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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Hidden throughout Caché is the sense that you should be watching every moment in this film closely, just as the protagonists are themselves being watched by someone unknown. Georges and Anne Laurent’s (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) enviable lives are terrorized by the sudden arrival on their doorstep of a videotaped recording of their Parisian townhouse. It’s nothing but a long, unedited shot of the façade of their house, but it’s disturbing nonetheless. Soon another arrives, this time of the farmhouse Georges grew up in, and then another of a car driving down a suburban street, and a walk down a hallway to a low-rent apartment. Again the videos are benign but unsettling. Then the mystery becomes more threatening when they receive gruesome postcards depicting child-like drawings of bloody, dead stick figures. Georges believes he knows who the culprit is, but for reasons all his own refuses to let his wife in on the secret. Clearly more is hidden here than just the identity of their stalker. In Caché, writer and director Michael Haneke skillfully, methodically pulls back multiple layers of deception, like new skin being pulled off an old wound. he masterfully fuses elements of his predecessors to create a film that is haunting and memorable. There is Bergman's fascination with the complexity of relationships, the suspense and lurking danger of Hitchcock, and the unique cinematic sensibility of Antonioni. In fact, the provocative final shot is practically a tribute to The Passenger--a lot of people will want to rewatch it many times to see what they can find in it (if, after watching it, you are still unsatisfied with the resolution, then watch the interview with Haneke in the DVD's special features for his insights). It's a film of great effect and intrigue. There are no easy resolutions, and the answers given in this mystery will only lead to more questions. --Daniel Vancini
Caché Reviews:
Slow, slower, Cache! 
2009-11-29 - I always loved the movies by Haneke, and hold him as the best European director right now. I just loved Funny games (both versions). But this one I was just a big disappointment. I can understand that the idea of the film IS that the plot is supposed to be hidden from the viewer, but in the end it's just becomes boring. Great actors help to make it watchable the first hour, but then you start looking for the fast forward button on the remote...
Paris, 17 October 1961 
2009-10-11 - Secrecy, amnesia, conscience? A thriller or an allegory? Or mainly an essay on film theory?
I was prepared not to like this film. I had hated director Haneke's previous Funny Games: not mindless violence, but intelligent, sadistic, senseless violence.
The reviews here on Hidden are mixed. Some of those who expected a thriller are disappointed or even bored.
The naked story (trying to make sense without spoiling it): a wealthy Paris family is being stalked. The stalker sends tapes, which at first show only that he has watched their house. Then he sends a tape of the husband's childhood place. Then a tape leading to a certain apartment in a recognizable street. The husband has a hunch from the start, but dissembles. His lies disturb the relation with his wife. The 12 y old son has his own puberty problems which add to the thriller layer of the story.
The husband visits the apartment and claims that nobody had been there. The next tape shows him in conversation inside the apartment.
The tape story drags on a bit. Our sympathies are entirely with the wife, who is almost unreasonably reasonable, under the circumstances.
Let me say, if this was a thriller and nothing else, it would come out here with about 3 ½ stars from me: interesting enough, but not overwhelming.
But of course, say some, this is an allegory about France's guilt from the Algerian independence war.
There was a massacre in Paris on October 17 in 1961, when police killed somewhere between 200 and 300 Algerians; this happened, if I am not mistaken, after a demonstration. Sounds like Iran? Exactly!
The husband is digging into his memory and he finds ugly things. His parents had been about to adopt an Algerian boy when he himself was 6. The adoption was cancelled under ugly circumstances. The husband prefers to keep the lid down. The truth comes out in his nightmares. The final scene is possible only under sleeping medication.
The allegory interpretation says that the husband symbolizes France. He tries to forget his personal October 17.
The cinematography is based on the integration of the tapes into the story, to the extent of confusing us, certainly on purpose. We don't always know right away if we are here or there.
I am sure that generations of film students will find material for their thesis in this film.
In the end I am so fascinated that I can't avoid giving 5 stars, against my initial instinct. (And I had the added problem that my DVD was French without subtitles, so I lost some of the verbal communication, eg during the dinner party conversations, when no context helps in figuring out the conversation. It turns out that to some extent the language problem forced me to focus harder on the visual communication. Maybe one ought to watch more movies without tone, at least for the second time. If they are worth it. And one should watch only movies that are worth watching twice. Or have I said that before?)
Cache should not be kept hidden if you are a serious cinephile
2009-06-10 - This intelligent drama is an excellent study on the post effects of childhood shelfishness. On the surface this superbly acted film appears to be a top notch suspense, but Haneke purposefully takes advantage of the viewer's preconception of how things should unfold in a most subtle way. This film also depicts the inner workings of a family unit with remarkable realism and verve. Haneke is the maestro and this understated classic is thought provoking in a most unique manner. Cache is an allegorical film that complels from it's prolonged opening frame to the very end.
Hide It 
2009-04-23 - I like films that keep me guessing. however in order to do so well they have to actually move. This one moved a bit too slowly for my taste. I also think that it required a bit of insight into France's history with Alergia. That info was subtly delivered in context, so subtly that it could be easily missed, thus the crux of the film would be, too. It's a beautiful film to watch, and compelling enough in its story...
hidden is right!
2009-04-11 - Everything about this film is hidden: plot, motive, story, purpose.
One can surmise how the next two hours are going to go when the opening credit sequence is simply the film of a surveillance camera. That goes on for a full five minutes, and there is rarely much more action than that.
We discover very little about any of the characters or why they behave as they do. Aside from two brutalized Algerians (symbolic?), no one is even remotely sympathetic. The film does bring up, very obliquely, some nasty aspects of French history, but to absolutely no effect.
I stuck out the full two hours because the film does have a certain Gallic style, and I really wanted to find out what actually happened in the past (which seems to be the only point of the film).
I didn't.
