The question of what is captured in an image is a difficult one and can be problematized in many ways. In photography, film or video, this problem involves a particular mediation called "prise de vue", in French, or "view-taking", in English. This moment seems to be a moment of risk-taking, of betting on a relationship between the one who films or photographs and the one in front of the camera. This relationship is essential to the image, to what it implies, and to its visible result.

In the film "Caché", an image is created whose position is concealed and whose status and purpose are therefore ambiguous. The film raises the question of what happens when we encounter such ambiguous images and what hidden content they may reveal. Neither the viewer nor the characters in the film can access the true meaning of the images at any point in the narrative. In the first sequence, for example, the characters in the film look at the images, adding to their ambiguity, and in the next shot, when we are still confused about what we have just seen, Georges' (Daniel Auteuil) first action is to unsuccessfully try to identify the physical traces of the hidden vantage point that produced the footage. He does this in the hope of understanding and thus controlling their possible meanings and purposes. A sudden change of light from one shot to the next confuses and intrigues us even more. The most repeated phrases among the characters as they struggle with the ambiguous status of these images are "Who?" and "What does this mean?" The hidden origin of the images and the way they were created thus create a crisis in that they provide no rules or clues as to how we should position ourselves in relation to them. They create anxiety and tension because we, the audience, the characters, cannot take a clear position in the face of the unknowable.

However, this hidden content, to which access is constantly denied throughout the film, ultimately reveals other hidden content that emerges from the characters' attempts to relate to this unknown element, and ultimately to any unknown element. In other words, the characters are trying to understand and control something that completely eludes them. This resonates on a political level, especially for a story set in Paris in the current circumstances, which raises the issue of our relationship with others, with strangers, with the unknown, in situations that are not explicitly racist, but in which this fear of difference ultimately becomes explicit.