This is from an assignment from my Art Philosophy class, hence why I mostly talk about the opening shot. I got an A.

I often argue for the importance of context in art, and this is one of the ultimate uses of it in film. The opening shot of Michael Haneke’s brilliant film Caché is at first mundane, then terrifying as it recurs throughout the film. It didn’t need to be artfully framed to serve its purpose perfectly and at first glance it isn’t, but, as is always the case with Haneke, there are myriad subtle things that add further to the disturbance.
The opening shot in question is of a domestic city street in France. It lingers for quite…

At this point, I should just tattoo Michael Haneke's name across my ass because he fucking owns it. 

Caché is a tricky, tricky film, and Haneke is a tricky, tricky director. He loves to play games with his audience, much like a cat with a mouse. He relishes revealing the part we play as viewers, and consequently calling into question the act of viewership itself. Wheras Funny Games forces us to engage with our participation in film violence (specifically films of the tortue porn variety), Caché poses a question for the audience: is it possible that we are the stalker?

There's much to debate about who, exactly, is filming the tapes that terrorize the Laurent family. The brilliant final shot seems to be providing…

Check the tape.

Michael Haneke is someone that I’ve always been confident that I would enjoy his films. He’s the type of director that is willing to take risks and at the same time deliver brilliant pieces of art that will leave you satisfied at the very end. I saw that Caché was leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month, so I figured this would be the perfect time to get a taste of Haneke. Within the first few minutes of the film, you know this is going to be special. The decision to mix in VCR-like editing techniques to make you guess what scenes are really taking place and what are already filmed is one of…

Caché is so gripping, its dark tale of bourgeois guilt perfectly suited to Haneke's enchantingly brutal style. Everything here is too close to reality in an audio and visual sense, making it never feel quite right in the best way possible. Caché is a film about dredging up secrets and the way that guilt lingers and festers. The subtext about colonialism and society having never owned up to its wrongs from prior years is something everyone analysing Caché seems to draw upon. But I feel it extends beyond that to 21st century phenomena and consequences. There's more than one allusion to trouble in the Middle East, which seems a fantastic example of how past wrongs now bleed into our present.…

Michael Haneke is a master at making the audience feel like voyeurs. Right when you assume you’re comfortably going to sit and watch a movie, Haneke snatches you through the screen and makes you feel like an active participant in the twisted games enacted upon his characters. Haneke be like, “turns out you were the bad guy the whole time,” and you’re like sheesh dog, I’m just trying to watch.

I don’t know another auteur working today that is as precise as Michael Haneke, in how he is able utterly captivate you in discomfort just by the way he frames, and what he chooses to do to the camera, that makes you aware you are watching a movie, without ever…