(m50) cache

excellent french film by the maker of white ribbon. a sophisticated frenchman age 42 married to juliet binoche with a 13 year old son, a star of pbs intellectual show receives "hate mail". it is not hate mail exactly- it is a videotape of the front of his house, to show that he is being watched accompanied by a drawing of a child coughing up blood. the police do not respond. the tapes continue to arrive, ultimately including a tape showing a building and a door to an apartment in a building. the frenchman goes to the building and finds the man he expects to find. when frenchy was young and living on a farm, his parents had two loyal algerian workers who apparently died in a police riot and they were ready to adopt their son. but frenchy didn't like it and he lied about the little algerian saying that he was coughing up blood. he also told the kid to kill a rooster and told his parents that algerian was destructive and wanted to kill frenchy. so the thoughts of adoption went out the window and in its stead they sent algeria to an orphanage. and this is the man who was taping his house and sending him the drawings. frenchy lies to his wife and says that algeria wasn't home when he went there but algeria sends a tape of the confrontation (including frenchy threatening, don't continue or else) to frenchy's wife. frenchy's 13 year old son doesn't come home one night and algeria and algeria's son are arrested, but in fact frenchy's son was at a friend's house. algeria sends a tape to frenchy's workplace and is threatening frenchy's livelihood and then algeria calls up and says "come on over" and frenchy comes over and algeria implies that it is the son who sent the tapes and then with frenchy watching he says, "i wanted you to see this" and he slits his own throat." frenchy wanders around dazed, eventually returns home and his wife says tell the police. (unseen: he tells the police and they believe him.) algeria's son shows up at frenchy's work and confronts him and says you ruined my father's life. frenchy says, you made the tapes; algeria could never have done it. algeria's son denies it, believe what you want. the confrontation ends and algeria's son is satisfied with the confrontation and the movie ends with a flashback of algeria being sent away to the orphanage and then a shot of a school dismissal. (school is out- the lesson is over. but the past is prologue.) A minus.