If there's one thing you can say about Caché (Hidden) by Michael Haneke, it's that it is unsettling. Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteil) and his wife, Anne (Juliette Binoche), are an ordinary successful bourgeois couple. He hosts a literary discussion show on French television, she works for a publishing house. They have a 12 year old son and a nice house in Paris. One day, Anne comes home to find a videocassette on their porch, a two-hour long video that only contains a shot of the front door of their house, filmed by a hidden camera. The menace level slowly increases as Georges realises that the videos may be retribution for he did as a child...or is it? There's not really much I can say about the plot without giving too much away. It's very psychologically tense - I walked out totally exhausted! The pertinent information as to what's going on are slowly drawn out, and even then some things are thrown in the end that just screw everything around! There are few scenes of violence in Caché, but when it is used....wooh! Some people in the cinema gasped aloud - I know I did!
With two of the biggest *Big Name* actors of French cinema, of course you're gonna get powerhouse acting, and we're not disappointed. Auteil's portrayal of Georges runs the whole gamut of situations - the confident and capable public person slowly disintegrating from the stress of his guilt who refuses to face the past and making the same mistakes. Juliette Binoche (truly one of the most bee-yoo-tee-ful women in the world) is the wife who is bewildered at being terrorised for reasons she doesn't understand and furious that her partner knows but won't share. Every actor in Caché, take a bow.
Other than the acting, the feeling of fear and menace is also built up using sound and visuals. Unlike other movies, and perhaps more like real life, there is no background music. All backing sounds are what you'd get everyday - the closing of a door, footsteps, the sound of birds...these sounds are so ordinary but they are transformed in the context of what's going on. While Anne and Georges are going about their ordinary lives, there's someone watching them and unlike many Hollywood movies that use that *BAM!* music to reinforce that fear and warn you when it's coming. We and the Laurents arent given that luxury. The visuals are used to make us unsure of what we're watching - just like the Laurents. The opening shot is particularly clever. We see a house on the street, with the occasional person going past....which is then revealed to be the video that the Laurents received. Likewise, the ending shot which has the credits rolling over it is of their son's school - similar to a scene we saw earlier...or is it? The whole audience sat through the credits watching it....what did it mean?!!??! Why has Haneke chosen to show me this?!?!?! EEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!
While the movie was incredibly tense, I do have some criticisms with the pacing. There were moments when it just felt that the suspense was dragged on for too long. I wanted to know what Georges' secret was....just goddamn tell me! Likewise, the lack of soundtrack accentuated when nothing was happening and made the whole dragging thing more obvious (to me). One major problem for me was the subtitle format. Ok, I can understand French quite well, but it's all over my head when people are talking in fast, tense sentences. Given that ppl who probably can't speak French are also in the audience, who was the genius who decided to put the subtitles in white?! Some of the time you couldn't read what they were saying!!!
If you want a movie that will give you the creeps and keep you thinking for ages, then this is it! But careful, it is heavy going. There's so much I'd like to say - about who did what and why...but that'd be giving bits away. *sigh*
7.5-8/10
