Caché | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Michael Haneke |
Produced by |
Veit Heiduschka Michael Katz Margaret Menegoz |
Written by | Michael Haneke |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Christian Berger |
Edited by |
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Production
company |
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Distributed by | Les films du losange |
Release date
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Running time
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118 minutes |
Language | French |
Budget | $10.5 million |
Box office | $16.2 million |
Caché [ka.ʃe], titled Hidden in the UK and Ireland, is a 2005 French psychological thriller written and directed by Michael Haneke. Starring Daniel Auteuil as Georges and Juliette Binoche as his wife Anne, the film follows an upper-class French couple who are terrorized by anonymous tapes that appear on their front porch and hint at childhood memories of the husband.
Caché opened to acclaim from film critics, who lauded Binoche's acting and Haneke's direction. The ambiguities of its plot continue to attract considerable discussion among scholars; many have commented on the film's themes of collective guilt and collective memory, often drawing parallels between its narrative and the French government's decades-long denial of the 1961 Seine River massacre. Caché is today regarded as one of the greatest films of the 2000s.
The quiet life of a Paris family is disturbed when they receive a series of surveillance tapes of the exterior of their residence from an anonymous source. Georges Laurent is the successful host of a French literary television program, living with his wife Anne, a book publisher, and their 12-year-old son Pierrot. Unmarked videocassettes arrive on their doorstep, tapes that show extended observation of their home's exterior from a static street camera that is never noticed. At first passive and harmless, but later accompanied by crude, disturbing crayon drawings, the tapes lead to questions about Georges' early life that disrupt both his work and marriage. But because the tapes do not contain an open threat, the police refuse to help the family.
One videotape leads Georges to the modest HLM apartment of Majid, an Algerian man whose parents worked for Georges' family before they were killed in the Paris massacre of 1961. The orphaned Majid remained in the Laurent home, and the parents at one time intended to adopt him. Georges confronts Majid about the tapes, but he denies involvement. However, the encounter intensifies his guilty flashbacks and recurring nightmares of a young Majid spitting blood, cutting off a rooster's head, and menacing him.