Hidden [Blu-ray]

Director: Michael Haneke Michael Haneke

Overview

Paranoia grips a bourgeois European family when a series of menacing videotapes begin turning up on their doorstep in Piano Teacher director Michael Haneke's dark drama. From the outside, Georges (Daniel Auteuil), Anne (Juliette Binoche), and son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky) are the typical middle-class European family, but when a series of mysterious videotapes accompanied by morbid drawings reveal that someone has been monitoring their house, Georges begins to suspect that his past has come back to haunt him. It was during France's occupation of Algeria that Georges wronged a young Algerian boy named Majid (Maurice Bénichou), and as the enraged father and husband begins tracking down his former friend, the line between victim and predator becomes increasingly blurred.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/12/2009
UPC:	5021866005409
Original Release:	2005
Source:	Ais
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:49:00
Sales rank:	32,413

Special Features

Michael Haneke interview; Theatrical trailer; Making of documentary

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Daniel Auteuil	Georges Laurent
Juliette Binoche	Anne Laurent
Annie Girardot	George's Mother
Lester Makedonsky	Pierrot Laurent
Bernard Le Coq	George's Editor
Walid Afkir	Majid's Son
Daniel Duval	Pierre
Nathalie Richard	Mathilde
Caroline Baehr	Nurse
Paule Dare	The Orphanage Attendent
Marie Kremer	Jeannette
Hugo Flamigni	George as a Child
Malik Nait Djoudi	Majid as a Child
Christian Benedetti	George's Father, Young
Annette Faure	George's Mother, Young
Diouc Koma	Cyclist
Maurice Bénichou	Majid
Denis Podalydès	Yvon
Aïssa Maïga	Chantal
Philippe Besson	l'invité à la télé
Loic Brabant	l'officier de police numéro 2
Jean-Jacques Brochier	l'invité à la télé
Louis-Do de Lencquesaing	le propriétaire de la librairie
Peter Stephan Jungk	un écrivain
Nicky Marbot	le chauffeur de l'orphelinat
Maurice Benichou	Actor
Aissa Maiga	Actor
Jina Sumedi	Composer

Technical Credits

Michael Haneke

Michael Haneke	Director,Screenwriter
Veit Heiduschka	Producer
Michael Katz	Executive Producer,Producer
Margaret Menegoz	Executive Producer
Michael André	Producer
Rémi Burah	Producer
Andrew Colton	Producer
Valerio de Paolis	Producer
Margaret Ménégoz	Producer
Michael Weber	Producer
Pascal Chauvin	Sound Effects
Jean-Pierre Laforce	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Mathias Maydl	Sound Effects
Jean-Paul Mugel	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

This fascinating French drama -- a multiple winner in Cannes (2005) and the subject of considerable critical acclaim -- has the hallmarks of a thriller but digs deeply into darker psychological territory. Director Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher) employs a more conventional narrative approach than his earlier films as a platform for exploring issues of willful amnesia and repressed guilt. Erudite, smug TV talk show host Georges (Daniel Auteuil), his wife, Anne (Juliette Binoche), and their 12-year-old son, Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky), find their placid bourgeois existence disrupted by the anonymous deliveries of videotapes apparently shot right outside their home. The tapes, along with a succession of cryptic phone calls, convince Georges that his family is being stalked by a voyeur with sinister intentions; but he knows not why. Slowly, George’s complacency, his refusal to accept responsibility for earlier actions, and his vigorous denial of personal guilt begin to surface. Revealing the identity of the tormentor isn’t Haneke’s primary goal: Rather, it is the baring of Georges’s soul that becomes paramount in this deliberately paced, provocative film. With skillful performances by two of France’s most popular and accomplished actors, Cache dares to unsettle, as well as intrigue, its audience.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Critics tended to agree that Michael Haneke's Caché represented a singular vision. What they couldn't mutually reconcile was whether he employed that vision toward a catharsis viewers would find satisfying -- or even accept as an ending for the film. A bracingly simple yet original take on the gradually escalating stalker story, Caché finishes in a way that shouldn't be revealed. In fact, it shouldn't even be hinted at, except that it plays a role in whether the movie is worth recommending. Suffice it to say that the ending is unconventional -- brilliant to some, maddening to others. Fortunately, the journey getting there is rich enough that even the most negative reaction to the conclusion can't spoil the experience on the whole. The eerie surveillance tapes -- which seem to come from a camera angle that couldn't exist in reality -- set the tone, and French acting treasure Daniel Auteuil sustains the tension through a performance of great quiet fear. The eventual revelations of his character Georges' secret guilt, and the details of what he's accused of, are somewhat mundane. But that's beside the point, because Caché is about subjective rather than absolute emotional damage. Georges may be deserving of these opaque threats and psychically violent intrusions into his domestic world, or he may not, but the film explores how the mere implication of guilt can twist and transform. Juliette Binoche, working in her native French, is equally strong as the wife who must absorb the dissolution of her home life without being offered an explanation for it, even though her husband knows more than he's saying. The film has enough good surprises to offset the debatable ones, and is composed at every level with consummate artistry, so Caché is an important work.

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