Off-Screen space

As Laura stated in her post, "Cache breaks all the traditional narrative and cinematography rules." I tend to agree with that statement as Haneke (the director of the film) uses "off-screen space", which is a technique that enhances the mystery of the film. Off-screen space implies a blindness that an audience is not used to in classical narrative. We, as an audience, are used to knowing the secret and figuring out major clues, however when we do not have these elements we feel unsettled. For example,Hitchcock's Suspicion, the audience did participate in the scene where Beaky is murdered, as we usually would be in most classical narratives. However, this allowed the audience to feel the anxiety that Lina felt; her burning question, "did my husband murder Beaky?". In this case the off-screen space shapes the emotions of the audience. Another example, of off-screen space is in the first scene of Cache, Haneke gives the audience an establishing shot of the Laurents home. This image is held for a while, longer than the typical establishing shot. Why did Haneke decide to do this? As many of the posters stated, after the first 30 seconds of the establishing shot the audience no longer has the attention on the house but what is off screen. Who is watching this house? why? what is the interest? This is where off-screen space becomes essential to the narrative. Throughout the film, the family's stalker leaves video tapes and drawings in order to torment Georges. Once we discover that the images are related to Georges past, we realize that everything that is happening off screen is connected to bad memories from Georges past. And just as an interjection! when Georges is confronting Majid, you would think that he would be trying to make up for their bad relationship as children however he gets very defensive and angry, which just proves some kind of guilt, that we are unfortunately unaware of. It is also important to the last scene in the film, where the two sons are seen meeting on the steps after school and yet we, the audience, cannot hear there conversation. Throughout the movie we were not under the impression that the two sons knew each other. So we end the film as we started: unaware voyeurs.
Another interesting element of Cache is the lack of music, which is something Tyler and Annie discussed in there posts. I think this silence emphasizes our blindness throughout the film. There are no musical cues to let us know something bad is about to happen. I feel like this is uncommon in films, however I think it adds to the suspense and even frustration that there are really no major clues for us to pick up on.