Memory, Trauma, and the French-Algerian War: Michael Haneke's Caché (2005)

Abstract

This article examines Michael Haneke's 2005 film Caché and its treatment of the October 1961 massacre in light of recent scholarship about memory and trauma. It argues that the film demands of its viewers a complex, critical position, requiring us not merely to passively re-witness the traumatising events of 17 October, but to take on as spectators a more active role in the work of remembering. The article examines narrative and visual elements in the film in order to demonstrate how Caché illustrates and questions how film and other media forms contribute to the working through of collective trauma and, in so doing, function as potential ‘sites of memory’.