Cache (aka Hidden)

French/118 Minutes/2005/Rated R

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” - Sigmund Freud

The literal English translation of the title “Cache” is “Hidden,” a better title and a more apt description. For just as the characters have hidden things from each other, so has Haneke hidden the real drama from the viewer.

The story is supposedly about a well-to-do French couple, Georges and Anne (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) who are terrorized by someone sending them tapes of the outside of their house. The tapes are accompanied by child-like drawings of violence. These pictures draw to mind an unresolved guilt of Georges' and when the tapes lead him to a childhood friend things start to unravel.

In “Cache” Haneke has intentionally made a film that is difficult and ambiguous. He shoots in excruciatingly long takes (as long as 3 minutes of a static shot) that force us to focus on what is occurring within the frame. Characters come and go within the frame and many times in wide shot where their encounters have no sound leaving us to make what we will of them. The viewer is made to feel as much the voyeur as the spy sending the tapes. Perhaps that is Haneke's intent.

Indeed many times we are unsure if we are watching the film itself, one of the tapes sent to Georges and Anne, or the filming of one of the tapes. In fact the first scene is a static shot of their house from the outside that lasts for three minutes before the characters start talking off screen and begin fast forwarding through the video. The film is very ambiguous and plays with the fourth wall in a similar way to Haneke's movie Funny Games.

“Cache” is not a movie to be watched but rather to be absorbed and thought about. When the film first ended and I sat down to write this review I was very unimpressed, however, the longer I thought about it (and admittedly trawled the message boards) the more the film seemed to bloom, peeling away layers that revealed the film that I did not think was there.

On the down side we are drawn almost too far outside the drama, the characters too isolated. In many ways Haneke's film is less a dramatic film than an observance. And the presence of some dramatic forward motion, some conflict that grows and is then resolved, is what differentiates a film from an assembled home movie. Unfortunately “Cache” falls closer to home movie than good movie and that is ultimately its undoing.

While “Cache” may grow upon reflection there is still much that could be done to make it less abstract and more engaging. The film forgets that film is a “show me” medium and would rather keep things so open to interpretation that the film ultimately says nothing significant. There is an interesting movie in here somewhere, but it feels too unfocused to make its mark. Not recommended (unless you're a film student).

Rated R for Brief Strong Violence (also contains brief nudity and language)