Code Unknown

Starring:Juliette Binoche, Thierry Neuvic, Josef Bierbichler, Alexandre Hamidi, Maimouna HÃ©lÃ¨ne Diarra, Ona Lu Yenke, Djibril KouyatÃ©, Luminita Gheorghiu, Crenguta Hariton, Bob Nicolescu, Bruno Todeschini, Paulus Manker, Didier Flamand, Walid Afkir, Maurice BÃ©nichou, Carlo Brandt, Philippe Demarle, Marc Duret, ArsinÃ©e Khanjian, Florence Loiret
Director: Michael Haneke
Studio: Kino Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Not hollywood, but a work of art
What we have here is a failure to communicate...
Code Unknown: Reality Unknown
in space no one can hear you scream
Disconnected but engaging

Code Unknown
Starring: Juliette Binoche , Thierry Neuvic , Josef Bierbichler , Alexandre Hamidi , and Maimouna Hélène Diarra
Director: Michael Haneke
Manufacturer: Kino Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000068MAL
Release Date: 2002-08-06

Customer Reviews:

Not hollywood, but a work of art .......2007-06-26

Without giving anything away, let me offer a comparison to the hollywood oscar winner "Crash" because they have similar themes. They both deal with the psychological and communicative dis-functions particular to our modern, multicultural world. Both films also deal with the suffering we create through our behavior toward one another by way of our assumptions, beliefs, and prejudices.

Stylistically, however, these two films have little in common. Whereas "Crash" plays like a pilot for a tv series, weaving its characters and their stories together in support of its themes (as it holds our hands throughout and takes us where it wants us to go), "Code Unknown" is a puzzle in fragments that we must assemble ourselves from the layered information we are given. Whereas "Crash" connects too many improbable conversations and events with possible ones in order to hit us over the heads and wrench our hearts with its message, "Code Unknown" entrusts us with cinematic clues and metaphors that we must use to construct our own understanding. In "Crash" everyone tells us everything they feel and think thereby limiting the possibilities of what we are allowed to imagine. To the contrary, "Code Unknown" invites us to rely our own abilities (as perceivers) to discover what truths there are."Crash" has a few brilliant scenes, but once we have seen it there is nothing left to experience, wonder about, or really discuss. The show is over, and now we know everything about it (just as with every hollywood film) . "Code Unknown" (like all works of art) is made up of one brilliant scene after another, but more importantly it entreats us to reflect, as well as interpret. It also invites us into conversation about it, even asks us to return and discover again.... cinewest

What we have here is a failure to communicate..........2006-07-20

Code Unknown was a revelation. The first Michael Haneke film I've seen, I was surprised at how vitriolic the reviews have been here and on the film's IMDB page - arty-fartsy and incomprehensible seems to be the general concensus, yet I found it remarkably vital and accessible for a film revolving around race relations and everyday failures to communicate. Starting with an incident on a French boulevard where misinterpreted actions have consequences for all the wrong people, it proceeds in a series of incomplete scenes by people linked by the incident or their relationships with those involved, taking in a multi-ethnic city where so many people have shut off from those around them that they either fail to understand each others' problems or to even make the effort.

What's particularly interesting is that it plays on the audiences own prejudices and presuppositions - at one point we naturally assume that a young black character is seated away from the window booth he requested in a restaurant because of his color, but no: it's because he turned up 45 minutes late and the place is busy. Similarly, it doesn't presume that people in what are supposed to be empathetic or compassionate professions are inherently good - when Juliette Binoche's actress asks her war photographer boyfriend advice about the sounds of child abuse from a neighboring flat, he doesn't want to know and her anger is more because he won't give her an out but forces the situation back on her. Her solution: ignore it. Even the innocent victim of the opening incident has to admit with shame that she herself had done the same thing to people she looked down on. It's beautifully worked out with several powerful sequences that are uncomfortably familiar to city dwellers (the metro sequence is particularly powerful) and somehow comes across as exhilarating as it is uncomfortable.

Great filmmaking - although if you have a multi-region player you may be better off getting the UK PAL DVD for a better transfer than Kino's Region 1 disc (and it has a nice extras package, too).

Code Unknown: Reality Unknown.......2005-10-08

This is a masterpiece of collage. The non-linear sequence of the story can make it hard to watch, but very intreging. It blows open the thoughts that we have in everyday life. That we are the most important, it shows that every life is insignificant to other people. The story deals with racism and mature themes, underlying troubles. It gives us glimpes into the fact that at times we can reach out and change other peoples' lives but in fact we choose to change only our own, as you see in the very end of code unknown. The interweaving of the storyline makes it a wonderful way to see the daily interaction between people that don't know eachother, and choose not to know eachother. There is only one linear scene in the entire movie and that would be the drum scene, but everything is brought together in the end. I would highly recommend this story to anyone that has the time and patience to sit down and watch a good/uncoventional movie.

in space no one can hear you scream.......2005-04-23

My pick for the best film of the young century. The filmic equivalent of "The Scream." Soul-stretching; heart-breaking. Compare and contrast the construction and content of this film to that of "Pulp Fiction," understand that American film is still 30-40 years behind the films of the French.

Disconnected but engaging.......2004-09-10

This film starts with a disappointed teenage boy flagging down, Anne (Juliette Binoche), the girlfriend of his older brother. The boy gets into a scuffle with another teenage boy of African descent. This scene paves the way for the rest of the film and its characters intertwining. I can understand how some viewers might be confused with this story since there is no "plot". The film is sliced into 10 minute vignettes jumping from one character to another like a soap opera. The four central characters in this film (Binoche, her boyfriend played by Thierry Neuvic, the Romanian immigrant and the African-French teenage boy are all depicted in their everyday existence through these incomplete clips. Life is strange, people we know and see are strangers. Isn't strange that one incident can affect the lives of 4 different people?

If Haeneke's intent was to make the viewer think then he succeeded. I had a hard time deciding whether or not I liked this film. Binoche, as always, does a fine job in this movie as does her co-stars. The characters in their situations made this film interesting. If you're looking for a more conventional plot though you'll probably have to look elsewhere.

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