Hidden is an interesting film, even though I'm afraid it's not as clever as its creators clearly think it is. It attempts to deal with issues of social responsibility, accountability and colonial guilt but does it in an unsophisticated and pretentious way reminiscent of a high school essay.
The story centres on a wealthy bohemian couple, Gorges and Anne, who suddenly start to receive anonymous surveillance tapes of their home and childish drawings of kids and animals bleeding. As the film progresses, we learn that all of this is to do with Georges' childhood: as the story goes, his wealthy parents had a farm, and employed an Algerian couple as farmhands. The couple had a kid, Majid - similar age as Georges. After Algerian couple's sudden death, Georges' parents, who liked the family, wanted to adopt the kid, but 6-year-old Georges, being very against it, created a situation portraying the boy as a psycho. This resulted in his parents changing their mind and sending Majid to the orphanage - terrible scene follows, with poor kid being bundled up in to a car, screaming and crying. After that, it seems that everyone in the family wipes this unfortunate episode, and Majid, from their memory.
However, as we observe Georges and his parents, its quite clear that all of them carry a lot of guilt and shame about their treatment of Majid, even though they would not admit it even to themselves. This explains Georges' weird attitude - his reluctance to tell the story to his wife, his inability to talk about it to anyone, his lies, and even his attitude toward Majid's son. Georges comes across as an emotionally stunted, entitled and self-absorbed imbecile who can't/ doesn't know how to admit his feelings to anyone, even to himself. In a way, Georges as a character is entirely one dimensional - there is really no depth about him, he is simply entitled, unpleasant and dull.
His wife, Anne, is not much better - she is whiney, soft and lacking any kid of backbone. She seems incapable of any strong emotions - even when her kid disappears she seems unsure of what to say or do - and appears to drift though life in a semi-conscious way. The film hints at her having an affair with one of the married friends of the family, a scary looking old guy - but she appears quite indifferent even towards her lover. The affair seem to be a reason her son, Pierrot, displaying strong dislike towards her - we are hinted that he learned of it from Majid's son who he seems to be friendly with.
Georges and Anne seem very self-obsessed and blind to anything apart from their very narrow sphere of interests, and their circle of friends don't come across any better (as a side note, why all men seem to be so bad looking in these kinds of French "intellectual" films?). But the supposed victims, Majid and his son, also come across unpleasant - angry, manipulative, passive-aggressive and borderline criminal. And I do think that harbouring anger towards someone for 40 years, as well as blaming them for all your woes - and passing this anger to your children - is very odd and definitely unhealthy. After finishing watching the film, I really don't know what to think. Maybe there is a deeper reading, but for me it seemed a like a mundane and a bit boring story. I did watch it all the way to the end but a lot of it was a voyeuristic pleasure of observing someone else's life - nothing to do with what the film was about.
I liked the suspense at the start of the film but it didn't last, as it quickly became obvious what the situation was. Even before we knew who Majid was. The suicide scene was unpleasant, but mainly because idiot Georges did not make any attempt to save Majid. Acting is fine, and I liked the setting and the camerawork - I think this film is really well made and well acted, but let down by the shallowness and pretentiousness of the story.
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