Who Is Michael Haneke's Film Hidden?

Michael Haneke is a unique filmmaker, his films are often easy to recognise as they are quite specific to him as a director, and usually his films focus on different issues in society and enlighten those who have next to no knowledge on specific events or issues. His films always contain hidden messages and deep meaning, usually more than meets the eye, these act as “statements against the American ‘barrel down’ cinema” . Haneke places these meanings within his films to force the audience to find answers that are hidden. Throughout this essay, I will be focusing on the film Hidden (or Cache) . Haneke’s films are most known for encouraging the audience to figure out a lot of the meanings themselves, in his film Hidden who sent the tapes is never completely justified, he has left us to read deeper into the film, Haneke once said …show more content…
The last shot is a long static shot showing Georges’ sons school, it is the end of the school day and parents are collecting their children. The camera is placed just as the surveillance camera was throughout the film, as if the anonymous person is now filming or watching Georges son, Pierrot. At this point we now begin to believe that it was Majid’s son who was filming/watching and sending the tapes, until Pierrot is met by Majids son on camera. This is where Haneke wanted the audience to realise that it does not matter who the anonymous person was, and that is why he remained anonymous and was never revealed, the point is Georges’ past is haunting his present, and he tries to repress it. The point was not to know who was “stalking” him, as Haneke said “if you come out wanting to know who sent the tapes, you didn’t understand the