The camera is locked down. We see the house. Its facade is almost entirely hidden from the street by shrubbery. Nothing happens. After perhaps three minutes, a bicyclist passes: That reveals it's footage, and not a photograph. Later, people emerge from the front door and head out for the day. And then we see the stripes a video tape displays when it's being rewound, and hear voices discussing it. The shot was watching, and now it is being watched.

It was on a tape left at the door of Anne and Georges Laurent (Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil). They have a 15-year-old son, Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). Georges hosts a public television talk show about books. She has a job in publishing. The walls in their home are lined with books, and the rooms filled with computers, editing equipment, all the tools of virtual labor.

The mysterious video is maddening. Others arrive, some are accompanied by childish drawings: A black and white cartoon head, with a slash of red blood at its mouth or neck. Who sends them? What message do they contain? Georges and Anne have lived comfortably behind their shrubbery for years, in what seems a stable marriage. Friends often come for dinner and good conversation. Their lives proceed on share assumptions. Now this.

It introduces a wedge between them -- the small point a first, then forcing a wider separation. Georges says he knows nothing about the tapes. We believe him. But Anne knows him so well that she senses they make him uncomfortable about something. He has secrets, perhaps even from himself. He grows unreasonably irritated by her questions. She discovers him withholding information.

Juliette Binoche, that actress of perfect tone, modulates Anne's feelings realistically. She doesn't become hysterical, simply offended. She regards Georges, and we see she knows him well. He may be hiding nothing, but i that case, he is nevertheless hiding it. Daniel Auteuil seems almost like a child found out at something.

I'll be brief. Other tapes arrive, suggesting Georges drive to a particular address and knock on a particular door. There he meets Majid (Maurice Benichou), a man about his age. They haven't seen one another since both were five or six. This was the man sending the tapes? Majid says he knows nothing about it. We believe him. We really do. Georges conceals details of his visit from Anne. Why? He asserts that Majid must be the source of the tapes. Then he must know Majid has a reason.

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