Summary:
Hidden is an art-house thriller which focuses on Georges Laurent, an arts journalist living in Paris, whose family comes under an unexplained threat with the arrival of several videotapes. These are anonymous surveillance tapes of the exterior of the family’s apartment, an unfamiliar Paris street and the farmhouse where Georges grew up. The investigation into the meaning of the tapes evokes memories of an event from Georges’ childhood in 1961. Georges’ family had provided refuge for a boy, Majid, whose parents were killed in the massacre of Algerian pro-independence protesters by the French police. Jealous of his claim on the family’s affections and it is implied disturbed by the otherness of the Algerian boy, Georges persuades his parents to send the boy away, betraying him and ruining his future. The anonymous tapes implicitly accuse Georges, forcing him to acknowledge the repercussions of his actions. The visual style of the videos is similar to surveillance or CCTV footage with fixed cameras, long takes and no editing. The lack of explicit resolution to the question of who is behind the camera, and who is sending the videos, confounds the expectations of classic narrative and the thriller genre conforming instead to the conventions of art cinema.
Analysis:
Michael Haneke is one of the most admired and controversial of contemporary directors. His work can be defined as modernist – rather than postmodernist – in his political analysis of contemporary society. His influences include the European modernist auteurs Robert Bresson and Jean Luc Godard. This is apparent in Bresson’s emphasis on the materiality of the image and Godard’s concept of the film as an essay which places demands on the viewer, rather than providing the pleasures of identification. Haneke’s themes and style of film-making come from a desire to rupture the identification fostered by mainstream film – particularly Hollywood cinema; ‘My films are intended as polemical statements against the American “barrel down” cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus’ (Haneke 1992). This aim to empower the spectator lays the foundation for the dominant themes of his work, which are related to the nature of the viewing experience as well as wider social and political ideas. These include an investigation into the relationship between screen violence and spectator response, the status of images as representations of truth, and an analysis of the role class, gender and race play in constructing identity. In exploring these themes Haneke uses a distinctive film style with an emphasis on long takes and static camera, creating a slower paced cinema with the intention of allowing the audience room to evaluate ideas, rather than being rushed into a range of emotions and responses.
Hidden personifies Haneke’s concerns as a filmmaker, bringing together his repeated themes and style within a genre framework. The use – and subversion – of genre conventions is typical of Haneke’s work; Funny Games (1997) reworks the ‘family under siege’ thriller, The Time of the Wolf (2003) uses the plot of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film. Wood (2006) has seen in the use of the thriller genre a link to Hitchcock, pointing out the similarities of the murder in Benny’s Video (1992) to the murder of Marion Crane in Psycho (1960), while the mother/daughter relationship in The Piano Teacher (2001) evokes the similar relationship in Marnie (1964). ‘Cache [Hidden] is clearly linked to Rear Window, with “watching” replaced by “being watched”, the story now told from the view point of the spiedon’ (Wood 2006). (The use of solely diegetic sound in Hidden is also reminiscent of Rear Window, which is notable for its experimentation with soundtrack.) It is at the level of plot and motif that the comparison with Hitchcock can be made, in all other aspects, Wood argues, Haneke is the ‘anti-Hitchcock’. While Hitchcock’s oeuvre can be fundamentally defined by the use of intense identification with character, Haneke’s films deliberately disallow identification, making the audience look at the characters rather than share their perspective.
The question of who is filming the Laurent’s apartment and sending the tapes is part of the seemingly conventional set up of the thriller plot, teasing the audience with the promise that the enigma will be solved. The first tape is followed by a series of further clues; a child’s drawing of a face covered in blood, an anonymous phone caller asking for Georges, two cards with the same sinister drawing, new tapes with new locations. The new locations allow Georges and Anne to act as detectives; deciphering the street name (Avenue Lenin); and following the trail to the flat of Majid. Majid’s denial that he – or his son – is responsible for sending the tapes, despite Georges’ conviction that they have, is another convention of the thriller. The figure of the hero who nobody will believe is familiar to the audience from many entries in the genre including Rear Window and North by Northwest, the denial of truth by the villains is part of the obstacle the hero has to overcome. The difference here is that the audience does not know who to believe; there is no identification with Georges and this is coupled with the increasing realisation that nothing in the film can be accepted as real. There never is any definitive resolution to the question of who sent the tapes which terrorise Georges and his family. In this Hidden calls to mind another Hitchcock film, The Birds, in which the reason for the bird attacks is left unexplained, although various rationales are put forward by a range of characters. In Hidden there seems to be a range of possible explanations for who has sent the tapes which work within one or more of the areas of plot, symbolism and aesthetics.
