Caché (2005) User Reviews (422)

Haneke doesn't care much about the plot - in fact he cares about YOU

[v-schwarz · 8/10 · 30 December 2005]

Let me just give you some maybe provoking thoughts of mine:

Caché certainly is not a film for everyone. We all know it is not a film that is shown in the big multiplex cinemas but only in small ones with "special" audiences. Haneke knows pretty well which type of people will be watching his film. His image of them (us) is one of well-educated people who would never consider themselves to be xenophobic or even racist. He thinks of his audience to consist mainly of politically liberal people, people who probably disagree with the current political tendency to keep strangers out of our "western" countries. People who don't agree with closing the frontiers of Europe, the USA and of Australia to emigrants and even refugees. Moreover, Haneke considers his audience to generally like arts and culture, just like Georges and Anne do. He considers us to be people of vaguely the same class as his protagonists with similar interests.

Caché's message is not about the stalking-plot. It is about just these people, about Georges and Anne, but also about Caché's audience, about us.

Remember that scene early in the film when Georges almost gets into a fight with the guy on a bike? The man was black and Haneke certainly didn't pick a black actor by chance. You won't hear any racist insult or something like that during the film, no, of course not. Georges is not that kind of rude and abusive person. In fact he would never even admit he is every well noticing someone else's colour of skin. But of course he does, he simply can't avoid it (like we all can't). Does the fact his opponent in that scene is black change his behaviour (which is absolutely aggressive)? Georges would deny that by all means, so would we. Can we be sure?

Remember the last scene of the film, taken in front of the main stairs of Pierrot's school? It is shot in a way that will prevent you from getting a good view over what is happening easily. You are suddenly confronted with these stairs and lots of people on them, you just can't give everyone a look here fast, they are just too many. As you will have noticed, after 5 - 10 seconds Wajid's son is showing up, walking over the stairs slowly from the lower right corner of the screen to the upper left one and takes Pierrot down to the bottom of the screen to talk to him for a minute (we can't hear the dialogue of course). At what point did you notice Wajid's son during that sequence? When he started talking to Pierrot? When he walked his way up the stairs? Even earlier, when he entered the screen? If so, why did your eyes pick him among these 20-30 people moving up and down these stairs, leaving and entering the screens? Why him and not any other of the white persons on screen?

Caché is also about our visual perception. Our eyes DO make a difference, no matter what our conscience and our brains are telling them. What Caché taught me is that we just can't escape our eyes and the mechanisms behind them. At least I caught myself during that last scene for what my eyes did.

I guess Haneke knows very well that the kind of social "liberalism" I described above might just be pretended and untrue in many cases. He does not like his protagonist Georges, he definitely doesn't create sympathetic feelings within the audience for him. He's shown as a generally cold and arrogant person. Haneke doesn't like the audience either however. We are hit by many violent cuts and sharp and sudden dark / bright contrasts during the film. Haneke dislikes both Georges and us for the wrong image we have of ourselves. The fact that he does it with his very subtle and minimalistic style instead of adding to the "liberals-bashing" committed by right-wing conservatives these days is raising my respect for the director even more.

Outstanding work, Monsieur Haneke!

Reflective probing of hidden guilt, but definitely not top-notch cinema

[JuguAbraham · 7/10 · 13 December 2005]

Michael Haneke's film begins as a clinical, psychological and social study of a respectable individual in European society. It ends as a study of a larger contemporary European segment of its population. It reminds one of the early works of Fassbinder—only Haneke's production values are more sophisticated. The camera becomes a character—a major one at that. This reminds the viewer that he is watching cinema at several junctures and that s/he is part of the communication/entertainment process. It makes you constantly ponder if the cinema you are watching is providing truth or lies (or something in between) 24 frames per second. The fixed-medium range shots that opens and closes the film indicate the view and mood of the director--clinical, somewhat distanced and unshaken by the story he unfolds. We also notice that what we are seeing, might not be what we think we are seeing. Antonioni did this to us in "Blow up" several decades ago.

After the screening at the on-going Dubai film festival, I was amused at the director carefully distancing himself from a situation where he could have resolved the issues—-he prefers to leave it to the viewer to do so. In a way the entertainment continues after the screening if you choose to reflect on what you saw.

At the obvious level, it is a study of colonial guilt of Europe and race relations. At a deeper level, it probes complacency and bourgeois temperaments of the financially secure classes in society. Escape from reality comes from closing curtains, shutting off the outside world and consuming sleeping tablets. At another level, the film explores the attitudes of three distinct generations towards social relationships.

Haneke uses graphic shocking violent scenes to jolt the audiences when they least expect it. He seems to enjoy the process. His strength is not in his cinema (Kubrick, in comparison, was brilliant at this game). Hanneke's strength lies elsewhere—eliciting fascinating performances from his cast. Daniel Auteuil, Julliette Binoche, Maurice Benichou and Annie Girardot were simply fascinating to watch.

The strength of the film lies in the subject that will disturb anyone. Many of us have something in our past that we wish to hide or not discuss. Yet there is a conscience in us that nags us to believe that there was a witness to that wrongdoing--a witness who cannot be buttonholed. It is this psychological fact that makes the film tick, much less its cinematic flourish.

Who's really looking?

[giorgiosurbani · 7/10 · 31 August 2009]

We are, yes, we're the ones who look without really seeing and Michael Heneke, the veteran young director knows it. Paranoia and responsibility in a film that is as irritating as it is brilliant. Even the opening credits, small writing while a camera, still, very still, stares at an upper, middle class abode. An intellectual Hitchcockian exercise by a genial director who seems, at times, is playing with himself. He probably is doing it knowing that we're looking and tests our endurance without caring, really, whether we're with him or against him. What he, I believe, wouldn't tolerate is our indifference but, there is no danger of that. Love and hate. Admiration and ridicule. He will inspire all of that, at the same time by some of us, all of us, one way or another. The performances are all wonderful and there is a marvelous moment with the great Annie Girardot.

