OPEN ENDED
The Cineuropa Web site features brief interviews with director Michael Haneke about his latest film Cache (Hidden), and Marco Tullio Giordana about Once You’re Born…, both of which premiered in competition at the Festival de Cannes earlier this week.
“All my films deal with the same theme,” says Haneke, “they ask what’s the nature of truth. The truth in cinema, in the media, the manipulation of it. That’s why I use images within images, to destabilize the viewer’s perception and to ask him or her to pose the question as to where the truth is hiding. It’s a question I ask myself all the time and which makes me react. But I’m not a school teacher. I simply stimulate the spectator’s will to communicate with the film.”
“Before the final editing, I showed my film [Once You're Born...] to some students, in several schools,” says Giordana. “They totally identified with young Sandro, the main character, and they were sure they too would make it without the grown-ups. I reckon a film must exist hic et nunc, that is, remain open and never end. Rome, Open City and The Bicycle Thief were not that successful when they were released. Yet, think how many people have seen them in the past 60 years!”
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