Caché

This is what The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw has to say about Michael Haneke's (he of Code Unknown and The Piano Teacher fame, neither of which I've seen) latest endeavour:

Michael Haneke's masterpiece: a compelling politico-psychological essay about the denial and guilt mixed into the foundations of western prosperity..."

And this is Philip French's take:

"The acting all around is outstanding, with Auteuil and Binoche working beautifully together as their marriage falls apart, expressing their emotional upheaval through the slight movement of an eye or the flicker of a lip..."

yada, yada, yada.... which is precisely why I never bother to read film reviews. Yes, politico-psychological essay, and I have nothing against slight eye movements and flickers of the lip, but did either of these tell me that this is quite possibly the most depressing movie I'm likely to see all year? Were either of these reviews useful enough to tell me: "but hey, maybe this isn't a great choice of movie for a Friday night, unless your only other option involves sitting at home in the dark imagining a conversation with Schopenhauer...."

I'm willing to appreciate that the concept was quite interesting, but really... in the end it's just another thinly-veiled critique of Western foreign policy. The main argument goes something along the lines of "Western powers do things in a short-sighted manner to promote their interests, but are all too happy to shirk their responsibility, and when others try to show them the consequences of their actions, they get defensive and aggressive, escalating fear and misunderstanding, and leading to all kinds of unpleasant things."

But really, there's nothing new here, other than a few unnecessary scenes added for shock-value. What was good, however, was the Sushi Café at the Centre Point building. So good, in fact, that I ended up there twice on Friday for take-out lunch and dinner. I think the waitress must have thought I was a freak. The restaurant is above a Korean grocery store. They have great sushi and bento boxes and it's quite a relaxing place to have a meal. Reasonable people would have eaten for less than 20 pounds a head, but we ordered a lot of food.... (well, we just had to try those spicy tuna and shrimp maki......) Definitely worth many more visits!