LIFF '09: HIDDEN (SKJULT) review

(Screened as part of the 23rd Leeds International Film Festival running from 4th-22nd November 2009.)

Cliches have their place. No matter what a great many people argue the familiar doesn't automatically lose all its power to affect just because it's familiar. Much as we might be tempted we can't and shouldn't ban directors from reaching for the monster under the bed, the long-haired girl in white, the shadow in the middle distance.

But these things still need a light touch to avoid turning a film into an airport novel. A heavy hand on the throttle has proved the bane of many genre filmmakers in recent years - think of the Pang Brothers as far as Asian cinema goes - and it's this baffling lack of restraint that badly limits what could otherwise have been a hugely compelling psychodrama in Hidden.

A shattering jolt barely a minute in is the first clue director Pål Øie (Dark Woods) never met a jump scare he didn't like. Hidden begins with a flashback establishing the tragedy that haunts the lead, with Kai Koss (Kristoffer Joner) witness to a horrific accident that drastically changes his life. Thirty years later a death has brought him back to the scene to try and overcome the damage to his psyche, but events that transpire mean this proves more difficult than he was expecting.

Any summary of Hidden really ought to be kept this vague because along with the visual language common to half the horror movies of the past decade it quickly becomes apparent the film's narrative is at heart far less intelligent than it seems to believe. The lack of any deeper elaboration as to why characters act as they do in the face of things turning darker, stranger and bloodier by the minute means key plot points badly want for impact.

When the supporting cast descend into darkened rooms to be slaughtered or refuse to even entertain ideas that feel painfully obvious to the audience all the acting prowess and artistic flourishes in the world can't stop such tissue-thin narrative logic from feeling like it would sit better in any one of a number of recent mediocre popcorn horror features.

And Øie frequently suggests he has no idea how his decisions come across, hitting the audience with two or even three of these scares in a row when even the most inattentive viewer will have taken the hint the first time. It rarely if ever feels like a legitimate means of ramping up the tension - at best it feels lazy and at worst, patronising.

Frustratingly, much of Hidden is excellent even so. The cinematography is frequently gorgeous, if clinical, with some stunning exterior framing and a lush, darkly saturated colour palette. Production design is exquisite, audio and visuals both. Even here, though, cliché abounds, with symbolism rammed home at every opportunity (yes, dolls are terrifying, consider the point made) and little effort expended on grounding any of it in any sort of believable human response.

At the same time the obvious technical excellence and the efforts of the cast mean for the most part the film works in spite of itself, with the cold, mannered approach, the off-kilter character development and the assembly line shocks clamping down on the viewer regardless of their limitations.

Flawed or otherwise Hidden is always more than adequate in its own strange way. Something of those heights the production could have scaled is hinted at here and there, too, with Joner's bitter, damaged performance in the lead proving genuinely affecting (if not as sympathetic as it ought to be). The climax, though plagued by a lack of properly developed psychology is still subtly, almost gently played out and startlingly affecting.

As a film Hidden proves far more fractured and disturbed than any of the lost souls in the cast, but this works to its advantage, after a fashion. It is a definite disappointment in that some bewilderingly obvious shortcomings stop it from ever coming alive the way it seems the director intended, but it remains an undeniably accomplished production and comes recommended nonetheless. The scares - such as they are - may be telegraphed way too far in advance but the final impact once the credits roll will more than likely last for some time.