I just read that Ron Howard is set to direct a remake of Caché. There's something just horrifying about this, and I wasn't even all that huge a fan of the original film, but ironically for the same reason a Ron Howard remake bothers me so much. Caché didn't grab me because I never penetrated the enigma at the heart of the film, and I never came to any understanding of what it all meant... it's impenetrably mysterious but absolutely gripping all the way to the ambiguous conclusion. That's why a remake goes beyond just being a bad movie, which I can ignore, and to the point of actually being offensive. A highly commercialized Ron Howard version is going to have to take any subtlety or ambiguity out of the film and present a very clear yet non-controversial theme, and this has two problems. The first is that there are distinct political undertones to Caché which I'd hate to see lost in the interest of universal appeal. But while any translation would have to make some changes, what really annoys me is that when the film is inevitably dumbed down there's something really sad in seeing a piece of art supplanted and indelibly linked to something to pass time on an airplane, where the original film will become just the source material for Opie's magnum opus, like an early draft. It feels like we renamed checkers “American chess”. And this just how irrationally upset I got hearing about the possibility, I can't imagine how much I'd have to overreact if I actually saw it.
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