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CODE
UNKNOWN
8/10
(CODE
UNKNOWN : INCOMPLETE TALES OF SEVERAL JOURNEYS)
Code
Inconnu : Recit incomplet de divers voyages
France 2000
director/script : Michael Haneke
cinematography : Jurgen Jurges
editing : Andras Prochaska, Karin Hartusch, Nadine Muse
lead actors : Juliette Binoche, Thierry Neuvic, Ona Lu Yenke, Luminata
Georghiu
118 minutes
When
exactly? You can’t quite remember. You add it all up, there is always
something missing somewhere. A few seconds unaccounted for. A missing
factor in any equation. The invisible mould of what is not that inexorably
determines what is…
William
S Burroughs
Code
Unknown – Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys is a bit of a mouthful.
‘Conscience and consequence’ would perhaps be a more economic alternative,
with its appropriately Jane Austen-ish air. Because, like so many 19th-century
novels, Code Unknown is essentially an attempt to extend the circumference
of its audience’s sympathy, with a special focus on a slightly over-sensitive
artistic youngish female: here, actress Anne (Binoche). But Haneke’s techniques
are aggressively modern: his film is as much a product of Jean-Luc Godard
as George Eliot. There is a narrative, and there are stories,
but they exist only as fragments, and the audience must work to piece
them together – these are ‘incomplete tales,’ according to the subtitle.
And, as the main title indicates, the film deliberately aims to be difficult,
impenetrable: perhaps, even, indecipherable.
Haneke’s
last picture, 1997’s Funny Games,
was a darkly comic masterpiece of excruciating claustrophobia: with Code
Unknown, he widens his canvas, aiming for nothing less than a panoramic
snapshot of Europe today. He takes an apparently innocuous, everyday event,
then traces the ripples of consequence that spread out over time and space.
An intriguing idea - although it doesn’t quite come off, this is still
a very original, absorbing kind of near miss.
On
a Paris street, actress Anne (Binoche) buys a sandwich for Jean, the young
brother of her boyfriend Georges (Neuvic), a war photographer away in
Kosovo. After he’s finished eating, Jean casually drops the paper bag
in the lap of Maria (Georghiu), a street beggar, outraging passer-by
Amadou (Yenke), who demands an apology from Jean. The ensuing scuffle
attracts the attention of the police: Amadou is arrested, Maria deported
to Romania. The narrative follows each of the characters and stories,
switching between Paris, rural France, Romania, and even further afield.
This
‘mosaic’ technique is often popular among ambitious directors, as it gives
them carte blanche to chuck in pretty much anything they feel like,
especially when, as here, their theme is the mysterious impenetrability
of everyday life, and how hard it is for modern, isolated invididuals
to communicata,e There are times when Haneke strays into the trap of self-indulgence,
and it’s up to Binoche to hold things together. She’s seldom looked so
unglamorous on screen, but, if anything this emphasises her appeal – her
vulnerability warms up an otherwise chilly, though always fascinating,
cinematic exercise.
13th
June, 2001
by Neil
Young
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