Caché

I used to be all like "Art films are so the most boring things" not to mention that my inaptitude in the French language gave me a once deep rooted dislike for all products of that certain European country. Of late however, I have enjoyed such French films as "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" and "The Triplettes of Belleville." I pretty much grew a hunger for excellent French Cinema, enter Caché (French for "Hidden"). This haunting French thriller in the mood of Alfred Hitchcock is so extremely well crafted, so simplistic in its approach to the material, and so impossible to turn away from that it left me exhilarated and conscious of it days later. The plot revolves around a man named Georges and his wife and son, who receive anonymous video tapes with hours of video from a "hidden" camera starring first squarely at their house, then at the house in which Georges grew up, and finally at Georges as he attempts to solve the mystery of who is sending these tapes, and what relation they have to his mysterious childhood. When I say haunting, I mean haunting. From the lengthly opening shot which reveals itself to be the first of these mystery tapes, to the closing shot, nearly as lengthly, which delivers a final twist that even now sends shivers up my spine as I think of what it might possibly mean. There is no American style conclusion to this film, it is only a more complex and mysterious portrait when finished, then when it began, however, when you have seen it all you can theorize and wonder to the point of madness at what it all means, and this is the sensational quality of this movie. It never once treats the audience as its inferior, it shows what happened as it happened, it doesn't waste time over emphasizing the important things, rather it assumes that in its long stationary shots it will show the attentive people the things they need to see the know what the director knows...as well as what he doesn't know. I mean by this that there is really no way of ever knowing even if the director knows exactly how and why what happened happenedd, it is a story to stir the thoughts around in a new and exciting way. It does this so well, and so completely that I loved every minute of it, and continue to ponder it as time goes by. I don't know if I'll ever decide exactly what I think happened, but I do know that I loved this movie, unfortunately though it will be the cheesy Americann rip off-remake that the masses see, and that film is the one which I think I'd most like to see "Caché" (haha French humor!)

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