Caché (Hidden)
As close to a whodunit thriller as Haneke is ever likely to come, Hidden again concerns the torture of a comfortable family, albeit in a much less overt way. When surveillance footage of their home starts arriving at the door, paranoia begins to cut deep due to the simple knowledge that someone is watching. Subsequent tapes provide clues about the sender, who may or may not be involved in a dark secret from the father’s past and this deliberate ambiguity leaves us uncertain as to whom to point the blame. A dream sequence from his childhood creates a sense of nightmarish uncertainty, as he both implicates a former friend in the crime, and is overcome by guilt for a betrayal which is hinted at later. One of only two fleeting moments of intense violence in a film with overbearing violent undertones, the most striking element of the chicken decapitation is its suddenness; Haneke throws us in the deep end and refuses to give any foreshadowing or reasoning behind it. Mirroring a later moment of sudden and inexplicable violence, the two scenes merge and leave us with the disconcerting feeling that we ourselves are part of the violent act.
