Hidden (cache) [DVD] [2005]

More tapes follow - as do disturbing, childlike drawings of decapitated chickens, which hark back to a memory of Georges', which is made manifest in a nightmare. Is it an elborate prank being played by their son, who suspects his mother to be having an affair with a family friend, or something more sinister? Georges tracks down what he believes is the culprit to an estate in the Paris suburbs. There he is reunited with a man he has not seen since he was six years old, an orphaned Algerian who Georges' family had looked after as a boy when his parents were killed in the Paris massacre of immigrants in 1961. But Georges has a guilty secret. Did he, as a young boy, set up this Algerian orphan to be sent to a mental institution? Flashbacks give suggestions but, again, frustratingly, the full reality of the situation is obscured.

Caché skillfully and subtly plays with audience expectations, with most of its inner tensions unresolved apart from one brief and terrifyingly visceral moment. Against convention, this moment of extreme violence - as it involves the death of a key character - seeks to further bury and obstruct our access to the truth, while simultaneously heightening the suspence. The film could also be construed as a metaphor for France's inability come to terms with its relationship with Algeria, arrogantly rewriting its colonial past. But like much of the narrative, this is not made explicit, but is rather a further provocation in a film filled with subtle antagonisms. Brilliant.

The absence of closure is, of course, an essential element in the success of the film. Inevitably we speculate on the level of story - just who did send the tapes? However, as everyone recognises, the film is about more than the Laurents' and particularly George's guilt. Making a character responsible for the tapes would apportion 'guilt' and that is a key theme of the film: George's guilt; France's in relation to Algeria; the coalition's in relation to Iraq (it isn't for nothing that one scene has a news report from the Middle East in prominent background); the viewer's reponsibilities for events in their lives.

I read the film as exploring the nature of guilt, taking responsibility for what we do and the way(s) we go about that. At the end of the film, George has gone to bed, taken pills, shut out the world as much as he can. What he did as a child may be understandable, though unkind and cruel: he wanted his parents to himself, though it is clear and ironic that as an adult he doesn't want his mother or her farm at all.

That it isn't a conventional thriller is obvious from the opening frame though it exploits elements of the genre: there is no 'set up' or equilibrium to be disrupted beyond the duration of shot one until the tape is rewound: the first shot throws us into the mystery of the surveillance, as though it had always existed (perhaps like the stirrings of George's conscience/guilt for his childhood behaviour).

The handling of point of view is brilliant and unsettling too: much of the time we are unsure whose eyes we are seeing through. It also seems to me that the whole movie could, in a sense, not really be happening but represents George's fear of his guilty conscience.

I wouldn't claim to be able to give a masterclass on this film and understand every nuance, but that's OK: I only saw it last night for the first time, and it has been pre-occupying me since. I shall certainly be going back to enjoy its thought provoking narrative and superb craftsmanship. A great film.