Hidden
Written by: Michael Haneke
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou
Rated: R
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it. Read my previous movie reviews!
Plot
In this French language film, a family is terrorized by a series of surveillance videotapes left on their door step.
Verdict
Everyone has secrets from their past they hope remain hidden, but Georges particularly egregious secret resurfaces. Someone is watching him, terrorizing his family. The terror is indirect. There isn't an open threat, the tapes only cause Georges to remember his past, and in turn he begins harassing someone he thinks is the culprit.
Watch it.
Review
I have to imagine this is at least in part a metaphor for society. Georges had the chance to help an underprivileged boy, but instead lied to have the boy taken away. It hasn't even haunted Georges. He completely forgot the incident. Why did he do it? Was it because he wanted all of his parents attention or was it because the boy was different from him?
Georges finds a video of himself leaving his apartment, but can't locate the culprit or camera. While the videos continue to appear, the police can't do anything because there's no actual threat.
While the videos seem harmless, you know things will get worse and they certainly do. The videos are then accompanied by crude drawings, but as the movie unfolds it seems these videos and drawings may not be intended to terrorize Georges, but to make him remember. Georges potentially ruined someone's life and barely remembers.
Who is really being terrorized? Georges is mad about the videos, but the person he thinks is the culprit seems to be the one really being tortured. The past events seem to agonize him much more than they do Georges.
The movie sparks a thought, but it doesn't necessarily provide all the answers. We never know with certainty who was leaving the tapes, though there is plenty of fuel for speculation and the final scene is a very ambiguous clue.
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