Caché

… means “hidden” in French. This just missed by a hair qualifying for the coveted Gerry Award, which we give out, when we are so moved, to the slowest, most obtuse and deliberately confusing movies of all time. This award never goes to Grade-Z movies, flicks that aspire to nothing. These special movies are made by internationally acclaimed directors, and more often than not, are lauded by the critics. The Gerry Award is our way of shouting out “The Emperor has no clothes!” Roger Ebert and many others gave it their highest rating. BALONEY!!!

It starts well, sort of living up to the “Hitchcockian” description on the box, though even here it is very, very slow. It is an intriguing situation: somebody is videotaping the comings and goings of a couple and sending them the tapes, along with disturbing drawings involving bleeding cut throats. The spying, and the husband’s reaction to it, begins to affect their lives, badly. There is one genuinely startling scene. The suspense builds … but around 2/3 of the way through I knew the enigma was not going to be solved. No one ever looked for the cameras, which must have been easy to find. Something existential is going on here, divorced from what we think of as reality. Then the credits start to roll.

Reading Mr. E’s review, I was led to put the disk back in and go to the last scene, where some sort of revelation was supposed to be happening. (By then I was so bored I wasn’t even watching, and the “revelation” happens down in the left-hand corner of a long, static shot like 40 others long, static shots in the picture.) The revelation was a bust. There was no meaning to this film, no solution, and that can be cool … but you need a lot more going for you than this movie has to make it work. Zero Stars, Roger!!! And a solid First Runner-up for the Gerrys, which as you all know, means that if for any reason, like the seizure and burning of the negative by an angry mob, the Gerry winner cannot complete its duties as Most Awful, Caché will be asked to fill in. [I liked it.]