In plot terms the most likely explanation is that either Majid or his son – or the two working together – made and sent the tapes as a form of revenge for the actions taken by Georges as a boy. This is certainly the rationalisation which Georges gives and it does seem a valid one given the content of the tapes: Majid and Georges’ childhood home, their current apartments, the row between the two men which was filmed in Majid’s kitchen. The argument against this would be that the revenge seems implausible after such a long time, would Majid even know that his banishment was Georges’ fault? And Majid and his son seem gentle, good people, not criminals. The illogicality in this explanation is negated though if Majid’s revenge on Georges is read symbolically, with Majid representing the colonised and Georges the coloniser. In this reading the tapes represent the colonial and post-colonial relationship between France and Algeria (and post-colonial relationships more generally). Georges’ comfortable, liberal, intellectual life masks the history of France as an oppressive regime which was guilty of torture and murder. The mise en scène of Georges’ flat and workplace represent his life as walled in, protected but also isolated by shelves of books which he may not even read – the real books at home become indistinguishable from the set dressings of the studio. Georges’ attempt to remain ‘hidden’ is what makes the surveillance videos so menacing as they show his life in plain view. In this symbolic reading Majid’s revenge is to force Georges to remember and therefore acknowledge that the crimes of the past have only been hidden – their effects remain. In Hidden the atmosphere of dread and anxiety the characters experience comes from being forced to look and to recognise culpability. A similar feeling is constructed for the spectator by the refusal to solve the enigma of the crime drama, the central character is terrorised and guilty but there is no closure to the events of the past. In an allegorical reading of the film closure would be impossible due to the continuing iniquitous relationships of the ‘post-colonial’ era.1
An alternative interpretation of the tapes is that they are part of Haneke’s exploration of the relationship between spectator and cinema, his attempt to disrupt the comfortable pleasures offered by mainstream film. From the first shot of the film the viewer is unclear as to the status of what they are seeing, which, added to the undermining of the conventional thriller plot, creates doubt and unease. This is apparent in the deliberate confusion as to what the viewer is watching; rather than making the surveillance tapes stylistically distinct they are shot on the same HD video as the rest of the film. The opening shot is a long take of a quiet suburban street, the camera is static, and there is only diegetic sound. The occasional pedestrian walks past, Anne leaves the apartment, a cyclist ride by, nothing happens. After nearly three minutes voices are heard talking over the shot, the exchange ‘Well?’, ‘nothing’ adding to the viewer’s confusion. A cut changes the perspective of the scene and Georges and Anne reappear in the street and discuss where the person making the film might have stood. This revelation to the audience that they had been watching a tape with Anne and Georges rather than a conventional establishing shot of a film, is further complicated when the scene cuts back to the earlier street scene which is now being fast-forwarded. This reference to the materiality of the film itself is typical of a modernist artist reminding the viewer that the art form they’re looking at is a construction with ideologies and points of view – not simply a reflection of reality. The confusion for the audience over the status of what is being seen occurs several times throughout the film. The first shot of the exterior of the son’s school appears initially to be part of a surveillance tape but isn’t (this throws the meaning of the final shots of the film which are also of the school further into doubt), a point of view shot from within a car driving along country roads seems to be ‘real’ but is abruptly fast forwarded revealing it to be a tape. A discussion which is part of Georges’ arts programme is suddenly frozen; rather than viewing the live discussion the viewer is watching the editing process during post-production and here a contributor is going to be cut for becoming too theoretical.
The questioning of the status of what is being shown soon raises pertinent questions about the nature of film-making itself. To attempt to distinguish whether each scene is part of a surveillance tape or the film itself (Hidden) demonstrates the power images have over the audience; the easy belief that what is being shown is real, when of course both the surveillance tapes and the people who are watching them in the film are equally constructed.
Hidden constantly foregrounds the way in which society constructs images as a way of imposing ideas and values; Georges is a broadcaster transmitting a partial cultural view, censoring the guest who is – ironically – discussing the way in which Rimbaud’s sister censored the poet’s work after his death, Anne is a publisher, the unknown producer of the surveillance tapes is also a filmmaker, turning the scrutiny on the people who are usually in control of the image construction. These ideas lead to another hypothesis as to the maker and sender of the tapes; they are produced and sent by Haneke himself, reminding the viewer from the very first shot that cinema should be a site of discussion and argument and not a comforting representation of reality.
Sarah Casey Benyahia
Note
1. In this context Hidden can be seen as part of a group of films which, for the first time, began to represent Algerian-French history and the war of independence: Days of Glory (Buchareb, 2006), The Colonel (Herbiet, 2006), Intimate Enemies (Emilio-Siri, 2007), Outside the Law (Bouchareb, 2010).
Cast and Crew:
[Country: France, Austria, Germany, Italy, USA. Production Company: Les Films du Losange, Wega Film, Bavaria Film, BIM Distribuzione. Director and Screenwriter: Michael Haneke. Producer: Veit Heiduschka. Cinematographer: Christian Berger. Music: Jean Paul Bugel. Editors: Michael Hudecek, Nadine Muse. Cast: Daniel Auteuil (Georges Laurent), Juliette Binoche (Anne Laurent), Maurice Bénichou (Majid).]
Further Reading:
Michael Haneke, ‘Film als Katharsis’ in Francesco Bono (ed.), Austria (in)felix: zum österreichischem Film der 80er Jahre, Graz, Blimp, 1992, p. 89.
Cited in Mattias Frey, ‘Michael Haneke’ in Great Directors, Issue 28, Senses of Cinema. Available at www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/greatdirectors/haneke-2/ (accessed 23 November 2012).
Oliver Speck, Funny Frames: The Filmic Concepts of Michael Haneke, London, Continuum, 2010.
Catherine Wheatley, Michael Haneke’s Cinema: The Ethic of the Image (Film Europa), New York, Berghahn Books, 2009.
Robin Wood, ‘Hidden in Plain Sight: Micheal Haneke’s Cache’, Arts Forum, Jan 2006.
Source Credits:
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films, Edited by Sarah Barrow, Sabine Haenni and John White, first published in 2015.