Caché

Last year I started using swapadvd.com when I couldn't sell a DVD for a price I wanted, and had already bought the Blu-ray version. I picked up the French thriller Caché through one of the trades because it stars Juliette Binoche, but as the cover also shows, it received some strong accolades. After a rather brilliant opening sequence that successfully disorients the viewer, Caché is a pretty straightforward mystery that forces the lead character Georges to revisit some disturbing occurrences from his childhood. Someone is filming Georges' house and family for hours at a time and leaving the videocassettes on their doorstep.

The movie is less "thriller" than creepy, and ultimately a little frustrating. The cover compares this film to Hitchcock, but at the end of his films, Hitchcock ultimately explained the questions that he set up. If this was an American film, we'd see the face of the person as they turned off the video camera in the last seconds before the credits. If it was Japanese, someone would spend 10 minutes explaining what happened the rest of the movie. Since it's French, they simply can't be bothered to reveal the mystery that drives every action throughout the film, which is a little frustrating. I understand the director's point that it's more "real" in that some mysteries in life go unsolved. I would argue, though, that most people watch films to escape from the Real, and the videotapes weren't just a MacGuffin, but the central story of the film.

Caché means "Hidden", which clearly applies to the resolution of the film. If you can stand the frustration having more questions at the end of the movie than at the beginning, it's probably worth a viewing, but not necessarily one worth keeping on the shelf.