Seek out the hidden

[poppedculture · 9/10 · 28 January 2006]

Perhaps you will attend Caché to see what all the buzz is about. You will be disappointed. This is not a film to be enjoyed. It is not meant to entertain you. You should at some point in the film be confused, even angered, by what is happening. But you will think about it. A lot. Maybe, you'll start by thinking about the puzzling plot. You'll float a few theories about whodunit, may be even with the caveat, "not that it matters with such unlikeable characters." Then, in your search for answers, you might read comments like the one you're reading right now. You might read a review or two. You probably won't find the answer you're looking for, or maybe you'll find many answers. The point is that in searching for a resolution to complete the narrative, you will have gone over the clues over and over, replaying each scene in your head for meaning. You might even go back and watch the film again in the theatre. Now ask yourself honestly, whether you say you loved the film or hated it, how many films have had this kind of effect on you? It might irritate you that a film seemingly so simple has more effect on your memory than even your favourite films. For this, Caché deserves credit. Because in forcing you to question every frame, it has advanced its themes far more effectively than more traditional narratives. You will never forget that France and Algeria have a dark past. You will never forget how the terror the couple feels tears at the root of what they hold dear, and in doing so changes them into unsympathetic characters. That may not make for two hours of thrills, but it should get people to think about these issues. The real point the movie seems to be making is that in our rush to find clues to complete a narrative, we sometimes lose sight of what's going on. The director here turns us all into sleuths, scanning the foregrounds and backgrounds, by locking off the camera and not guiding us as to what to look at. (In this way, he makes us watch in the same way an autistic person would watch the film.) We're so wrapped up in this alleged mystery that we hardly question the motives of the alleged heroes. Is videotaping a home really terrorizing? After all, people videotape the kids' swim race. Where do these videotapes cross the line? No one is ever threatened or harmed by them. Rather it is the paranoia of the TV host, a person who deals in the editing and manipulation of images for a living, which lead him into following these leads. It is in his nature to mistrust the images. It is in his psyche to follow these tapes and the places they lead him. The farther he follows them, the farther his subconscious burdens him. His mother says she hardly remembers these incidents, but Georges has nightmares about them and constructs grand conspiracy theories about them. Yet when he confronts his childhood nemesis, Majid seems not to know anything of these tapes and is seen crying after Georges leaves. Georges is the one terrorizing him instead of telling him how guilty he feels, which would make him a lot happier. Majid subsequently does something even more shocking. So who's terrorizing whom? As hard as it may be, try to think outside the post-9/11 paradigm and just analyze the facts. The more you do this you will see that Georges is the architect of his own demise. He is not responsible for Majid's horrible actions, but he is responsible for not communicating his guilt with anyone, which might have prevented many of the events.

A thriller about social responsibility: Haneke in top form

[Chris Knipp · 10/10 · 17 November 2005]

The title of this engrossing and disturbing new Haneke film is ironic. At the end of the film, Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) tells his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) that he will be "caché," hidden, and he takes off his clothes, closes the curtains, and buries himself in bed. It's afternoon. But he will be exposed, as before. "Caché" is about how you can't hide. Auteuil, an actor who naturally looks worried and put-upon, and Binoche, who has a vulnerable and frightened look, play a privileged couple whose son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky) at twelve is a star swimmer. Georges has a literary TV program (like "Le Bouillon de la Culture"), which, in France, makes him a star. They have a beautiful house in an elegant suburb of Paris. (His childhood home, we learn, was a substantial farm.) Beyond all that are the poor outskirts on the periphery of the French capital, the slums, the projects, the "banlieux," with their Arabs and blacks, French society's underprivileged and mistreated, unemployed and ignored, a population ready to explode into revolt -- as it very dramatically did in November 2005.

Like Haneke's previous "Code Unknown," "Caché" is primarily about alienation and connection. This sounds theoretical and intellectual, but the uncompromising Austrian who now makes his films in French always finds a deep emotional core in his people, in this case a core of the most infinite desperation in both perpetrator and victim. "Code Unknown" focused on chance meetings. "Caché" moves in closer to home, to this family whose peace is shattered and to another family that has never had peace. As the film begins the foreground family begins to receive increasingly menacing videos left on their doorstep that show they are being watched. Georges thinks he knows who it is.

"Caché" blends urban angst with the primal horror of Greek tragedy. What goes around comes around. For what he has explained was his starting point for the film, Haneke elliptically refers within it to the story of hundreds of Algerians the French cast into the Seine in 1961, a story recently unearthed and hitherto largely ignored. Within the film's foreground we discover that as a youth Georges himself betrayed an Algerian playmate in a way that effectively ruined his life. But the events that unfold are full of mystery and foreboding, and the relation between the Algerian, Majid (Maurice Bénichou), and Georges' current terror and disquiet largely remains uncertain. Is this a thriller? Maybe: it has a thriller's progressive unease, the suspense and pulse -- up to the end, anyway -- of a good whodunit. But Haneke, a great director in fine form here, has produced something as intellectually challenging as it is emotionally troubling. He operates without the help of surging background music, jump cuts, or snappy chases. And as the final credits roll, the closing long shot (upon which we are again voyeurs, as when the film began), shows us that nothing is resolved. A highly original artist, Haneke continues to explore.

Seen during its Paris run in October 2005. Shown first in the US at the New York and Chicago Film Festivals in October 2005. Opening in NYC and LA (US release title "Hidden") December 2005, limited US release January 2006. This is a highly visual film and should be seen if possible on a big screen.

A Little Disappointing

[Foutainoflife · 6/10 · 8 September 2018]

While this film will leave you wondering why you just watched it, it has the ability to make you question it over and over again. Now, if you didn't enjoy the film, this will be the "horror" of it for you. If you enjoyed it, you may think that all the afterthought part of it's genius. I am just flat-out on the fence about this movie.

I has characters that you really don't feel much attachment towards because they are just unlikeable. It has a plot line that includes the history of French problems with another country from the 60's, I think, but I just don't know much about that and I think they may have taken away some of the punch.

It is about videotaping someone's house in a non-threatening, yet creepy manner along with sending weird child-like drawings with said videotapes. Is it horrifying? Yeah, I guess it is in a way, when you don't know what is going on. However, if you are a bit of a jerk, who tries to hide your jerk persona, you should expect some shady business to come after you at some point. Every dog has his day.

I don't know, it was interesting, yet boring at times. It was revealing, yet left you puzzled at the end. It's just a little weird to me and I guess I will be thinking about it for a while.

OH!! THE HORROR OF IT!!!

