch ("Mulholland Dr."), who has tried to pass incoherent filmmaking as "art." Haneke adeptly illustrates the post-9/11 world where anyone can become their own worst enemy through fear and suspicion. He represents this fear through confusion and an unstable plot, which works beautifully with his subject.
The beauty of "Cach?(c)" is that there is no answer. Instead of answers, Haneke questions: are we all looking to be targets from someone or something or are we really being targeted? Perhaps we, like Georges, are architects of our own demise.
Though a headache is ensured with "Cach?(c)," it is a small price to pay to allow Haneke and a group of talented actors to toy with the brain. This film spurs one to question their own concept of fear.
Haneke in every way places the audience in the movie where suspects come from the viewer alone. Many "suspects" will be found but each as unlikely as the next. Only those courageous few will find the film to be mind-boggling and be able to handle being the driver of this thriller.
"Cach?(c)" is playing through Tuesday, Feb. 14 at the Market Arcade Theater.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
