Cache - 7

Suggested reading before watching this film. This may seem odd, but it will in fact help make sense of the film (The director, Michael Haneke says as much in the extra features). Other notes: This film is in French, the title means Hidden; Paste Magazine called this the top film of 2005 (Issue #20).
A family living in Paris starts receiving videotapes on their doorstep. It seems rather random and scary at first, and soon makes more sense as the father reflects back on his childhood. The mystery is never solved, but take a more Dostoevsky-ish turn with reflection on truthtelling and guilt. The director summarizes the film as: "when confronted with guilt, we either choose to accept it and see what happens, or we reject it and we see what happens." (my paraphrase) In typical French fashion(I don't mean this as a stereotype- it is an actual cinematic technique) the filmmakers test your patience by taking along time to let the scene tell the story. In this case it means long (both time and distance) shots of the same scene as people enter and leave. The dialogue is well written, and the sequencing of things keeps you off guard. A very realistic look into the way the past can and does affect our present, often times we suffer from mild amnesia. Remember?