An actress meets a man on a Paris street and is forced to embark on a journey with grave consequences for her, for others, and for us. "...the most intellectually stimulating and emotionally provocative piece of European cinema of recent times." Sight & Sound.
Released just prior to The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke's Code Unknown is a powerful exploration of the barriers and connections between diverse individuals in a mult... more >
Released just prior to The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke's Code Unknown is a powerful exploration of the barriers and connections between diverse individuals in a multi-racial city (in this case, Paris, France). Called "a collection of "incomplete tales of several journeys", Code Unknown has little plot, only incident and observation. Shot in episodic fragments that last from a few seconds to several minutes, each tale is tenuously connected by sudden cuts to black. Scenes appear to start in the middle and end with jarring abruptness, as if the projectionist deliberately pulled the plug.
The film begins with deaf-mute children acting out emotions. The children sign "alone, hiding place, sad, imprisoned", but their classmates do not respond. This leads to an eight-minute single unbroken shot that explores the chance interaction of the main characters and how a single act causes disparate lives to intertwine.
While walking on a busy Paris street, a teenager, Jean (Alexandre Hamidi), meets his brother's girl friend, a young actress named Anne (Juliette Binoche). He talks about his difficult life on the farm with his father who eventually expects him to take over. Jean, frustrated and angry throws an empty bag into the lap of Maria (Luminata Gheorghiu), begging for change on the sidewalk. A young Sengalese man named Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke), who is a teacher of deaf children, is offended by Jean's actions and confronts the younger man, demanding he apologize to Maria. The police side with Jean and Amadou is arrested. We learn later that he is beaten while in police custody. Meanwhile, Maria is deported to her home in Romania when she is found to be an illegal immigrant.
In this fragment, Haneke demonstrates how we often touch each other's life very briefly (sometimes making snap judgments and evaluations about people), then move on to our own activities without knowledge or awareness of the consequences to others. It allows the director to follow the lives of these characters for the rest of the film.
In an extraordinary episode in the Paris Metro that feels extremely real, Haneke asks us to confront the incomprehensibility of much of our experience. Anne, on her way home after a day re-recording film dialogue is challenged by an Arab youth on the subway. ("Don't talk to commoners?" he asks. "How can you be so beautiful yet so arrogant?"). When she retreats to the other end of the car, he follows and sits next to her. When he spits in her face, a man sitting opposite confronts the harasser, who backs down but tries to frighten them both as he leaves the train. Anne cannot understand this behavior and walks home in the rain sobbing.
I loved the sounds of the film, the street noises, the sounds of TVs blaring, snippets of conversations from neighbors, the exhilarating song and dance at a Romanian wedding, and the final extended Brazilian drumming sequence which builds to a resounding climax. Performances are uniformly outstanding. Binoche is a marvel; her performance is never self-conscious. During the shooting of a film, she laughs uncontrollably, then cries at will, both achieved with effortless grace.
This is not an easy film to watch and demands repeat viewing to fully grasp the director's intent. It will defeat those looking for unbroken narrative or character development, but should interest those seeking a compelling commentary about the obstacles to communication in today's world. As he did in The Piano Teacher, Haneke exquisitely captures the private moments of people, the things they do when alone or away from friends. The film has an emotional immediacy that never seems forced or artificial. When I left the theater, I felt unusually connected to the life around me. Both extremely beautiful and very ugly, Code Unknown pulsates with the dance of life.
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