Caché
Third Watch; top-tier Haneke.If you haven't seen any films directed by Michael Haneke, I would recommend considering three probabilities. The first is The Piano Teacher, and the second is Funny Games (either) or Caché. All three perfectly encapsulate what he is best at: scenarios, framing, voyeurism, subtext, and subtlety, but Caché is best out of all three due to its chilling subtext and how it turns voyeurism into something more powerful than violence. While there is violence in this film, Funny Games, and all of his other films, Caché greatly takes the subtext from his Trilogy in the early 90s and combines it with a refined view of the subtleties of racism through its static shots. What makes this trilogy is that we follow Georges, who we come to learn is a terrible person. While what he did can be forgiven since he was 6 years old, he faces the crime of ignorance, as, at least I think, he knows the suffering he put upon Majid, taking him away from a great life into one that ruined him after the genocides in 1961. I believe Georges knew this, as he is haunted by terrible images that he made up in his head. Rewatching this, I fully realized that this is mostly from Georges' POV. He sees the suffering and continues with his day, but I found some sympathy in that he wants to protect his family, even if he ignores his pleading wife Anne, the TV showing atrocities, or Majid's suffering. Haneke created an emotionally complex story with different layers of human nature and how bigotry can destroy it. This is some of his best direction and a staple of his filmography. It is disturbing, with one of the most shocking scenes I've witnessed in a movie. It's subtle with great writing that compels us up until the final, revealing shot, showing that nobody truly knows anything.