A hypothetical: a videotape arrives at your door in anonymous packaging. Watching the tape discovers the front of your house quietly being filmed; you, the other occupants of your house, unknown pedestrians, and passing cars all dutifully going about the business of the day, unaware that someone is watching, recording, invading with a voyeurism that doesn’t seem to be benign. Except now you know you are being watched. What do you do?
This question is forced upon the Laurent family – Georges (Daniel Auteuil), his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) and their teenage son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). A seemingly normal family living a fairly privileged upper middle-class lifestyle, French liberals with a home lined with books and bourgeois sensibilities. Georges – a host for a television show that discusses books (a show about books? and people watch it? oh yeah, this is a French film, not American) led a comfortable life with his family until the emergence of this videotape. While not yet threatening in content, this videotape provokes an unraveling of paranoia and suspicion.
The film sets the audience at unease from the start with a disarming opening credit sequence. We watch the static shot of the Laurent’s house for several minutes, as the occupants of the screen provide a justification for the saying “ignorance is bliss”. The opening credits slowly appear on the screen one letter at a time left to right in rows as if we’re watching as an insane author slowly types his words on the page for the first time.
The shot is kept for almost five minutes, long past when any casual filmgoer will start to get impatient. Then the screen rewinds and we hear voices. We realize we have been watching a tape and the shot pulls out to show the television surrounding what we were watching as Georges and Anne discuss this disconcerting new development. While nothing actually happens in this long static shot, the sense of foreboding created is palpable and a brilliant way to start the film. It’s a trick that will be used throughout the film quite effectively as the audience is never quite sure to trust what’s on screen.
The police can offer no assistance, of course, until a severity level is reached. Nothing can be made of this videotape and even Georges and Anne assume it’s a practical joke by one of their son’s friends at first. Another tape shows up, though, along with a creepy drawing of a figure coughing up blood. This tape shows Georges’ childhood home. So the sender knows something about Georges’ past and Georges may begin to have suspicions. Violent dreams permeate through Georges’ night and his wife Anne becomes more unsettled because of his refusal to talk about the issue that obviously provoked these tapes and the tension in the marriage becomes apparent.
The next videotape arrives, this time showing a trip through a suburban street and into a run-down apartment building with the tape resting on an apartment number, an obvious invitation. Georges decides to take the invitation and the results of this trip I will deliberately not divulge as to discuss any more on these elements would be to ruin the careful structure of the film. Some answers are laid out, some are not.
‘Cache’ (Hidden) is the latest effort from Austrian Director Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Time of the Wolf) who has made an impressive career from suspense films that provide no easy questions and answers and who let the images speak for themselves, slowly and methodically, letting the tension build. That his works have been compared to Hitchcock’s is no surprise. Haneke’s minimalist approach to horror and suspense is refreshing in the era of Saw and Hostel. The mudane activities of daily life interest Haneke and how these ordinary people would respond to the sudden entrance of terror. Domestic fear drives the film and parallels to 9/11 here are unavoidable as the film also responds to the touchy politics of middle-eastern violence as it relates to France, violence most likely unbeknownst to most Americans.
The performances are outstanding, especially Daniel Auteuil, who inhabits a role that hinges on the success of a subtle transformation. As some of the answers come to him, he has to force himself away from the safe, indifferent liberal way of life he became so comfortable with and battle an unseen opposing class, a class he thought he wouldn’t have to deal with anymore. Juliette Binoche clearly has the supporting wife role here, but plays off Auteuil well, as a woman who discovers her husband has secrets, secrets he will not divulge. She becomes consumed by this fear of paranoia that comes not only from the tapes but from her husband and the sacred bonds of marriage become strained.
The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. Special Features consist of a 26-minute “Documentary on Director Michael Haneke” in which Haneke is interviewed and discusses his motivations about the film and a “Making of” featurette that contains very little information. There is also an assortment of trailers for other Sony films to round out the package.
“Cache” is an extremely intelligent, provocative piece of work that should be sought out. Compared to American genre films right now, Haneke has crafted an unconventional thriller that actually thrills, a film that unravels like a puzzle that you will gladly try to take apart and put together again to look for missing pieces. Are all the pieces there? Maybe, maybe not. Consider the last enigmatic shot, a great understated climax of ambiguity. The eye is drawn to the central figure, a person with their back to us, but a careful examination of other areas of the screen reveal a surprise. Does this surprise provide us with another answer or another question? I may just have to see it again to be sure.
Cache is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD’s database for more information. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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