Actress Juliette Binoche with director Michael Haneke
CODE UNKNOWN (Code
inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages) A-
aka: Incomplete Tales
of Several Journeys
France Germany Romania
(117 mi) 2000 d:
Michael Haneke
Is truth the sum of
what we see and hear? Can reality be
represented? Is that which is off-camera
more precise than that which is on?
—Michael Haneke
The document tends
towards the imaginary, fiction tends towards the real. You could say that if you aim at a form of
truth through fiction, then the reality will become enigmatic precisely because
it is obvious. Documentary photography
offers an interesting possibility of achieving a poetic form. For me that is more than just an interesting
possibility, it’s what I’m aiming at. If
an image is powerful enough, if it resists us, if, by its obscure coherence,
part of it escapes our understanding, then it means that something has been won
from reality.
— Luc Delahaye: Snap
Decision, Art Press, 2005
An intense, ravishingly beautiful film, a mixed, cross
cultural integration of personal experiences that is unlike any other film seen
this year, using what amounts to completely original cinematic methods, as
the director's style here is to film, with utter clarity and a brilliant sense
of being exact and concise, what appears to be random sequences, incomplete
fragments from people's lives that, without any explanation at all, produces
such a depth of emotion from an audience that is forced
to unseal the secret to this inexplicable madness. A bewildering and exasperating work, this is
the first Haneke film to actually enjoy, and one of his best, appreciating the
global context, adding an influx of immigrants into the urban Parisian mix,
revealing how their presence alters the rhythm of life, while paying a heavy
price on their own, yet also examining the difficulty of interpersonal
communication, between couples in a relationship or between cultures, as relationships
are more tenuous than ever in the modern world, with jobs moving from rural to
urban and from country to country, challenging the concept of borders,
requiring extreme adaptability in making a living. Working with French actress Juliette Binoche,
a major European star, alters the look of the film, adding a commercial touch
while steadfastly adhering to the strict demands of an art film. Extending what he started in 71
Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des
Zufalls) (1994), where a continuous stream of storyline fragments blend
into a narrative tale on modern life, these jagged edges have a provocative
intent, reminding viewers of Europe’s colonial past, resulting in an often
contentious relationship with roots of inherent racism, but most citizens
prefer to look the other way, allowing war atrocities and travesties of justice
to continue. Revealing the devastating
consequences for seemingly incidental events, one of the underlying themes is
cowardice, where more privileged European white people living comfortable lives
are more complacent, unwilling to stand up or even speak out, while immigrants,
particularly blacks or dark-skinned, often the target of excessive police
force, do so with regularity. Wars
raging in Kosovo and Afghanistan are contrasted against the peace at home,
where there’s a growing acceptance of atrocities as a routine part of life, as
there’s no sense of moral outrage. While
society targets and humiliates immigrants, with illegal immigrants from Romania
and Africa seeking work and a better life, but end up fighting in the streets
of Paris to avoid arrest and deportation, a closer inspection reveals an
underlying dignity in their all but invisible lives, where their histories and
struggles are simply forgotten, not even registering a footnote in the modern
annuls of European life.
Like the opening of Tarkovsky’s MIRROR (1974), where a
stuttering child is attempting to break through barriers of communication, deaf
students attempt to act out certain feelings that remain a mystery to fellow
classmates (my own guess is fear), before all are gathered together in a
triumphant display of drumming in tempo, a joyous and celebratory moment that
seems to define the power of the collective, Code Unknown - Giba -
YouTube (1:52), bookended again near the end of the film in a scene of
Ozu-like cinematic harmony, seemingly integrated into the whole, yet while the
drumming music continues into the next scenes, it’s clear lives are as
separated and fragmented as ever.
Masterfully shot by Fassbinder cameraman Jürgen Jürges, with a bravura
shot near the beginning reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie
Nights (1997), where a single shot cleverly introduces many of the central
characters in the film, and while their lives veer off into differing
directions, at this moment they all intersect in an amazing cinéma vérité
tracking shot taking place on the streets of Paris, where we are introduced to
Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche), an actress on her way to a meeting, running into
Jean (Alkexandre Hamidi), the younger teenage brother of her boyfriend, who is
temporarily running away from home.
