As the opening credits appear on screen, the scene onto which they appear is of the front of a house on a very average looking French suburban street. The credits disappear but the shot of the house remains. People walk past going about their daily lives. But it is not they that we focus on. Except for the noise of such passers by and the odd vehicle the shot is pretty much silent. The camera does not move but a got a feeling of understated tension building up inside me. What a curious way to begin a film. Why are we forced to watch this house for so long? Then voices begin to talk over the shot and it is only when the film appears to be being rewound that we realise we are actually watching a videotape. And we are not the only ones because Georges and Anne Laurent (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binochet) are watching it too; and they are doing so not for pleasure.
The tape that we watch in this opening scene has been left on the Laurent's doorstep one morning. They do not know who by and there was no indication on the tape or it's envelope. The house we see is theirs but why we are seeing it is a complete mystery. Perhaps borrowing it's premise from David Lynch's Lost Highway it is this one tape that sparks off paranoia within the Laurent household as the arrival of more anonymous tapes lead to Georges having to deal with painful childhood memories that he had long forgotten.
Instead of sticking to convention, talented Austrian director Michael Haneke chooses not to provide a standard answer to the obvious question of who it is that is sending the tapes but instead decides to opt for a much more sensitive storyline which will deal with themes such as trust, guilt, revenge, surveillance.
The French's attitude to immigration and foreign policy as a whole is also questioned by Haneke. The videotapes eventually lead Georges to a flat where he is reunited with Majid, a young immigrant Algerian boy of whom Georges is blamed for ruining the life of through the act of telling a lie. This French attitude is epitomized by the relentlessness of the videotapes at refusing to let Georges to continue to repress the memories that are still so vivid to Majid. His life could have been so much better than the way it turned out and Georges, through constant reminders of this via the tapes, struggles to deal with it.
There are two moments in the film that remained with me and hopefully they will remain with you too but to explain what they are would spoil the surprise. The first moment will catch you by surprise. The second will fill you with intrigue. I will speak no further about the former but the latter is the very last scene of the film and it's one of the most brilliant yet subtle endings to a film I've seen in a long while but to understand why you will simply have to look very closely and pay attention to each and every person you see. We have met two of these people before haven't we? But have they ever, until now, met each other? And what is it that they speak of? Reconciliation? Justice? That is up to you to decide but whatever it is they are discussing will this have any effect of the lives of the future Majid's?Hidden (Cache) is one of the best thrillers I've seen. It strips itself of a score which invites upon itself a chilling reality about the situation the family find themselves in. Most thrillers opt out of such reality but the situation in Haneke's film feels like it really is happening. Most thrillers would feel it necessary to solve the puzzle for us but is this really how it should be? Why not leave it open ended? It's much more interesting and unsettling that way. Political aspects aside this is still a highly enjoyable, intriguing piece of cinema that will take a lot of beating if it is not to be my favourite Haneke film. I've always read of the respect that the film industry has for Hidden (Cache) (after all Haneke did win best director at Cannes) but it is only as the decade draws to a close that I understand how much respect this film really seems to have. In a very recent poll by The Times newspaper Hidden (Cache) came out on top of a poll entitled 'The 100 Best Films of the Noughties'.
Rating: 9/10
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