HIDDEN (2005)
www.thebigidea.co.nz
At the risk of sending some readers away, the first piece of advice for watching Tim McLachlan’s Hidden is to go in with as little knowledge as possible. The second piece would be to be sure to persevere with it, even as it begins to stretch its high-concept premise and hit a few sluggish periods. For this is a movie that will reward patience, and pays high dividends on the nagging sense of menace that saturates the film.
The set up of Hidden is about as simple as they get. On the final day of preparation before throngs of kids arrive for the summer, a group of a dozen or so twenty-something camp leaders are engaged in a high-stakes game of parkour-infused hide-and-seek in a forest, and that’s essentially it. It’s established throughout that this is a tight-knit group, seemingly having spent several summers working at the camp, and a little backstory is doled out in chunks establishing some prior events and relationships.
It’s minor to the point of seeming like mere experimentation, and does get a little bogged down with stilted dialogue scenes when the initial flurry of action wears thin. It’s clearly a conscious decision to spend less time on characters than on the visceral intensity of the game however, and director McLachlan has a ball swinging the camera around. Coming from a background of stunt work, his dynamic use of zoom, steadicam and handheld shots, and frantic, kinetic editing all play to his understanding of physicality. His cast (most of them likely stunt work pals) throw themselves through the forest, scramble up trees and dive off cliffs all to build the stakes of the game.
The set up of Hidden is about as simple as they get. On the final day of preparation before throngs of kids arrive for the summer, a group of a dozen or so twenty-something camp leaders are engaged in a high-stakes game of parkour-infused hide-and-seek in a forest, and that’s essentially it. It’s established throughout that this is a tight-knit group, seemingly having spent several summers working at the camp, and a little backstory is doled out in chunks establishing some prior events and relationships.
It’s minor to the point of seeming like mere experimentation, and does get a little bogged down with stilted dialogue scenes when the initial flurry of action wears thin. It’s clearly a conscious decision to spend less time on characters than on the visceral intensity of the game however, and director McLachlan has a ball swinging the camera around. Coming from a background of stunt work, his dynamic use of zoom, steadicam and handheld shots, and frantic, kinetic editing all play to his understanding of physicality. His cast (most of them likely stunt work pals) throw themselves through the forest, scramble up trees and dive off cliffs all to build the stakes of the game.
www.scaryminds.com
There’s another side to Hidden however, an uneasy mystical side that seeps in early and just won’t let go. Again, it feels like experimentation, an exercise in building atmosphere with no apparent endgame. Don’t be fooled though, there is a purpose to the tension, a tightly-controlled objective that only becomes clear in the closing moments that takes the film to a previously unsuspected level. For Hidden is a film with great relevance for New Zealand specifically, and if it doesn’t quite reach the lofty catharsis it reaches for, the twist is still excellently delivered.
The feeling of being totally surprised by a film is sadly missing from so many viewing experiences these days. While Hidden deserves much more attention than it ever got when it was released, relative obscurity in this case is actually a benefit as it’s unlikely many people will know know its secrets beforehand. Allow yourself to discover something, and check out Hidden at the first opportunity.
The feeling of being totally surprised by a film is sadly missing from so many viewing experiences these days. While Hidden deserves much more attention than it ever got when it was released, relative obscurity in this case is actually a benefit as it’s unlikely many people will know know its secrets beforehand. Allow yourself to discover something, and check out Hidden at the first opportunity.
Hidden is available to download at IndieReign.
