Code Unknown (2000)

Nice effects though.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Michael Haneke creates a multiple character, multiple plot-line film that film lovers have seen time and again. Amores Perros, Babel, Short Cuts, Magnolia. You know that the essence of a great filmmaker is one who can juggle multiple stories and characters at once, and even more so, whether or not he can intertwine these stories at the very end. It's confusing whether or not Code Unknown does that, but it attempts it successfully at the very least. A lot of the talking scenes didn't resonate with me. Although the ADR scene blew me away. At first I was in the midst of a shocking scene where a child almost falls off of a building, to reveal that it was part of a filmed scene-within-the-movie of which the actress is in the process of re-recording. That is awesome stuff. Also, take a look at the unbearable tension in the subway scenes. It's nail biting stuff.

Michael Haneke's cinematic works are always interesting, and his signature motif is usually the evocation of some form of Extreme Violence, however in CODE UNKNOWN, he conducts a rather labyrinthine exploration of the inherent 'rudeness of modernity'. The film is not so much a plot or narrative storyline, but more of a collection of compelling and interesting scenes woven around the side effects and consequences of bad behavior. One example is a scene in which a young man tosses an empty wrapper in the lap of a woman sitting on the sidewalk. He is clearly angry, but not with the woman. She just happens to be in his path, but in no way the focus of his anger. A confrontation ensues, and we witness the ramifications of this relatively random event. Haneke shows how events can rapidly spin out of control through one thoughtless act. The characters seem trapped in lives which are not wholly of their own making, and powerlessly intrude on the lives of others in very subtle ways. CODE UNKNOWN can be seen as a film which demonstrates 'The Butterfly Effect'. This metaphorical principle of Chaos Theory states that something as insignificant as the ripple of a butterfly's wings could exert far-reaching effects on subsequent events. CODE UNKNOWN is a film which is thought provoking, as well as haunting and mesmeric.

It was remarkable to me in that I found myself completely and continuously enraged after about 20 minutes. This is a very unusual response in my mental catalog, and I'm wondering if there's something possibly instructive about that. In any event, I temporarily suspended my anger, hoping that somehow sense might at last be made of the material. I was disappointed in that hope.The adjectives that come immediately to mind are: Pretentious and Self-indulgent. The hours spent watching were wasted, and I am disheartened to see this director being praised, and even paid (!) for dragging his audience through these disconnected and over-long vignettes. A few of the scenes were interesting, some disturbing, but by far the majority were just pointless. I am interested to see that there are so many responses to this film on this site, and to see that a great many folks feel this is a truly great film. I don't necessarily think their responses are nutso, but it's interesting that there are people whose perceptions are so different from mine. Phony intellectuals? Maybe not -- maybe it's due to some real difference in brain chemistry.

Ironic that a film on the themes of misunderstanding and the inability to communicate fails to tell its story because of how it is conveyed. With the viewer wrenched away from every scene by a jump cut, characters who are hard to care for and a plot that soon looses all sense of tension, there is little to praise here. The central idea, that there are tensions in a multi cultural Europe because we don't properly understand each other, is exposed and explored as fully as it is going to be within the first 20 minutes. If things had stopped their you might have been looking at an award winning short film, but alas, no.Their are several intertwining narrative threads: the actress & her journalist partner; the journalist's brother and their father on his farm; the African immigrant family; the Romanian illegal immigrant. You barely know any of them any better at the end than you do after the first minute of their being introduced. And by the way, the plot is thin and the dialogue is forgettable.