Caché

Caché undoubtedly marks director Michael Haneke’s most accessible and flat-out entertaining movie to date. The filmmaker has finally found a story that’s interesting enough to support his always-fascinating sense of style, and though the movie is a tad on the long side, there’s no denying that Caché is an intense, suspenseful, and surprisingly gripping little thriller. Daniel Auteuil stars as Georges, a TV talk-show host who receives a mysterious videotape containing two hours of static footage of his house. More tapes follow, and Georges becomes convinced that a pivotal figure from his past is responsible. Caché moves at an expectedly slow pace, though it’s never boring (something that generally can’t be said of the director’s films). Haneke’s visual choices – particularly his use of long, uninterrupted takes – effectively imbue Caché with a distinct feeling of dread; the film, as a result, comes off as surprisingly suspenseful and gripping, while there’s at least one genuinely shocking moment of violence that sent the festival audience into extremely vocal fits of disbelief.

***1/2 out of ****