Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Hidden Away

It has taken me a while but I've finally sat down to watch french thriller Caché (Hidden) (2005).

It's a film that I remember hearing good things about but it was pushed into the back of my mind by whatever trivia I was interested in at the time. Good films do however tend to eventually bubble up out of the forgotten depths and into my mucked up consciousness.

Caché stars Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche as husband and wife, Georges and Anne Laurent. The couple receive an anonymously sent video tape. The video shows that their house is under surveillance. More tapes arrive, each accompanied by a disturbing child-like drawing. Their son is also being watched. Someone is terrorising them. Who? Does the answer lie in Georges' past?

Caché is a tense thriller; however, it is not what you might expect a thriller to be. There are no car chases or explosions, there are no 'action' scenes and there is no music. The thrill comes because the film engages the viewer, tempting you to try and unravel the plot. Who is watching the family? What secrets are the couple keeping from each other? Is their son in danger? What is going to happen in the end?

This last question is of course the most important. Director and screenwriter Michael Haneke skillfully makes his audience work on the answers. He suggests things here and there but forces you to determine your own conclusions through the film's many deliberate ambiguities. When the credits started to roll at the end I was taken by surprise - 'What the... has it finished?' Unlike a typical Hollywood crime thriller, where everything is wrapped up nicely, you are left to think about what has not been revealed and what you have actually seen.

Trailer

No comments: