Cinephiliac :: MOVIE REVIEW & RANT: Code Unknown (2000, d. Michael Haneke)

Code Well Known, or
How to Build a Better Blog-a-Thon

At this exact morning stroke of 9 o'clock EST, a solid handful of curious, passionate cinephiles from the online plane (the few, the proud, the film bloggers!) will have added their individual voices to a joint re-evaluation of Michael Haneke's Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys (2000, a.k.a. Code Inconnu: Récit Incomplet De Divers Voyages). Other than my mom and whoever keeps tripping on my site in their ongoing Googlequest for Heath Ledger's Brooklyn address, just about everyone else reading this already knew about a predestined "blog-a-thon" before the page loaded. I won't try to speak for every blogger who already has an audience farther and wider than myself (which is pretty much all of you, congrats), but who is our projected and potential audience as a collective writing project, besides ourselves? What demand is not met with unipersonal film blogging that could be achieved with a diverse force of viewpoints focused on the same topic? What roused our communal hunger to tear into this esoterically specific film -- an underseen work, admittedly, but one that has still been thoroughly well-plumbed since its release?

Having now seen and admired five of the Austrian-raised auteur's features, a repeat viewing of Code Unknown underlined its insignificance to me as his least remarkable, both to watch and critique (my first screening had been largely forgotten). Made up of about fifty shots, several static and nearly each one its own fragmented vignette, this provocative mixed bag of tricks is entirely predicated on its own structural gimmick: every scene begins somewhere at its midpoint and cuts without precise resolution, a fascinating theoretical design that obliges viewers to continually swim through icy waters in frustrating search of contextual buoys. The ideas are scattershot and Godardian in scope, sprawling and formalistic, explicitly political one moment, proudly moral and philosophical the next.

In present-day Paris, Anne (Juliette Binoche) is an actress who runs into Jean (Alexandre Hamidi), the younger brother of her war-photographer boyfriend Georges (Thierry Neuvic). For the film's prime instigating moment, a wonderfully uninterrupted shot/sequence as Haneke is wont to compose, Jean tells Anne he has run away from home. Shortly after obtaining her apartment code, he walks away and rudely litters on a homeless Romanian refugee (Luminita Gheorghiu), which riles onlooking moral do-gooder Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke). The cops quickly intervene after Amadou tries in vain to force Jean to apologize to the begging woman, and thus the multi-strands of our ensemble are vaguely introduced. Their subsequent character arcs are near irrelevant as the film's rigid framework squanders its cast through persistent detachment, making viewers work hard to orient themselves and offering so little reward other than fleeting connections about and between characters ("Wow, she was performing a scene fifteen minutes ago but we couldn't possibly know that until now. What a clever way to make us squirm!" or "Oh, now I know that Amadou guy teaches deaf children. Thanks for throwing us a bone, Michael Haneke!").

Code Unknown is quite ripe with ideas about reality vs. allusion, plus all manner of both the optimistic and nihilistic possibilities of milieus experienced from disjointed linearities, but if the film works sometimes on a micro level, it doesn't as macro: its hardened husk has no overarching, cohesive pursuit. Haneke's brainstorms are plentiful, but he uses the avant-garde nature of his film's barely tangible skeleton as an excuse to try out everything (Confucius say "throw enough at the wall, some of it is bound to stick") without being challenged on what doesn't thrive. This is cinema that implores people to overthink and overpraise its genius because the empty spaces are left so open-ended as to write anything, even at times when questions aren't being proactively raised to allow audience rumination ("The most intellectually stimulating and emotionally provocative piece of European cinema of recent times," said Sight & Sound, way too boldly). In his letter to producer Marin Karmitz, written for inclusion in the press kit and available as a liner-notes insert for the American DVD release (and guaranteed to be reposted elsewhere today), Haneke himself decries this brand of overanalysis:

I think that, by reducing [Code Unknown] to its most obvious ideas (the Babylonian confusion of languages, the incapacity to communicate, the coldness of the consumer society, xenosphobia, etc.), we cannot avoid a mere string of clichés. That is always what happens when you try to isolate "themes." In my opinion, a short summary is ample.

