Director: Michael Haneke Producer: Margaret Menegoz, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz, Michael Weber, Valerio de Paolis Stars:
Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Maurice Bénichou, Lester Makedonsky,
Annie Girardot, Walid Afkir, Daniel Duval, Nathalie Richard MPAA
Rating: R Year of
Release:
2005 Running Time : 117
minutes
A film review
by Sara Schieron
Michael Haneke's CACHE/HIDDEN, follows in stride with the subtle if not ambiguous directorial persona established in his previous successes THE PIANO TEACHER and, less recently, CODE UNKNOWN. We meet our protagonists Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) in voice over as they calmly discuss the contents of a mysterious tape dropped at their front door. Could a kid have done it? Could it be a prank? Who would this benefit? The tapes contain simple surveillance of the facade of their Paris home, no close ups, no cuts, and no camera movement, though, brilliantly like the direction in the rest of the film, the long shots and long takes favor no one, and yet we always tensely scrutinize who we are to watch. Unobtrusive and quiet, the long held camera of the video footage is as anonymous as the plastic grocery bag it came in, and as unspecified as our eventually "revealed" culprit. More complex still, we return to the footage, with no foreshadowing or explanation, thus allowing for future confusions: are we watching the footage? Is this a nightmare? Is this happening in the film or on tape?
The couple's first order of business is identifying their stalker, but fearing no enemies, the couple has no leads. The tapes begin to arrive wrapped in ominous, childlike drawings. Georges begins to have, what is later exposed to be nightmares about his childhood and the couple is confronted with the decision to warn their son Pierrot about the threat. As Georges, who can't imagine an enemy, expresses his obstinate blamelessness about his past relationships and decisions, we slowly learn there is one man his conscience is not free from. A possible metaphor for Nuit Noire (a date of central importance to the story) Georges' unwillingness to offer reparations for his past actions suggests a comparison to the French covering of the Massacre of Oct. 17, 1961: A microcosm of the recent past and an allusion to the present. And, if it's true that this reference to previous injustice is deliberate, the film's underlying moral might be that acknowledgment of a nation's crimes is the ongoing responsibility of each citizen. And as we may find proof of this today, it's to the young we pay our debts.
Mixing the indeterminate surveillance footage with similarly indeterminate footage of the family and their friends in their homes and places of work, the distance the director offers the characters and their actions is beautifully balanced with the film's editing economy. The tone of HIDDEN is consistent, with no action outweighing any other and no expressionistic montage - or, if such a montage was included, it was exceedingly subtle.
The film's use of neutral observation in the depiction of actions both gentle and horrible leaves an implacable residual impact on the viewer. It isn't enough that the film abounds with metaphors so subtle there's terror in missing them in the fray, there is no way for the viewer, at any given point, to have certainty we might know the meaning behind the voyeurism we witlessly partake in, and what a noble metaphor for our condition as we sit and watch in this dark room?
