Michael Haneke's composed, stoic thriller sees a middle-class Paris family harassed via videotaped surveillance of their home by an anonymous source that seems to be familiar with the shady, past life of husband and father Georges (Daniel Auteuil). It's a disturbing, quiet masterpiece of French cinema and plays out true to Haneke's honed, harrowing visual style. While the suffering of the family throughout the duration is unsettling enough, Cache's runaway standout moment comes around halfway through, with one of the most shocking and grisly depictions of suicide ever filmed. Majid (Maurice Benichou), a man Georges grows to believe responsible for the sinister tapes, has grown weary of false accusation and exacts revenge upon the paranoid Georges by slashing his own throat in front of him. The moment comes out of nowhere, akin to a horror-movie jump scare as, following a relatively calm conversation, Majid abruptly plunges the knife into his throat, sending blood gushing out across the walls. There is no catharsis in the aftermath as we as an audience must then gather our senses and, like Georges himself, get to grips with what we have just seen. The shot is unrivalled in its stunning, visual shock factor and, while we do not get to know Majid as well as other entrants to this list, once our pounding hearts slow to normal we are left with the idea of distressed futility - an innocent man driven beyond his own senses and finding peace in the most drastic of ways possible.
26 year old novelist and film nerd from London. Currently working on his third novel and dreaming up more list-based film articles to flood WhatCulture with.
