What does it mean to be responsible? And what is the distinction between individual and collective responsibility? What does it mean to seek, and to receive, absolution for a historical, and persistent, injustice? Through two texts (visual and written), Michael Haneke’s “Caché” (Hidden) and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the paper will examine these questions in the context, respectively, of the legacy of French colonialism in Algeria, and past and continuing imperial wars in Afghanistan.
Both texts examine the effects of acts committed by the protagonists as children, acts they are forced to confront as adults; in both, the offense occurs in the context, and perhaps even in the name, of larger political and historical prejudices, and the consequences are dire, irreversible. Haneke’s “Caché” can be read as an exploration, sometimes even an indictment, of the fragility of historical memory, of the enduring effects of past crimes, of the need to claim an equally persistent responsibility. Hosseini’s text, perhaps eager to forgive even the present carnage in Afghanistan (after all, devastation in the name of salvation is only collateral damage), has, as its central motif, “It is possible to be good again,” and the protagonist is, predictably, redeemed, all past transgressions erased, a world created anew (and what better place to create that world than Fremont, California?). In “Caché” the protagonist can only seek expiation through escape (bedroom, curtains drawn, sleeping pills), and whatever ambiguity there remains at the close of the film, the reclamation of “goodness” is impossible.