Spoilers for Hidden (2005). Trigger warnings for discussions of racism and police brutality
Michael Haneke is no stranger to implicating his audience through cinematic tricks. In arguably his most famous film, Funny Games (1997, and remade by the director in 2007), the killers can manipulate events to their favour by rewinding time. Haneke used the technique there to highlight the audience’s revelling in violence.
In his 2005 film Hidden, he widens the scope of these implications, forcing the audience to examine their responsibility for real-life atrocities. Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) are a successful middle-class couple whose lives are thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a series of videotapes that show them being recorded.
Georges appears to be the target, with a series of childlike drawings accompanying the tapes which hint at events in his youth. In particular, the drawings suggest that the stalker may be Majid (Maurice Bénichou), whom Georges knew as a child. It likely isn’t Majid – Haneke never reveals who the person watching the family is – but the implication drives the rest of the film, highlighting its themes.
Majid’s parents were Algerians who were killed in the 1961 Paris massacre as the French police forces beat demonstrators and threw them into the Seine. It was a major event during the Algerian War, resulting in the deaths of up to 300 pro-National Liberation Front protestors. Now an orphan, Majid is set to be adopted by Georges’ parents, however, Georges makes up stories about Majid and stops the process.
Haneke’s work as a filmmaker always stops short of levelling blame at a particular character or the audience, but several scenes are damning of the way that many have forgotten the racially motivated, government-sanctioned attacks on Algerian citizens.
A key moment is when Georges, suspecting that Majid may be involved, visits his mother (Annie Girardot) to find out what she remembers. To his surprise, she barely remembers Majid, like how Georges had given him little thought until the videotapes arrived. Haneke uses this interaction as a microcosm of modern French society, and Western society more generally, to show how quickly tragic events can be wiped from the day-to-day consciousness of the masses.
Our inability to learn from past events is shown in other scenes with Georges. While shown to be relatively quiet, almost impotent when it comes to helping his family as the stalking becomes more severe, Georges’ only outbursts come at the expense of minorities. First when he steps out into the road and is nearly hit by a black cyclist, and then when he confronts Majid.
So how does Haneke implicate the audience in this? Like in Funny Games, he uses the camera to break the fourth wall. The first videotape to arrive is a static shot of Georges and Anne’s house, recorded from a side street that faces the entrance.
At first Haneke toys with the audience, only revealing that the shot is a pre-recorded tape when it suddenly rewinds, and the camera moves out to reveal a television being watched by Georges and Anne. But then Georges wonders how he was unable to see the camera as he walked to his car. It’s a question that is brought up many times throughout Hidden – how does no one see the camera?
Georges walks right past the camera in the side street, almost looking directly at it. Later, when it’s revealed that his conversation with Majid has been recorded by the same stalker, we are forced to question who is making these tapes. Haneke isn’t interested in the who though, instead the question should be why he is placing the audience in that role.
By having this impossible camera that only the audience is aware of, he involves them in the story. Involves them beyond simple immersion and makes them culpable. In the place of the antagonist, we are made to question Georges’ actions both as a child and as an adult and weigh the gravity of past sins.
Writer/director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou