The spatial-affective economy of (post)colonial Paris: reading Haneke’s Caché (2005) through Octobre à Paris (1962)

Abstract

Many have asked the following questions in regards to Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005): Does the postcolonial subject have agency, and does the film do justice to the victims of October 17, 1961, when police officers beat and murdered hundreds of peacefully protesting French-Algerians in Paris? This essay posits that some scholars overestimate the value of the auteur’s intent and Georges’ (Daniel Auteuil) subjectivity while underestimating the spectator’s agency, as well as Majid (Maurice Bénichou) and his son’s (Walid Afkir) subversive power within the constraints of (post)colonial Paris’s unjust ‘spatial-affective economy.’ I read Caché against a long-repressed documentary about the massacre, Jacques Panijel’s Octobre à Paris (1962), in order to illustrate this economy’s historical continuity. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘affective economy’ – the circulation of emotions among bodies, signs, and objects – I show how Caché and Octobre link the affective economy between the universal ‘French’ body and the racially marked ‘Algerian’ body to Paris’ spatial economy: center (the ‘good’ space) vs. banlieue (suburbs – ’bad’). This essay argues that Caché’s art house/thriller form compels spectators to find out more about Majid’s banlieue misery and its connection to October 17, 1961.