Disturbing, Stunning, Daring and Dark

[jasongrimshaw · 10/10 · 16 May 2005]

Michael Haneke the austere Austrian director of such critically acclaimed films as "Funny Games", "Code Unknown" and "The Piano Teacher" has created in "Caché" (Hidden) his finest film to date.

Starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche the film is a taut and tense personal thriller, which examines important subjects such as guilt and responsibility in the context of western comfort.

Georges and Anne are a happily married middle class couple who both work in the arts. The balance of their lives is suddenly disturbed when they begin to receive video cassettes seemingly surveying the exterior of their home. Anne is quite dismissive of the tape but immediately Georges believes there is a sinister element to the tape. Soon they receive more tapes and disturbing drawings. As Georges fears for the safety of his family he suddenly has to confront his past and allow his wife to learn the hidden secrets of his past.

Haneke's film plays on one level like a common thriller, but it has much deeper psychological echoes as the "hero" George is revealed not to be quite the upstanding family man his family believed him to be. As his wife struggles to come to terms with the revelations their entire comfortable existence disintegrates.

Haneke is not just interested in creating a thriller however and the auteur expertly dissects George and Annes bourgeois life and implicates them both in the treatment by western culture of the east and the third world.

Acting in the film is terrific. Daniel Auteuil is simply excellent in his role, the actor manages to explore his character enough to make us forget it is a portrayal. Juliette Binoche as his wife initially seems not to be at the center of the film, but the stunning actress manages to place herself at the emotional center of the film as the wife and mother.

Expert supporting roles are provided by Maurice Benichiou, Annie Girardot and Nathalie Richard among others.

"Caché" is at once an intriguing thriller and a wonderful examination of guilt and responsibility in a very modern context.

Nice idea but not much of a payoff

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 23 May 2007]

This film was rated R. Despite this, the film was mostly one you could let your kids watch, but I strongly doubt this film would hold their interest. HOWEVER, there is a very brief and very brutal scene towards the end which makes the film a BAD idea to show the kids, so think twice about letting them see it or speed through this scene.

The box cover for the DVD described this film as "Hitchcock-like". If I only had a dollar for every DVD or video cover that compared a movie to Hitchcock's, I'd be a rich man!!! Unfortunately, in most cases the films are NOTHING like Hitchcock's. I really wish distributors would STOP comparing films to Hitchcock's--just let them stand on their own!

The film is very slow moving and at times very detached. While this does NOT make it a bad film, it does make it one that many will give up on very quickly as they are looking for a film with more energy. As I have a high tolerance for non-traditional movies, this didn't completely turn me off--though infusing SOME energy probably would have helped the film. About the only time there was energy was in an all too brief scene, Daniel Auteiul's character finally lets his guard down and begins bawling--but this ends almost as soon as it starts. Now I do understand that this emotional constriction was the writer's and director's vision, but I still think the film might have been improved by making the characters a little less cardboard-like.

As for the plot, the idea of someone watching and videotaping you and sending bloody drawings to a family is a really neat idea. Plus I loved how the film then became a movie about personal responsibility. But then, the film just kind of died...as if they ran out of film. The last 20 minutes of the film really did not seem very satisfying. Had I been involved in the production (like that could ever happen--ha), I would have had the film end with Auteuil committing suicide. Now THAT would have been an interesting ending. As it was, it just left me flat.

Global Paranoia and Responsibility Made Very Personal

[noralee · 9/10 · 18 January 2006]

"Caché (Hidden)" uses the visual power of film to create an escalating examination of contemporary paranoia and personal global responsibility the way Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film "The Conversation" did with sound and fictional criminals.

Writer/director Michael Haneke plays visual tricks on the audience as voyeurs from the opening shot, much as he did with "Code Inconnu," as he coyly plays with technology, building on the pervasive surveillance potential of our times.

The comfortable upper middle class life of married intellectuals Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche is more and more disrupted by spooky video and drawings from some kind of stalker. With a bit heavy-handed constant background TV news coverage about terrorism and other violence in the MidEast, as well as too much irony that Auteuil works on TV (evidently in yet another book discussion show like the central narcissist in "Look At Me (Comme une image)"), race is quickly introduced as a flash point in contemporary Paris from a brief street confrontation and reinforced with Auteuil's flashback dreams of his youth.

While the political angles are obvious, the Hitchcockian tension is very effectively built up (though not narratively resolved even as some secrets are revealed that lead to other inscrutabilities), not just as we see Auteuil repeatedly lie and Binoche practically disintegrate from nerves, but through sudden violence.

While we never understand who all is lying and who isn't, the film further plays on the truth that visual images don't in fact communicate the reality of a situation and can be misleading about relationships, particularly once paranoia has destroyed trust. The film also raises the question if people change their behavior if they know they are being watched and that you can't really hide from your past. Cynically, but perhaps honestly as opposed to in "Crash," here there is no easy resolution of acceptance of guilt and responsibility in personal lives any more than there is in the legacy of colonialism and racism.

Not only is the past never dead, but the film keeps repeating issues of not just am I my brother's keeper, but the sins of the father are revisited on the sons, such that it's important to keep watching even as the credits start to appear at the end (there was much shouting when some folks got up to leave too soon, blocking cryptic clues to those behind them).

The subtitles are very poorly done, with many scenes having them white on white, instead of the much easier to read yellow.

Our Camera

[tedg · 9 July 2007]

From the very first, we know that a hidden story within this film will merge with the film. After 4 minutes of looking at the movie, we realize we are looking at a movie within the movie, a tape. As the film proceeds, it pretends to be an ordinary drama.

But something is amiss, and we learn it up front. The tape of the front of the victims' house runs as the husband walks right by it. He didn't notice it. He couldn't because it doesn't exist in the same world.

Later, in the middle, a crucial scene occurs. Our man unexpectedly drops in on fellow he thinks is taping him. The visited man denies it, then and later. We believe him. Yet, a tape of that very encounter appears the next day. In the story, our man suspects the son. But we know he didn't do it and when he denies involvement later, we believe him too.

Who took the videos? Here's more information:

When our fellow visits the same man he suspects, something dreadful happens. The angle we see it from is the same as the video was shot from in the previous visit. The movie ends with a very long fixed video precisely like the beginning. We are fooled into thinking it IS like the beginning, that once again, the world we create by being there and supernaturally causing the filming within has returned. On the second viewing we can see the fellow, the son, who supposedly was the filmer. He's there, visiting the victim's son.

