The quiet life of a Paris family is disturbed when they receive a series of surveillance tapes of the exterior of their residence from an anonymous source. Georges Laurent is the successful host of a French literary television program, living with his wife Anne, a book publisher, and their 12-year-old son Pierrot. Unmarked videocassettes arrive on their doorstep, tapes that show extended observation of their home's exterior from a static street camera that is never noticed. At first passive and harmless, but later accompanied by crude, disturbing crayon drawings, the tapes lead to questions about Georges' early life that disrupt both his work and marriage. But because the tapes do not contain an open threat, the police refuse to help the family.
One videotape leads Georges to the modest HLM apartment of Majid, an Algerian man whose parents worked for Georges' family before they were killed in the Paris massacre of 1961. The orphaned Majid remained in the Laurent home, and the parents at one time intended to adopt him. Georges confronts Majid about the tapes, but he denies involvement. However, the encounter intensifies his guilty flashbacks and recurring nightmares of a young Majid spitting blood, cutting off a rooster's head, and menacing him.
One day Pierrot does not come home from school and Anne cannot locate him. Georges and Anne suspect that he is kidnapped by Majid. They go to the police, who accompany Georges to Majid's apartment. There they find Majid's son, and father and son both deny knowledge of a kidnapping. The police arrest them but they are released the next morning. Pierrot returns home shortly afterwards; he had spent the night at a friend's house without telling anyone. When Anne scolds Pierrot, he accuses her of adultery because he had witnessed Anne permitting a few ambiguous caresses from a family friend.
At Majid's invitation, Georges returns to the apartment, where, after stating that he had nothing to do with the surveillance, says he wanted Georges to be present for what follows: he kills himself by slashing his own throat. Now Anne insists Georges explain the whole story with Majid, and he tells her that they lived together in his parents' household. He was six years old when he tricked Majid into cutting off the head of the family's rooster, then told his parents that Majid did this to scare him. This sufficiently disturbed his parents that they sent Majid away to an orphanage.
Majid's son comes to the television studio and finds Georges, who denies responsibility for Majid's unhappiness and death. The younger man denies knowledge of the tapes, saying he only wanted to know how Georges felt about being the cause of his father's death. Georges angrily departs for home, where he takes two sleeping pills and goes to bed.
In what then appears to be Georges' dream or just a flashback, a man and woman arrive at Georges' childhood home in a 1960 Peugeot.[5] They enter the house, leave with an Arab boy who protests, who resists getting in the car, and runs away before he's finally caught and overcome by the man. He's forced into the back seat with the woman, and the man drives the car away.
Under the credits, Pierrot and Majid's son meet in front of Pierrot's school, though their conversation cannot be heard. Majid's son leaves, as does Pierrot with a couple of his friends soon after.
The man an woman leave with who?
An arab boy