Hidden

15

Michael Haneke's award-winning mystery about a couple under surveillance is a suspenseful study of guilt, memory and colonialism.

When a wealthy Parisian couple, Anne and Georges, find a video tape on their porch showing the apparent surveillance of their home and family, they are swept up in an increasingly threatening plot which forces Georges to confront the events of his childhood - specifically his parents' adoption of an Algerian orphan.

Part thriller, part political allegory, Haneke's masterpiece examines France's colonial history and the Algerian War in his typically disquieting style, drawing out almost unbearable suspense to address audiences' complicity with on-screen violence. Hidden is a unique and powerful work which has drawn comparisons to Lynch and Hitchcock and won Haneke a Best Director award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.