So what we have is a French film, the kind that plays with post noir matters of the viewer's intrusion, that our mere existence makes us watch, and that creates virtual cameras to haunt our fictional people.

But in this case, its conceived and created by a German. So its well made, but without the human connection the best of the French, supposing you count Ruiz as French. Still, as an essay on necessary introspection, its elegant and it matters.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

It's not Paranoia, if they are watching you

[ferguson-6 · 7/10 · 28 January 2006]

Greetings again from the darkness. French films have a tradition of being filmed intimately, almost in a voyeuristic manner. Writer/Director Michael Haneke takes it a step further with a story about a family being watched. The idea is pretty creepy as Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche have videos dropped on their doorstep showing the almost total nonaction occurring right outside their front door. This puts quite a strain on their already passionless relationship.

The joy of a suspense story is assembling the clues and deciding what is and what is not vital to solving the mystery. Haneke does an admirable job of tossing clues and false trails on the viewer. The general consensus seems to be that if you somehow miss the last shot of the film, you can't solve it. In fact, that final shot merely reinforces what we have already been shown.

The blending of voyeurism, terrorism and revenge causes much stress for the two leads. Auteuil is solid in his role, but the lovely Ms. Binoche really shines in her much more emphatic turn as the wife and mother who begins to unravel as the men in her life seem to turn on her. Watching for details such as the TV newscasts, facial expressions and the timing of the appearance and disappearance of key characters will easily allow the viewer to solve the mystery, but it does not take away from the tension the situation creates.

This is a pretty solid thriller, but not in the class of Francois Ozon's "Swimming Pool" from a couple of years ago. Of course the topicality of technology makes "Cache" a bit more relevant at the moment.

Definitive cinema

[Chris_Docker · 10/10 · 20 February 2006]

A conventional psychological thriller, a social polemic, or a serious work of art. To fully realise even one of these is an achievement, but to realise all three in a single piece of cinema is remarkable indeed.

On the most obvious level, Hidden is a thriller which, in traditional European fashion, gets under your skin in spite of long shots when nothing happens (nevertheless, it is not for the squeamish). Also in typical European fashion, it requires a little more concentration and attention span than the average Hollywood offering to interpret and understand.

George (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) are a typical well-to-do Parisienne family. George is a TV chat show host for a literary discussion programme, his wife and young adolescent son are normal and easy to identify with. The acting is such that we see them as real people, almost as if in a documentary.

The couple are watching a video. We don't realise this at first. It's simply a video of the outside of their house, nothing more. Then the tell-tale lines on the screen appear as the video is rewound and the camera pans back. There is nothing threatening about the video except that they do not know who took it - it was just delivered on the doorstep. The exact point from which the video was shot is hard to ascertain.

Further videos arrive - still nothing threatening (the police refuse to do anything), but we can not only sense the couple's mounting panic, we are part of it. Nothing in Haneke's film so far justifies the sense of horror which we share with George and Anne but it is intense and very real. George tries to make connections from the clues so far. He feels extremely threatened. He accuses someone from his childhood. The accused is convincing in his protestations of innocence. In this climate of fear and reprisal things can only get worse.

On a second level, Hidden can be taken as both social comment on the tensions between bourgeois France and the ethnic Algerians that inhabit the poorer areas. France is unable to accept or own up to its guilt in its historic treatment of these large minorities, either in the past or the present. As a dynamic that is almost microcosmic, it reaches out to a wider world of have and have-nots, where those with power refuse to acknowledge faults because there is no-one to make them say sorry. This is conveyed in the film first from the typical settings, from wealthy modern areas to more pitiful suburbs, subtle overlays with background TV programs mentioning Iraq (British involvement, of course, not French), and the symbolic way the characters are presented enabling them to be easily transposed to analogous settings. It is a stark condemnation of how those with power (but also with suppressed guilt and a trigger-happy tendency to make accusations) cause much more damage than is necessary because of such shortcomings.

On the third level, as a work of art, Hidden is much more insidious. Director Haneke uses the camera as a tool between him and the audience in such a way that it is impossible to remain a passive, almost hidden viewer. The type of audience that the film will appeal to (educated, probably affluent) is also the one that will be most unsettled. Haneke is doing much more than telling a story - he is using the power of images to interact with his audience in a way that they are not fully aware of (until later analysis).

Then there is the question of who shot the tapes. If you really enjoyed the film but struggle with the answer (which is turns out to be different depending on whether you view it as a psychological thriller or as a polemic/work-of-art), you can go to the official website (which saves me revealing it!) - at which point you will probably want to watch it again to see the details you missed from inattention.

Hidden is a remarkably accomplished work. It is difficult to watch any scene and think of Binoche as Binoche (or Auteuil as Auteuil) rather than the character being played. In terms of directorial technique it will no doubt be an inspiration to film-makers for years to come. In terms of films that can alter the way we view the world it is first class - all the more so for the fact that its message is indirect (or hidden) rather than displayed ostentatiously and openly. Working out the superficial answer to the puzzle is all the more satisfying after piecing the clues together yourself. Working out the deeper sense, persuades by allowing the viewer to come to an undeniable realisation. Are ytou still paying attention? Don't fall asleep in this movie . . .

Despite it many qualities, ulitimately unsuccessful

[grahamclarke · 6/10 · 20 June 2006]

The mystery has been used on occasion as a backdrop for films that wish to deal with deeper themes. Antonioni's "Blowup" comes to mind. With "Cache", Haneke ambitiously attempts to create a mystery that sheds light on many issues. Racism is purported to be a major theme of the film, though the theme of children and parents is equally pertinent. While there is a racist element in the original crime that Georges Laurent perpetrated as a child, an act that leads to the action of the story, it was one rather fuelled by his need to maintain his standing in the family unit.

Haneke deals with the questions of guilt, remorse, responsibility, secrecy, intimacy and more, in an intelligent and succinct manner, aided by excellent performances from Auteuil and Binoche. These are questions that lay hidden beneath the surfaces of our lives as the title hints. Where "Cache" really stumbles is in the mystery it presents us. It's one which is pitifully thought out. The clues are few, the logic full of holes and the resolution, or rather lack of resolution, annoying. The so called final twist has no basis or background and no matter how hard you think it out, it cannot explain what has come before. As the final credits unexpectedly role one is left with a sense of unfair play.

