Superb film filled with excellent performances. A wonderful change from the usual blood and gore dished up by the main studios.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Good photography, the unwinding of a successful broadcaster, The boy is the man , the lies lost in time resurface until the final confrontation, which is bloody a tense film,
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Love this film. Many thanks
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I watched Daniel Auteil in 36 themn in MR73, then On guard, all three were great. So I decided to buy this, I was not disappointed. Daniel is brilliant, and the film is one of the beat in this genre,
I bought this as my boyfriend recommended it for me as i really like foreign films. It was an interesting storyline even if it did take a while to understand it. I would recommend it to those who like foreign films or like thrillers/mystery movies.
This really is flawless as an intellectual cinematic study, and a real masterpiece for the director, Michael Haneke. If you like a film that leaves you thinking about it for days afterwards, this is a fine example. However, if you prefer to get all the loose ends tied up, put the DVD back in its box and forget about it, then you should be advised that you might not be able to do that with Hidden.
The lack of music doesn't bother me: the film is made with such subtlety and surefootedness that Haneke doesn't need the emotional prompting that so many films require from a soundtrack. Music can be great where it's needed and this film doesn't need it and would be spoiled by it. As for the patronising attitude to French films, what can one say. Don't like them, don't watch them. I admire the way this film-maker is prepared to entertain (yes!) and make his audience think. 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.Read full review
If your idea of a satisfying film is a formulaic plot with all the devices to keep those with a short attention span engaged then look elsewhere. If you truely enjoy something that will challenge you and the movie industry in one fell swoop, will mesmerize, occasionally shock (this does contain one of the most shocking moments my partner and I had ever witnessed if you're attentive and follow carefully) then you are in for a real treat. If you're still dazed and confused at the end, watch the interview with director Michael Haneke afterwards. Think outside the box - watch Hidden.
Hidden swoops in with a terrible, predatory grace. This isn't a thriller, it's a dissection - of middleclass guilt, urban dread, casual racism, the mush and menace of the modern world... Bourgeois Parisians Anne (Juliette Binoche) and Georges (Daniel Auteuil) struggle to make sense of anonymously-delivered tapes featuring video footage of their house exterior. Georges thinks he knows who might be sending them - but to follow his theory, he'll be forced to exhume something ugly buried in his past. Haneke pressure-cooks the horror to perfection: refusing to rely on familiar, comforting rhythms. He toys with our expectations; holding shots for just that second too long, dangling false-start sub-plots, stirring in mysteries that - as in life - sometimes don't resolve... But his most effective techniques are stillness and silence. If you want queasy-cam, film-stock spasms and epileptic edits, stick to Saw II. Here, in Haneke's nod to our closely-observed lives, the camera holds its gaze - as stark, steady and pitiless as CCTV. And while lesser directors soundtrack their on-screen nasties with squally guitars and jabbing strings, Haneke keeps it mute. With no music to suggest or signify, the mood consistently pulses on the edge of panic - from eerie opening to much-discussed close (the interview sees an unusually candid Haneke reveal his playful intentions for the final shot). Hidden's story is tight, its characters compulsive. But Haneke isn't interested in cinematic box-ticking. He has a point, and it's chilling and beautifully made: you're not safe.Read full review
I bought this film because I had listened to the rave reviews apparently Time Out had given this film 6 stars - never heard of before.! I was also intrigued because someone had said ' dont leave the cinema before the credits had finished as all is revealed at the end'. The family in the film are being watched every day, their life is unremarkable, so is this film
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