Caché (film)
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| Caché | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Michael Haneke |
| Produced by | Veit Heiduschka |
| Written by | Michael Haneke |
| Starring | Juliette Binoche Daniel Auteuil Maurice Bénichou |
| Music by | None |
| Cinematography | Christian Berger |
| Editing by | Michael Hudecek Nadine Muse |
| Distributed by | Artificial Eye Sony Pictures Classics |
| Release date(s) | October 5, 2005 |
| Running time | 117 min |
| Country | France/Austria/Germany/Italy |
| Language | French |
| Budget | €8,000,000 (estimated) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Caché (marketed as Hidden in the United Kingdom and Ireland) is a 2005 French-language film, written and directed by Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke. It stars Daniel Auteuil as Georges and Juliette Binoche as his wife Anne. It is the first film in which Haneke used high-definition video cameras. It has no film score.
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[edit] Plot
Georges (Daniel Auteuil) is a successful host of a TV program about books, who lives with his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche), a book publisher, and their son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). The family's comfortable bourgeois life is threatened when mysterious videotapes start arriving on their doorstep. The tapes show surveillance of their home. At first they seem relatively harmless, but later videos are accompanied by crude, disturbing crayon drawings. Little by little, the tapes bring out disquieting information about events in Georges' childhood. Georges hides as much about these events as possible from everyone, including Anne.
Because the tapes do not contain an open threat, the police refuse to help Georges and Anne. One videotape leads Georges to the modest HLM apartment of an Algerian man named Majid (Maurice Bénichou), whose parents worked for Georges' family when they were young. When his parents were killed in the Paris massacre of 1961, Majid temporarily lived with Georges and his parents, who intended to adopt Majid into their family. Georges confronts Majid about the tapes, but he denies involvement. Throughout the film, Georges has guilty flashbacks and nightmares depicting a young Majid spitting blood, cutting off a rooster's head, and menacing him. As more is revealed through the tapes, Georges' lack of openness with Anne drives a wedge between them.
One day Pierrot does not come home from school and Anne cannot locate him. Georges and Anne suspect that Majid has kidnapped him. They go to the police, who accompany Georges to Majid's apartment. There they find Majid's son (Walid Afkir), and father and son both deny knowledge of the kidnapping. The police arrest them but they are released the next morning. On the same morning, Pierrot returns. He had spent the night at a friend's house without telling anyone. When Anne scolds Pierrot, he accuses her of committing adultery. In an earlier scene, we see a distressed Anne permitting a few romantic caresses from Pierre, a family friend.
Majid asks Georges to come to his apartment and Georges does. Majid says he wanted Georges to be present, states that he had nothing to do with the tapes and then kills himself by slashing his own throat. When Georges returns home, Anne insists he tell her what he did to Majid so many years ago. When he was six years old, he says, he told his parents that Majid spat blood, but they did not believe him. He then tricked Majid into cutting off the head of a rooster, and told his parents that he did this to scare him. This prompted his parents to send Majid to an orphanage. At first it does not seem that Georges has reported the suicide, but the police later confirm his report.
After Majid's death, his son confronts Georges. He denies involvement with the tapes, while Georges denies responsibility for his father's unhappiness and suicide. Majid's son says he only wanted to know how Georges felt about being the cause of his father's death, and Georges angrily leaves. Georges goes home, takes two sleeping pills, and goes to bed. Then the only true flashback is shown. In it, we see a car arriving at Georges' childhood house. Georges' parents accompany Majid out of the house, and a couple forces Majid into a car and takes him away as Georges' parents go back inside. In the final scene, Pierrot and Majid's son meet in front of Pierrot's school, though their conversation cannot be heard. The shooting style of this scene matches that of the tapes, but the sender is never explicitly revealed.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Juliette Binoche | Anne Laurent |
| Daniel Auteuil | Georges Laurent |
| Maurice Bénichou | Majid |
| Annie Girardot | La mère de Georges (Georges' mother) |
| Lester Makedonsky | Pierrot Laurent |
| Bernard Le Coq | Le rédacteur en chef (Georges' boss) |
| Walid Afkir | Le fils de Majid (Majid's son) |
| Daniel Duval | Pierre |
| Nathalie Richard | Mathilde |
| Denis Podalydès | Yvon |
| Aïssa Maïga | Chantal |
| Caroline Baehr | La mère de François (François' mother) |
| Christian Benedetti | Le père de Georges jeune (young Georges' father) |
| Philippe Besson | L'invité de l'émission télé (TV guest) |
| Loic Brabant | Le policier #2 (Police officer #2) |
[edit] Reception
Caché premiered at the 2005 Cannes film festival. The film won numerous awards during its successful run at the festival, including the prize for Best Director, and the FIPRESCI prize.[1]
Caché also won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. The film won several awards at the 2005 European Film Awards, including Best European Film, Best European Director, Best European Actor (Daniel Auteuil), and Best European Editor.[2]
[edit] Positive reviews
- Deborah Young from Variety stated, "The tight pacing of Michael Hudecek and Nadine Muse's editing keeps the story fluid and focused but very concise, commanding audience attention from start to finish."[3]
- Kirk Honeycutt at the The Hollywood Reporter stated, "In unraveling a nearly forgotten secret in the life of a self-satisfied and smug French intellectual, Haneke probes deeply into issues involving guilt, communication and willful amnesia."[4]
- Roger Ebert from Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "...a perplexing and disturbing film of great effect, showing how comfortable lives are disrupted by the simple fact that someone is watching."[5]
- The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave the film five out of five stars, describing it as "one of the great films of this decade" and "Haneke's masterpiece".[6]
[edit] Negative reviews
- Andrew Sarris from the New York Observer stated, "Too much of the plot's machinery turns out to be a metaphorical mechanism by which to pin the tail of colonial guilt on Georges and the rest of us smug bourgeois donkeys."[7]
- Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle found the film fraudulent "in its style, technique and ultimate message," and that the director does "everything he can to bore the audience, and the audience tries not to fall asleep or flee the theater," making the film an "exercise in pain".[8]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Cache" and "Sophie Scholl" Top European Film Awards
- ^ WINNERS OF THE EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2007
- ^ Cache review at Variety
- ^ Hidden (Cache) at The Hollywood Reporter
- ^ Caché review by Roger Ebert
- ^ Hidden (Caché) review
- ^ Cache at Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ 'Caché' tries to dig into what lies beneath, but comes up empty
[edit] External links
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