Judging from the bulk of the reviews it would seem that the murkiness of the mystery plot is regarded as intentional. If so, this is no justification. "Cache" remains an interesting, perhaps important, but highly imperfect movie.

Very Unsatisfying Ending After A Great Suspenseful Build Up!

[Michael-70 · 3/10 · 26 March 2006]

Although I enjoyed the film while I was watching it, if you think about it for more than a moment, it will all crumble. The opening is intriguing. We start with a sustained long shot of a building in Paris; the films lead credits appear over this. We soon come to realize we are actually watching a videotape of the home of Georges (Daniel Auteuil) a TV personality with a book chat show on French Television and his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) and their 12-year-old son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky).

Now, who sent this tape to Georges, and why, is not known at this point. But the suspense soon ratchets up a bit further as other tapes arrive, sometimes wrapped in child like drawings of a stick figure head spitting up blood. Neither Georges nor Anne has any idea who is doing this yet. It is only when Georges receives a tape showing a car driving up a road toward his childhood home that he begins to suspect who might be sending him these tapes.

This is where Cache begins to fall apart. The culprit of this video prank seems to be Majid (Maurice Benichou), a man of Algerian descent who was the son of people who once worked for Georges family when he was a boy. When Majid's parents are seemingly killed by French police during some riots about the French Occupation of Algeria, Majid was adopted by Georges mother and father and this made Georges jealous. So with childish spite, the six year old Georges made up a story about Majid that got him sent away from the home.

Now this is as best as I can come up with for an explanation for the videotapes. It seems that Majid's son (Walid Afkir) is the man making the tapes, but why he is doing this is very obscure. Why does Majid slit his own throat in Georges presence and why doesn't Georges say something to the police about this? A line of throwaway dialog later indicates that Georges did go to the police about this suicide, but we never see it happen. Also, why now, some 35 or 40 years later is Majid attempting revenge?

Are we supposed to infer something greater about this story? Is this some kind of allegory to the French debacle in Algeria? Would this film make more sense to me if I were more aware of the French colonial history in Algeria? What am I to make of the finale with Georges taking two sleeping pills and then going to bed? What does Majid's son say to Georges son Pierre in the final shot of the movie or is this just another videotape?

On the whole Cache moved along well and was frightening at times, but there is no dénouement or satisfying conclusion to the questions raised. I don't except this plot confusion as intentional like Syriana, nor does it seem like the world weariness experienced at the end of Chinatown with the line; "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown", where the implication is that some things are completely unknowable.

Majid and his son constantly deny that they are making the videotapes, but they seem to know about them and how is it possible for a tape to have been made inside Majid's apartment of a conversation between Majid and Georges without Majid knowing about it? It's possible that Georges did not see the hidden camera, but Majid had to know. Also, since Georges came to the run down apartment complex on a whim, how did Majid know to have a camera ready?

I'm not wishing I had a complete explanation for everything, but you shouldn't tease us with a story that seems to lead to a shattering conclusion and then simply end it without any kind of resolution. Am I supposed to infer from the final shot that the harassment of Georges and his family will continue? I can deal with ambiguity if it is intended, but in this case I just think the filmmakers ran out of ideas. Simply stopping the film is not the same thing as ending the film.

When hiding can be revealing -- one of the top films of the 2000s

[debblyst · 9/10 · 15 May 2006]

If you've just seen "Cachê" and are still (understandably) in shock, not knowing whether you really liked it or not, let me ask you a few questions. Now, when was the last time a film:

a) had you glued to your seat as in "Caché", your eyes and neurones required to work in full gear from beginning to end, making it impossible to erase it out of your mind (instead of the instantly forgettable films you see every week), and actually making a second viewing almost compulsory?

b) posed such complex, multi-layered questions -- socio-political ones (the shameful, violent legacy of past and present imperialist nations, the manipulation of "reality" by the State and the media), existential ones (the racial, class and social prejudices that we all carry and have to fight within ourselves), and more prosaic ones, like trying to solve a complicated thriller? When were they so masterly interwoven?

c) made you aware that your explanation for the movie's most immediate, "practical" question (who's sending the tapes to Georges) will be influenced by your own background and prejudices?

d) had such a controversial and rich ending? (I could think of at least five possible denouements, even considering that I DID see the two boys -- q.v. the multiple theories about the ending in "Caché"'s message boards here in IMDb).

"Caché" is one of the few real masterpieces of the 2000s. The mix of socio-political comment with the thriller genre is not new, of course (you can go back at least to great German silent films by Lang, Murnau, Dieterle, Pabst). In 2005 alone, Cronenberg made the half-successful "A History of Violence", Spielberg the underachieved "Munich", Stephen Gaghan the overwrought "Syriana", Paul Haggis the soap-operatic "Crash". But Haneke asks us and gives us much more: he demands our ability to fill in the many important historical and political gaps, messes with our prejudices but respects our intelligence, and knows that a good part of us viewers are bored to death of being spoon-fed with one-digit I.Q. plots in mechanical thrillers inhabited by tired, phony "archetypes" of good x evil characters.

"Caché" is a monumental proof of Haneke's COMPLETE command of his craft. Artistic achievements like this are now SO rare in films that "Caché" feels like a happening -- a work of art that is mind-boggling, hypnotic and physically unnerving, ethically and esthetically disturbing, combining the sense of revelation and discomfort you get with the best political films with the braincells workout you get with the best thrillers.

As I left the theater, three masterpieces immediately came to my mind: Clouzot's "Le Corbeau" (a political statement disguised as a thriller and a probable inspiration for "Caché"), Antonioni's "The Passenger" (ditto, and also for the long, breathtaking, "open-meaning" last shot) and Resnais' "Marienbad" (the seminal film of multi-layered possible interpretations of "reality"). "Caché" stands tall on its own, reaffirming Haneke as one the top-5 working directors of the 2000s. Can't wait for his next film -- but while I do, I'll watch "Caché" one more time, and understand that hiding (Georges hiding his past and his feelings, nations hiding shameful parts of their history, Haneke hiding evidence, explanations and conclusions) can be a form of powerful revelation...and self-revelation.

