DVD of the Week
#9 - Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005) aka HiddenWhen a minor media celebrity (Daniel Auteuil) receives an unmarked cassette containing video footage of the front of his house, he regards it as a threat.
Assuming it's tied to the one chapter of his life he regrets (centring on a childhood lie), he tracks down the victim and tries to bully him into confessing.
But there are no easy answers for either Auteuil or the audience in this upsetting, unsettling drama.
Rarely have I seen a film where the characters' motivations are so unclear, where they (apparently) lie with such conviction or where a character can wake from a terrible dream and just lie there - aware that the reality is more awful.
It's gripping, compulsive viewing, making vague nods in the direction of
The Reckless Moment (where crime intrudes into an affluent family's life) and
Atonement (in some of the subject matter), but offering nothing approaching a satisfactory denouement. The ending is almost insultingly abstruse.
Haneke has history on his side, throwing in some shocking matter about French treatment of Algerians that throws Auteuil's guilt across the whole nation, and adds weight to his trim film.
But boldness and uncommerciality are really what make the film truly extraordinary. Despite Haneke's familiar obsession with voyeurism, it is a movie about guilt and the part of your past you wish you could change.
DVD of the Week archive:
#1 - Let's Get Lost (Bruce Weber, 1988)
#2 - Charley Varrick (Don Siegel, 1973)
#3 - The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)
#4 - The Raven (Lew Landers, 1935)
#5 - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943)
#6 - Written and Directed by Preston Sturges (Preston Sturges, 1940-44)
#7 – The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992)#8 - Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935)