Furthermore, there is little that can be said outside the aesthetic framework of the film. Otherwise I would have written a newspaper article instead of making a film. I do not think that my opinions of these "themes" are of much interest to anyone -- nor should they be -- I am not a "forger of opinions." The interesting thing about a table is its quality, its shape, its functional nature, the way the material was shaped, not the cabinetmaker's opinion.

Because I don't think Code Unknown warrants a multitude of writers to further probe its intricacies, I wholeheartedly expect a slew of observational Caché (Hidden) rhymes to be repeated throughout the day: cultural guilt; the complacent couple named Ann(e) and Georges, who have meaningless meals with their bougie friends; the aggressive and unwarrented accusation of an innocent over anonymous mail; even the casting of "Old Arab" and "Young Arab," played by Maurice Bénichou (Majid) and Walid Afkir (Majid's son). There will be more, take the Vegas odds.

It was a helluva thing when the first film blog-a-thon -- many of whose loose line-up of members discuss and debate movies regularly without ever meeting in real life -- tackled Showgirls together last month. For a notorious bomb that was buried under a decade of Saved by the Bell jokes and mass critical panning, that effort felt like the first flake in a snowballing force of movements and manifestos. Film bloggers want to be taken as seriously as the cranky old print journalists who flounce about in their elitism, and here's yet another opportunity to rally and make waves. Unfettered by advertising dollars, bottom-line publishers, competing brands and other burdens that typically don't concern online critics, how can we take better advantage of our collective status to reach a greater mass? For me, film writing is about education, enlightenment, entertainment and helping to better the state of cinema. Could this be why Showgirls (a pop-cultural milestone that writhed its way into the mainstream lexicon) was such a smashing idea and this second outing (Code Unknown: a film only a cineaste could love, exhaustively reviewed in only the last few years) reeks of novelty?

I'm honestly not trying to ruffle the feathers of those who organized this event. However, for the sake of future blog-a-thon integrity and the chance to turn something fun into an essential film-writing event, more avenues need to be explored. For films, here are some suggestions: those that have touched the zeitgeist, those that would be otherwise forgotten, low-to-middlebrow titles as seen from highbrow angles, those with a surface barely scratched on record, and the wildly polarizing. How about blog-a-thons about subjects other than specific films, like filmmaker oeuvres (Abel Ferarra could definitely get this back on course), other filmmaking professions (let's talk acting, editing and cinematography), underexposed genres, industry issues (enough ink was spilled over dwindling box-office receipts, but what about the Korean New Wave potentially drying up due to the quota system's disband?), re-examining ideas thought to be set in stone, etc. As stimulating as imaginable. Both writers and readers should get excited about the possibilities before a single piece is posted, plus wider-reaching themes will allow for more creativity and diversity.

And what about consistency? If we assume the subjects will be continually potent (perhaps through more back-and-forth prior to pouncing on a final choice), why not organize them once a month around the same time, so that readers will know when to come back for more (i.e. the first Monday of every month, starting in May)? How about more promotion through our individual blogs, or even a separate site that could collect links and pullquotes to our unified entries? I do realize that the more regimented the process, the less pleasurable the activity becomes, but if a bond is to be formed between like-minded people and the individual strengths they each bring to the table, shouldn't that union have more aim and purpose? Isn't this how Communism began, or at least McSweeney's?

There are more ideas rattling inside this cinephiliac's noggin, but for now I welcome your feedback and whatever more, as I anxiously await (ready and Abel) for Ferarra-Fest '06:

ADDENDUM: As "Blog-A-Thon: Code Unknown" unspools, look here for fresh fodder from these fine folk:

Girish :: Filmbrain :: Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule :: Esoteric Rabbit :: Flickhead :: CultureSpace :: Drifting :: When Canses Were Classeled :: Elusive Lucidity :: Long Pauses :: Dipanjan's Random Muses :: The Evening Class