Candid camera

[jotix100 · 10/10 · 31 January 2006]

Out of France comes one of the most satisfying films in a while. "Cache" is a film that will, if nothing else, make the viewer think about what he is watching on the screen. Is it real, or is it Georges' conscience coming to grips with the injustice he played on Majid, the poor Algerian orphan whose parents were killed tragically a few years before?

Michael Haneke's direction has a way to make us accomplices in watching what is happening to Georges and his family. Mr. Haneke shows us images that are disturbing, but in the context of the film work well with the mystery he has created. After all, we are being shown videos taken of Anne and Georges' house by a hidden camera that is nowhere in sight? How are these tapes are being filmed? They all point out to the guilt that is consuming this successful Georges, whose actions have caused a lot of pain to an innocent boy that needed compassion. There are also political implications in the film as it points out to the conflict with Algeria of the sixties. The French are not exempt from the racism and injustice they caused in the past.

The key to understanding this movie is to pay attention carefully to all the clues one is given in the film. The ending scenes reveal a lot of what one keeps suspecting throughout the movie. It also points out how Georges, after many years of living with a terrible burden, comes to be reminded of the harm he caused.

Daniel Auteuil makes the film more enjoyable. This actor goes from being a television celebrity into a man whose confidence begins to betray him. Mr. Auteuil is probably the main reason for seeing the film because he is registering everything that is going on and reacting in the way Georges would without conveying to us he is that man in turmoil on the screen. This is one of his best achievements in the cinema.

Juliette Binoche, on the other hand, doesn't have as much to do in the movie. Yes, her Anne is compassionate and loyal, but is she all we think she is, or is she having an affair with another man? Let the viewer arrive at his own conclusion, which by the way, Mr. Haneke seems to be doing the same to us, the viewers.

Maurice Benichou and Walid Afkir play Majid and his son. Lester Makedonsky is seen as Pierrot, the young boy who seems to play a larger role in the mystery that is happening at home. The great Annie Girardot appears briefly as Georges' mother, who is confined to her home. Ms. Girardot is equally evasive when her son tells her about his dreams about Majid, the boy she would have adopted, had not Georges' tricks entered the picture.

All in all, "Cache", will stay in our imagination for some time to come. The brilliant cinematography of Christian Berger contributes to our enjoyment. Michael Haneke directed with tremendous panache this thoroughly compelling movie.

Poor Ending

[charles522 · 6/10 · 29 April 2012]

This film starts with a spy camera on a residence it takes some time for the film to warm up and you sit through the film waiting for a conclusion in this supposedly thriller,someone is targeting a family for no apparent reason there are no suspects in this short cast and clues are not forthcoming,I sat through it waiting for that magic moment when a culprit would be exposed but not even someone we had not seen before. Can anyone explain the very poor ending to this film,no explanation for who was spying on this married couple.

I felt that i had probably missed some vital part,but no because I watched it again.

Will Be Challenging for Americans

[ladyeuthanasia · 8/10 · 9 January 2006]

This was a very good film, an excellent study in psychological tension. Unfortunately, I don't think a lot of Americans or really anyone who isn't very familiar with the French-Algerian war will be able to understand it. It's about the horrors of that war and the French denial of their part in it -- very much tying in to the French youth race riots we saw last year. It also quietly draws some parallels with the war in Iraq. The ending was perhaps much too subtle. Everyone around me as we left the theater here in Los Angeles was expressing confusion. This was an older, more sophisticated audience, too. I don't think they really understood what was happening all along.

That said, it was still fantastic. I'm glad that at least outside of the U.S. it's gotten the recognition it deserves.

Guilty and Paranoia

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 21 February 2007]

In Paris, Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) is a famous host of a literary talk show on TV, who lives in a comfortable house with his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) and their teenager son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). When Georges and Anne receives videotapes of surveillance of their private life and weird and gore childlike drawings, they go to the police, but they do not get any protection since there is not a clear menace to the Laurent family. When Georges follows a clue in one of the tapes that shows his childhood home, he meets his former adopted brother, the Algerian Majid (Maurice Bénichou) and accuses him of sending the tapes. Meanwhile, through glimpses of Georges' nightmares, his lies due to his jealous relationship with his foster brother are disclosed.

"Caché" is definitely an inconclusive movie, open to the most different interpretations, and this obvious based on the number of very intelligent and helpful discussions in IMDb Message Board. I am a fan of Michael Haneke, and I believe this is his intention, to promote a wide discussion about his movie at the same time he uses the historical moment in 1961 of the war between France and Alger. The last scene with Majid's son at Pierrot's school indicating that the may know each other just increases the possibilities. Anyway, the tense and realistic story of guilty and paranoia is very original and without the usual clichés of Hollywood movies. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Caché"

Haneke's most accessible and enduring achievement

[howard.schumann · 10/10 · 10 October 2005]

Shown at the Vancouver Film Festival, Austrian director Michael Haneke's spine-tingling Hitchcock-like thriller, Cache is a metaphor for the denial of French responsibility for the treatment of Algerians in its colonial past and its current treatment of immigrants. The first five minutes of Caché shows a placid street scene outside of a suburban Parisian home with people coming and going long into the night. It is not until several minutes into the film, however, that we realize we are watching videotape sent by unknown persons to the family of Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil). The tape is wrapped in a drawing showing blood coming out of the side of the mouth of a young boy Haneke is masterful in showing the murk that is hidden beneath the outward calm of our comfortable middle-class lives, a recurring theme in many of his films. Here, Georges is the host of a literary TV talk show and his wife Anne (Juliet Binoche) works at a publishing house. Their complacent lives are filled with dinner parties, intellectual conversations, and general indifference to the outside world, a world that only intrudes when the TV news tries to get their diverted attention. Georges is disturbed by the tape, even more so than Anne, but he only contacts the police after a second tape shows up. Predictably, the police refuse to do anything unless the family is under direct attack. The mystery of who sent the tapes increases as Haneke builds an unrelenting atmosphere of imminent danger in a low-key manner without the use of foreboding music or Twilight Zone effects.

