Well, the film was called Caché and starred Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche.

If you don't want to know any spoilers, because you think you might watch this one day (although I'd advise against it), don't read on...

It started off really intriguingly... The couple started receiving VHS cassettes of surveillance footage - focused on their front door! Somebody was apparently filming their home from down the street and then posting these monotonous yet eerie tapes. That's a really good premise for a thriller, isn't it?

Daniel Auteuil's character was a chin-stroking book reviewer on TV and Juliette Binoche may or may not have been having an affair with her boss (whom had disconcertingly baggy eyes)... So, because of Daniel Auteuil's minor celebrity, they assumed it was a deranged fan.

The tapes continued, along with strange phone calls. Suddenly, the content of the tapes changed. The cameraman was driving through a suburb; went into a block of flats and up to a specific door... The couple repeatedly watched this latest tape; pausing and rewinding until they found the location of the flat on a map.

Without telling Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil went to the flat. The occupant of the flat was a middle-aged man of middle-Eastern ethinicity. It turns out that the middle-Eastern man, Majid, and his parents lived as servants to Daniel Auteuil's family, in a posh chateau when they were both kids. Majid denied making and sending the tapes. Oh - I forgot - there were doodles of faces with bleeding mouths and bleeding chickens being sent to the house too.

Daniel Auteuil kept the meeting a secret from his wife, who seemed gradually more preoccupied with crying on her baggy-eyed boss's shoulder.

A new tape arrives at Daniel and Juliette's house and it's been filmed from inside the middle-Eastern guy's flat! It's actually a tape of Daniel's meeting with Majid!!! Juliette Binoche is pissed-off that Daniel kept this meeting a secret.

Understandably, I was really getting into the film by now, because it was so bloody mysterious...

Daniel opens up to Juliette, telling her that the middle-Eastern guy, Majid, was the son of his parents' servants. After Majid's parents died in a race-riot in 1960s Paris, Daniel's parents decided to adopt him. Daniel resented the attention Majid received and started telling tales on him. There was then this horrible flashback scene where the ten year old Majid chopped off a chicken's head with an axe. I was like "Ugh". I think the filmmakers used a real chicken. It was gross. But against my repulsion, I decided to continue with the movie...

Daniel and Juliette's son goes missing. They call the police. Daniel returns to Majid's flat, asking where his son is. Majid denies any knowledge of Daniel's son's disappearance and again disputes any knowledge of the VHS tapes. This scene also features Majid's son (whom is sort of hot).

Daniel's boss calls him to his office to discuss a personal matter. Daniel's boss has received a copy of the tape of Daniel and Majid's meeting!

Daniel goes to the police again and Majid - plus his son - are arrested and detained for questioning.

Daniel and Juliette's son reappears! He'd only been staying over at a schoolfriend's house. The surly youth infers to his mother that he hates living at home because he suspects his mother of slutting around with her boss.

I forgot something else: Daniel and Juliette's son, Pierrot, swims a lot. He appears to be in some swim team at school. There are long pointless scenes of him swimming which appear at random inbetween the other drama. The Swim Coach keeps shouting things like "Go deeper! Go deeper!"...

Daniel confides to Juliette that it was he whom told Majid to chop off the chicken's head, so he could tell his parents that Majid was unstable, hoping they'd get rid of him.

Daniel receives a phone call from Majid, asking him to return to his flat. As soon as Daniel walks into the flat, asking why he's been invited, Majid takes a cut-throat razor out of his pocket and cuts his own throat. This scene was super-gross. I jumped. I actually felt queasy.

A few days later, Majid's hot son turns up at the TV station, hassling Daniel. He tells Daniel that he wants to know how it feels to have a death on his conscience. Daniel says that he doesn't feel like he has Majid's death on his conscience; it was suicide and the police investigation verified this.

Daniel returns home from work early in the daytime, looking a bit ill. He takes two sleeping pills and phones Juliete Binoche, telling her that he thinks he has flu and is going to bed.

Then there's a flashback to the childhood chateau. We see a car taking the young Majid away to the orphanage, screaming.

