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CODE
46
6/10
UK
2003 (released 2004) : Michael WINTERBOTTOM : 92 mins (approx)
The predictably-unpredictable,
workaholic team of Winterbottom and scriptwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce
(24 Hour Party People,
In This World, The
Claim) take a detour into science-fiction - with middling results.
As in Andrew Niccol's underrated Gattaca, DNA technology has assumed
a primary importance in a near-future earth - determining who can travel
where in a globe divided up into zones which are linked by strictly-controlled
'gateways.'
The 'plot'
is a wispy, sub-William-Gibson affair in about the awkward romance between
a travel-monitoring official (Tim Robbins) and a mysterious young woman
(Samantha Morton) he investigates in an overpopulated Shanghai. This central
relationship provides what core the film possesses, but sadly isn't sufficiently
convincing to sustain a feature-length narrative. It's frustrating that
so many intriguing peripheral storylines and characters are left casually
undeveloped: the many fans of willowy French actress Jeanne Balibar will
fume at the way she's confined to the briefest of appearances, when her
character could have easily played a more decisive role in the narrative.
As it is,
we're left to dwell on the lack of chemistry between the two leads - and
the fact that both of them have played this kind of role too many times
before. As in Minority
Report, Morton's wide-eyed waif is cast adrift in a coolly high-tech
future; and as she walks through a nightclub in beatific, strobey slo-mo,
we're suddenly into a kind of Morvern Callar in the 21st Century.
But, just like Morvern
Callar, Code 46 is redeemed by the close attention paid
to moods, textures and sounds. There's some lovely woozy cinematography
by Marcel Zyskind, and both he and Winterbottom seem in love with their
Shanghai setting. Their template seems to be Godard's Alphaville,
in which a bare minimum of props transformed 1960s Paris into an intergalactic
future-world.
The evocative
score also plays its part - if only because it's often sufficiently loud
to drown out the dopey dialogue - "The sphinx gave you a virus",
etc - that combines streams of jargon with quasi-Spanglophone neologisms
to somewhat dispiriting effect. Not quite as dispiriting, however, as
the film's implication that Coldplay are going to be with us for quite
some time yet...
rewrite 2nd
September, 2004
(seen 24th August 2003 : Kursaal, San Sebastian : press show : San
Sebastian Film Festival)
based on original review, from coverage
of 2003 San Sebastian Film Festival
by Neil
Young
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