As nerves become frayed, tension erupts between husband and wife and explodes into acrimony when their twelve-year old son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky), stays at a friend's house all night without letting them know, bringing up fears that he has been kidnapped by the stalkers. Soon, another tape reveals a stone farmhouse where Georges grew up and where his invalid mother still resides. His visit with his mother (Annie Girardot) brings back long buried memories and Georges is forced to confront a terrible secret hidden since he was six years old. He tells Anne that he has a hunch who is behind the threatening tapes but refuses to tell her who he is thinking of, prompting her to deplore the lack of trust in their relationship.

He visits an Algerian man named Majid (Maurice Bénichou) whose parents worked for Georges' family during the French colonial repression in Algeria in the 1960s but Majid, unruffled by the accusation, denies having anything to do with the tapes. The full extent of Georges' treatment of Majid when they were both children slowly begins to emerge, however, leading to a shocking if somewhat elusive conclusion. Though the whodunit is actually less important than its implications, Caché is not a polemic or a political tome. It is a superbly crafted, entertaining, and challenging film that makes us painfully aware of the consequences of the lack of individual responsibility and creepy paranoia of modern life and of Western arrogance toward people considered inferior. It is Haneke's most accessible and enduring achievement.

A History of Violence

[tieman64 · 16 July 2009]

Another interesting film by Haneke. Some points...

1. "Cache" revolves around Anne and George, a wealthy Parisian couple who receive several mysterious videotapes in the mail. These tapes contain ominous surveillance footage of the couple's house.

2. Anne is a publisher and George interviews academics for a television programme. Both disseminate information, him images, her print.

3. George's television sound-stage resembles his dining room, a large bank of novels/cassettes filling the wall behind each. Both locations are self-consciously "stages" being "filmed". Both always "under observation".

4. George and Anne, our bourgeois couple, are constantly framed by books, tapes and libraries. They are pinned down by symbols of cultural superiority. It is precisely their comfortable lifestyle, their cultural status, that is under attack by the videotapes.

5. The film makes several references to the 1961 police massacre of Algerian protesters, an event which has come to symbolise the growing unease between France and Arabic minorities.

6. We learn that George once knew an Algerian called Majid and conspired to have him evicted from his parent's house. Because George mistreated Majid, he suspects that Majid is vengeful and responsible for sending the tapes.

7. George's relationship with Majid eventually becomes a metaphor for France's violent relationship with Algeria (and the West's relationship with the Arab world). George at first denies mistreating Majid. He denies trying to "kick Majid out of his home" and refuses to talk about his act of betrayal. The tapes thus become a form of ontological evidence, less a record of violent history than a set of penetrative eyes, searing into George's guilty soul and shaming him into confronting his past.

8. Majid commits suicide in front of George, an act which he hopes will finally push George into accepting responsibility for ruining his life. George and Majid's narrative is thus symbolic of France's national violence toward Algerians and Arabs. The Other is firstly violently evicted, disregarded and later the cause of profound guilt.

9. After the suicide, George visits a theatre. This is another common Haneke theme: cinema as trauma avoidance.

10. Unlike George, Majid lives in a fairly dilapidated apartment. Haneke draws repeated juxtapositions between class and wealth. In France's passionate intellectual liberalism, the hugely disadvantaged Arab underclass still struggles to live their lives as free people in a so-called liberal country.

11. Majid's son asks George if he feels responsible for Majid's death. George once again washes his hands of all responsibility. George then goes to sleep and has a dream about Majid. The implication is that France continues to avoid confronting its dark past, even as it is haunted by its guilty nightmares.

12. The film ends with a shot of George's son and Majid's son talking outside a school. Some interpret this to mean that the younger generation has learnt to reconcile their differences and get along. More likely, the last shot foretells the Muslim riots that began in Paris' suburbs and soon spread out across France. The next generation does not "solve" anything when it learns from political history, rather, it has a tendency to become increasingly reactionary, bitter and violent. Yes, people who ignore the past regularly repeat history's mistakes, but equally so, people who are aware of history often violently attempt to force change.

13. Haneke leaves clues linking "Cache" to the tapes received by the couple within it. He stresses the artifice of both and implies that it is he, as director and "god", that is mailing the tapes to George as a means of "provoking" his film "Cache".

14. The film's final shot is itself a "surveilance tape of children". As the parents "taped the adults" so too does Haneke "tape" the children. This tape becomes "The White Ribbon", the kid's of tomorrow becoming just another violent link in history's unending chain.

15. Using brief television reports on the global war on terror, Haneke subtly juxtaposes the couple's paranoia with a more global paranoia.

16. Haneke frequently states that film "lies 24 frames per second", a line which Brian De Palma coined in the late 60s as a response to Goddard's "Film is truth 24 fps". Cinema sublimates desire, is cathartic and engenders voyeurism; Haneke's cinema undercuts this.

17. The film is shot to resemble the surveillance tapes which George and Anne receive. This style is similar to CCTV security camera footage; long takes, fixed shots, cold and dispassionate.

18. The film highlights the dangerous irresponsibility of suppression. Not only does it suggest that wilful amnesia is a fine escape for suppressing unpleasantness, but it manages to implicate "media" as both a tool for suppression and a tool for needling out and confronting truths.

8.5/10 – Many similar films were released between 2003 and 2005. "Munich", "Paradise Now", "A History of Violence", "Kingdom of Heaven", "Road To Guantanamo", "In This World", "Our Music", "Ararat", "Cache" etc etc, all deal with national/religious violence and colonialism.

