Fridae

This may be the season of Oscar-nominated films, with plenty of
good Hollywood films competing for your attention. But when it comes
to pure artistic filmmaking, few Hollywood movies have come close
to being as bold and uncompromising as a French film can be.

For film connoisseurs, your best pick out of all the good films
showing now is the French thriller Hidden (Cache). It is
by Michael Haneke, who wrote and directed such extraordinary masterpieces
as Funny Games and The Piano Teacher. His new
thriller has already won more than 10 international awards, including
three at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Hidden (Cache) stars two of France's best actors, Daniel
Auteuil and Juliette Binoche. They play a rich and happily-married
couple living in Paris. He is a celebrity host, she is a successful
publisher. They seem nice and normal, so why are they being bombarded
by strange phone calls and weird drawings of bloodied figures? Why
do they feel like they are being watched? Quietly, elegantly, the
film reveals a deep dark secret that one of them has been hiding.

Hidden (Cache) may be one of the most urgent films of
2005/2006, because it is partly a parable of Western Europe's guilt
over its dark colonial past, and how that past is shaping the politics
of today. For anyone who appreciates seriously good films, Hidden
(Cache) is unmissable.