<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> In Austrian director Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005), the specter of the culturally repressed returns in the form of mute, unrelenting images that seem to demand something of the protagonists in the film. This article argues that Caché, in its troubled but timely reflection on the enigmatic images that make up our shared visual culture, negotiates an ethical space within the film-world in which the audience is confronted not only with historical events that they would rather forget but also with their own complicity in the more contemporary injustices of which the subaltern is victim. With a view toward understanding the complex rhetoric of the film’s images of confrontation, the article suggests that the director’s iconoclastic project derives much of its psychological and emotional force from the narrative deployment of the figure of intrusion.</p></abstract>

In Austrian director Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005), the specter of the culturally repressed returns in the form of mute, unrelenting images that seem to demand something of the protagonists in the film. This article argues that Caché, in its troubled but timely reflection on the enigmatic images that make up our shared visual culture, negotiates an ethical space within the film-world in which the audience is confronted not only with historical events that they would rather forget but also with their own complicity in the more contemporary injustices of which the subaltern is victim. With a view toward understanding the complex rhetoric of the film’s images of confrontation, the article suggests that the director’s iconoclastic project derives much of its psychological and emotional force from the narrative deployment of the figure of intrusion.

Downcast Eyes

Dr.Art., Professor, Department of Media, Culture and Social Science, University of Stavanger, Kristine Bonnevies vei 30, NO-4068 Stavanger,

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"subtitle":"Michael Haneke and the Cinema of Intrusion","article-title":"Downcast Eyes"}

In Austrian director Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005), the specter of the culturally repressed returns in the form of mute, unrelenting images that seem to demand...

Downcast Eyes

Published Online: Feb 14, 2017

Page range: 133 - 144

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0166

Keywords
Haneke, politics of intrusion, transgression, politics of looking, visual ethics, postcolonialism

© by Asbjørn Grønstad

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Downcast Eyes

Published Online: Feb 14, 2017

Page range: 133 - 144

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0166

KeywordsHaneke, politics of intrusion, transgression, politics of looking, visual ethics, postcolonialism

© by Asbjørn Grønstad

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
Haneke, politics of intrusion, transgression, politics of looking, visual ethics, postcolonialism