STUDY GUIDE
Hidden [Caché] (Michael Haneke, 2005) 118 min. France.
Michael Haneke (b. 1942) is arguably Europe's most esteemed and most controversial filmmaker. After twenty years of directing for the cinema, he has earned a place in the pantheon of the most acclaimed active auteurs. His feature Benny's Video (1992) shocked crowds with its restrained, anti-psychological portrait of a teenager who kills a young girl "to see how it is". Funny Games (1997) inspired a fierce debate on how one can interrogate violence in film. On the whole, Haneke's polemical style attempts to lay bare the coldness of Western society and challenge Hollywood's blithe treatment of violence. Many of his film chronicle the failings of emotionally cold individuals and the implosion of bourgeois social structures when placed under a complicating duress. Caché (Hidden, 2005) won the Palme d'or and was voted by The Times as the "film of the decade." Drawing on the conventions of the thriller, Hidden evokes David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) in the way that it introduces anonymous missives as springboards for epistemological conundrums. Georges is a television literary critic and his wife Anne is a book editor. Together with their teenage son Pierrot, they live in a handsome townhouse in a tony neighborhood. The family receives a series of disquieting drawings and videotapes; after the police are powerless to help, Georges pursues the man he suspects is sending the unsolicited post, Majid (played by Maurice Benichou), a French-Algerian who had lived with Georges' family as a child.
MAIN CHARACTER: Georges
SECONDARY CHARACTERS: Anne (Georges's wife), Pierrot (Anne and Georges's son), Majid (French-Algerian who lived with Georges's family as a child), Majid's son, Georges's mom, Georges's boss.
QUESTIONS TO GUIDE YOUR NOTE TAKING:
How does the film's first shot, a long take, mimic but also subvert the codes of realism?
How do you interpret the title of the film? How does the film visualize idea of something that remains hidden or out of view?
Christopher Sharrett observes in his review of the film for Cinesate that unlike a typical thriller, the film deliberately leaves a number of important questions unanswered. What are the questions, and how does Sharrett interpret Haneke's refusal to answer them in an unambiguous way? How does Sharrett describe the link between surveillance to transgression in the film? Identify and describe a moment in the film that supports or subverts Sharrett's reading of this narrative theme. Be sure to focus on film form as well as narrative content.