"Munich" and "Heaven" go for dishonest equivalency, "Paradise", "World" and "Guantanamo" side us with the victims, Godard's "Our Music" declares current art impotent to tackle these issues, whilst "Violence", "Ararat" and "Cache" opt for a more cerebral approach. Of these films, Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" is possibly the most effective, if only because it so deftly packages its heady ideas within a deceptively trashy exterior. (Following this wave of films were a wave of "9/11 blame taking movies" - eg "Changing Lanes", "House of Sand and Fog", "The Visitor", "Babel", "Crossing Over", "Gran Torino", "Interpreter", "Little Children", "Monster's Ball", "The Terminal", "Towelhead" etc etc)

The downside of all these films, though, is that they all parrot what Kubrick did 25 years earlier, and with far more grandeur, in "The Shining". Haneke himself cites "The Shining's" elaborate labyrinth of history, genocide and denial as an influence and visually quotes (along with "Clockwork Orange") it several times in his earlier "Funny Games".

subtle, offbeat thriller

[Buddy-51 · 7/10 · 3 July 2006]

Georges and Anne Laurent lead a relatively idyllic existence in an upper middle class neighborhood in Paris. He is a well-known television personality who hosts a popular talk show dedicated to arcane discussions of literature (on the French equivalent of PBS, one assumes). Their 12 year-old son, Pierrot, is, like most 12 year-old boys, moody, taciturn, and only vaguely aware of a world taking place beyond his own circumscribed existence. One day, the peace of the family is shattered when they begin receiving tapes from an anonymous source showing that someone is monitoring their house from a camera hidden across the street. This, coupled with a series of mysterious crank phone calls, makes Georges and Anne aware of the fact that they have become the targets of either an elaborate prankster, a potentially dangerous stalker, or a person seeking revenge for some earlier unaccounted-for grievance.

If this had been an American film, "Cache" would have been stuffed to bursting with over-heated melodramatics, phony heroics, endless car chases, and about a half a dozen surprise plot twists all leading to a neatly tied-up resolution. However, Austrian filmmaker, Michael Haneke (who both wrote and directed the film), takes a far more subdued, realistic and sophisticated approach to the material. He is less concerned with the mechanics of the mystery story than he is with the impact this situation has on the family both emotionally and psychologically. We begin to see how all the tension and stress brought on by this indefinable threat begins to weaken the fabric holding the marriage together, making it clear that that fabric was actually pretty fragile to begin with. The surveillance merely becomes the vehicle through which problems and unresolved issues long simmering beneath the surface are finally allowed to rise to the top. For as Georges goes deeper into unraveling the mystery, Anne senses that she is being more and more left out of her husband's decision making process, forcing her to question his commitment to their marriage and trust in her. "Cache" also effectively dramatizes how tenuous is the "privacy" we foolishly believe we have in a world chock full of technological marvels designed to monitor our every movement and action. The film also has special significance for the French, since it deals with that nation's shameful treatment of the Algerians several decades earlier and the ramifications still being felt all these years later.

There is no doubt that many will find "Cache" to be both painfully slow-moving and frustratingly unsatisfying with its deliberately indecisive and inconclusive ending. But that is exactly what lifts "Cache" above the ordinary and the average - its refusal to cater to audience expectations and to stick to any kind of tried-and-true narrative formula. Add to that excellent performances by Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche in the lead roles and you have the makings of a first-class psychological chiller.

France and Algeria

[kerryryan · 8/10 · 7 February 2006]

OK, here is my theory: we are all being too literal about the tapes. The tapes are metaphors.

What did the tapes show? Nothing but a picture of where Georges and Anne lived. The tapes simply reflected back reality, nothing more or less. It forced modern France to look at itself in a mirror.

What we saw was idyllic, quaint, intellectual and beautiful. But let's go beyond that. It is also deeply conflicted and deeply dysfunctional. Like France, Georges is uncomfortable with the modern world – he has a TV show about books for Christ's sake!! He and his family go through the motions of modern life, but are barely connected. Their lives, while at first glance look fine, are not. His wife is at least thinking about having an affair, Georges is incredibly self-absorbed. Modern France, while looking wealthy and healthy, is anything but. France itself is a seemingly beautiful country with many deep seeded problems.

Then the 'tapes' force us to take a look at Algeria (Majid's apartment, or where he lived.) It is not nearly as wealthy. It is poor and run down. Majid could have been successful, but France (i.e. Georges) treated him so badly. This ruined his chances for success.

Georges (France) is unwilling and incapable of admitting any responsibility or guilt for Majid's (Algeria's) plight. Algeria is a wreck, and, perversely, wants France to share in its pain. France (Georges) will never find peace until it admits its guilt and responsibility.

But the movie ends with hope. The future (Pierrot and Majid's son) is bright. The two sons are friends. Algeria has nothing to be ashamed of, France has a lot to be ashamed of, but the two will put the past behind them and become friends. Very positive ending.

Frustrating

[iwalrus · 7/10 · 23 September 2021]

The movie would be worth 8 stars if it wasn't for the ambiguity of the ending, which was very frustrating.

The concept was good, as was the acting but there were parts where the same image stayed on the screen for far too long.

There were also some major holes in the script.

A film that keeps you guessing throughout and unfortunately, after it's over.

The completely unpretentious guide to Hidden

[peachfluff · 1/10 · 23 June 2006]

Before i get started, I'm not a divvy or someone that only likes mainstream blockbusters, I'm quite the opposite.

But Hidden is one of the most boring, over rated films I have seen. I am usually a fan of films made up of one take scenes, and where long drawn out shots that emphasise the characters are commonplace. However, there's something about Hidden that frustrates - a lot - I felt cheated by the film. What many comments seem to agree on is that Hidden has the viewer riveted - but this is quite a flowery term for what I went through - I felt I had to sit through this hour and fifty minutes of frankly downright shockingly soul destroying, sorry excuse of a film for the simple fact it may actually have AN ENDING.

I don't think anyone has managed to take such a scary and exciting idea and turn it so very well into garbage. (with the exception of Alien vs. Predator and Hole in My Heart) This does not have the same appeal of films like the similarly slow paced Radio On (superb soundtrack and its British charm), or Irreversible (shocking and important) or Last Days (because of its visual excellence and enchanting performances) because: a) its visuals are not at all stunning - my mum could have set a shot up like Haneke's dull shots, b)it is two hours of middle class domestic self obsessed faff, made by a director who obviously has some issues with refugees (and being entertaining) which he should address (and not inflict on me by making this film), c)it fools you into thinking it has a story which at some point will end, not give up.

d)the one thing it has to say about society is that they middle class people might ignore a news report WHEN THEIR SON HAS GONE MISSING.

The film is not even redeemed by its random inserts of gore or axe wielding children, because they are frankly only shocking due to the rest of the film being so static.

Genre breaking? No - this isn't a thriller by any stretch of the imagination. Thrillers are thrilling - or at the least moderately entertaining.

Depressing, thankless, boring, frustrating, disappointing, pretentious and over-hyped, the only thing good about the film is that hopefully i will never see anything else like it.