After they depart, Jean throws a piece of trash into the lap of a
homeless woman on the street, Maria (Luminița Gheorghiu), an illegal immigrant
from Romania. This humiliating act
grates on the nerves of Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke), himself a Malian immigrant and
music teacher for the deaf, as he despises the way a fellow immigrant is
treated, like a human garbage disposal, confronting Jean, calling him out for
what he’s done, not allowing him to run away, but Jean tries to ignore him,
even as a crowd gathers, including the arrival of police, who, of course,
forcefully arrest Amadou and Maria, stripping them of any dignity, allowing the
white perpetrator who instigated the whole thing to go free. In what is easily the creepiest Haneke
sequence, a curious reference to William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR (1965), we hear
the voice of a film director (Haneke himself) instructing Anne in a scene,
having lured her into a secure room in an ugly warehouse where she cannot
escape, shot in a grainy video, informing her very matter-of-factly that he
simply wants to watch her die, as “You fell into my trap.” While she thinks it’s all a joke at first,
finding it hard to believe, it’s obvious her torture is just beginning, as she
pleads for understanding, soon breaking into tears, with the director
instructing her to drop the façade, stop with all the pretend artifice and
“show me your true face,” Code Unknown - Juliette
Binoche (Eng. Sub) YouTube
(3:47). In this revealing
film-within-a-film what we see is the face of fear.
Exposing the truth behind an image becomes a prominent theme
of the film, and of Haneke throughout his career, where the endless news cycle
of television inevitably alters and distorts war coverage, for instance,
creating a point of view in line with government or the owners of the broadcast
company, typically a corporate viewpoint with explicit bias. Appropriately we are shown unsanitized
photojournalist images from the war in Kosovo, including dead bodies sprawled
on the ground, some in pieces, revealing in graphic detail the true horror
(featuring throughout the film the photography of French photojournalist Luc
Delahaye, Luc
Delahaye turns war photography into an uncomfortable art | Art ...). Meanwhile, back in her own apartment, Anne is
seen routinely ironing clothes, but she’s caught by the horror of what she
hears, listening to foreign accented neighbors viciously berate their child,
who is probably being subject to abuse, but it’s all happening behind closed
doors. This situation only escalates,
with devastating results, all happening offscreen, out of sight from the
public. In a touching moment, Georges
(Thierry Neuvic), the photojournalist is back in his apartment in Paris, discussing
his work over the phone when Anne walks in, obviously happy to see him,
caressing his face. The look of this
apartment exists throughout all Haneke films, especially CACHÉ (2005),
including an entire wall lined with books, occasional movie posters, with pictures
and artworks on the wall, while magazines and photographs are strewn
about. While Anne and Georges live
comfortable lives, we get glimpses of backstories, as Maria has been deported
back to Romania, where she’s forced to lie about her experiences in Paris,
embellishing the truth, while the rural area where she lives is an industrial
area permanently enveloped in poverty and pollution, while Amadou’s mother is
in tears about his arrest, claiming in her African dialect that he was badly
beaten, already at her wit’s end because he has a sister who is deaf, seen in
one of the early scenes, while his younger brother is a victim of bullying at
school, with someone stealing his jacket in an attempt to extort money out of
him.
One of the comments made by Maria is particularly revealing,
expressing how degrading it feels to witness the revulsion on people’s faces as
they offer money, as if she were part of the dregs of the earth. Hard to believe anyone could sink any
lower. The title of the film is
significant, as there’s no easy code to unravel these difficult emotional encounters,
missing links and lost connections, with many remaining out of sight, off the
radar, with few willing to lend a helping hand.
The lives of immigrants are so insignificant to most French citizens,
it’s as if they don’t even exist. While
Anne and Georges fight about their relationship, as he ships out whenever the
going gets rough, seemingly avoiding conflict by disappearance, a scene as
they’re walking through a supermarket suggests longstanding issues, where she
may have aborted a child because he was unable or unwilling to commit. Through these intense flare-ups, questions
are asked, but never answered, scene by scene, leaving viewers in a state of
limbo. Time and time again Haneke seeks
to present something as truth, only to undermine it. The film becomes an essay on social
disparity, emotional distance, and an unwillingness to involve oneself in the
action and decisions of others, remaining instead in a safe haven, supposedly
out of harm’s way. But home does not
carry with it the familiar connotation of a safe harbor in Haneke films,
suggesting there is no escape from the world’s woes. This theory is shattered in an intensely
authentic metro scene fraught with tension where Anne is subjected to
continuous taunts from an Arab teenager, moving to another seat to avoid him,
but he follows her, openly terrorizing her with abusive language while other
passengers pretend not to notice, eventually spitting in her face. A middle-aged Arab passenger sitting nearby,
Maurice Bénichou from CACHÉ (2005), is the only one to stand up for her,
telling the boy he should be ashamed of himself. But after the kid exits the train, scaring
her on the way out with a final assault, it’s Anne who sits alone in tears,
consumed by her own guilt and shame. An
orchestration of slowly building tension, it’s the deaf drumming that closes
the film, playing over several sequences, with fleeting imagery suggesting a
kind of continual bombardment of tiny explosions that threatens to undermine
our modern stability.
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