The next scene is a longshot of what seems to be a school's entrance. Kids are milling about and it's hard to make out any actual faces, but I assumed it was Pierrot's school.

And then? And then the fucking credits started to roll!!!

I was like... WTF??? I was convinced that I'd fallen asleep on the sofa and missed the ending.

So, I cranked-up the computer, went online and straight onto IMDb to try and ascertain what I'd missed.

I hadn't missed any of the film! I'd seen it from beginning to end!!!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/

Reading the boards at IMDb, it became apparent that in a post-modern twist, it was the director of the actual movie who had been sending the characters in his film the VHS tapes, to inject some drama into their lives!!! Apparently, the director had revealed this on the DVD commentary - which is fucking useless if you're watching a film on the telly!!!

Fuck post-modernism!!! I felt cheated. I wasted two hours of my life on what I thought was a straight-forward thriller.

I just wanted to share my anguish.

note to self - do not get this movie...

KatSkrizzle said:

If I could save just one person from watching this, my anger hasn't been in vain.

European Cinema is just so... ponderous.

go hire Lost Highway instead, and don't bother trying to understand it

GirlBrother said:

GirlBrother said:

I still don't get that though?! Even if I saw that on the DVD
[Edited 12/21/08 19:30pm]

ZombieKitten said:

wow, you say "hire" instead of "rent"... cool.

ufoclub said:

we say take-away instead of take-out

Crikey, i thought this was a great thriller. The suspense is brilliantly built up throughout the film, and raises issues such as guilt and responsibility that have you thinking long after the film's end.

I admit i hadn't even known about the 'post modern twist' thing until i read your post.

While i understand the ending may not be to everyone's taste: most people want straight black and white answers i suppose. Personally I thought it was great.

And certainly the people tha tlike Lynch and Hitchcock would love it.

ZombieKitten said:

Yeah, I was gonna say, it sounds a lot like Lost Highway. THat movie freaked me out, with that creepy guy the main character meets at the party. God that guy's face was burned into my brain for months.

Sly said:

So, you didn't think it ended "oddly"?

I just felt cheated after investing two hours of my life on the apparent mystery.

If I'd known from the offset that there was going to be no resolution, I would have viewed it a different way.

GirlBrother said:

I totally understand your point of view, but maybe it's different if you look at 'the mystery' as being less about who's sending the videos, and more about WHY the videos are being sent.

The video is really just a plot device for the main character to face up to his buried memories and guilt.

I saw Caché in the theater. All I can recall about it was that I thought it was well-acted and overall very intriguing, but the ambiguous ending left me .

The idea that the director was sending the videotapes is wacky. I never would have thought of that.

that ending was THE BEST

infact its one of the only endins thats ever stayed with me.....

powerful shit

sextonseven said:

that is like that book Sophie's World where by the end (SPOILER ALERT) the characters realise they are only characters in a book

ufoclub said:

and when she says "nature strip" it has nothing to do with pubic hair

ThirdandFinal said:

or taking one's clothes off in a titillating way in the wild

ZombieKitten said:

Sleazey stripper with fake tits called to do a show at a campsite

ufoclub said:

Maybe she believes that that movie can actually be an employee

NDRU said:

in that case bikes and boats also work for us and we pay them a wage

I saw this film a few years back with my then-g/f. We both are fans of European cinema and both hated this film as a complete waste of time.

ZombieKitten said:

That sounds weird! I want to read it

ZombieKitten said:

A book? Well that's just ridiculous. Characters in a book don't even have forms or voices like in a film, but are just words on a page. How can they be sentient?

sextonseven said:

that is the very dilemma they face!

ZombieKitten said:

are we only characters in a book? Maybe the book is reading us?

NDRU said:

and what will the author have us do next?

Will Ferrell also faced that dilemma as a book character who finds out he is in a bestseller to be

ZombieKitten said:

yeah I liked the ending to that movie, how she made it just decent instead of great out of compassion for his character

NDRU said:

yes cause even though he wasn't a REAL LIVE human being, he was still a human being dammnit!!