[Contains Spoilers]
Code Unknown is yet another film in that great tradition of pointless slice-of-life (often French) films. Unless you're a big fan of films that act as if the viewer is an unwelcome intruder and are long on empty quiet moments and short on plot and traditional narrative, this film may not be for you. My general problem with slice-of-life films that have little or no plot is this: why bother? If you want to watch life why not watch your own? Plot and narrative exist for a reason--they make a world that is more interesting than everyday life. Slice-of-life films seem to combine the worst of real life and art. And people wonder why these movies aren't more popular.
In Code Unknown an event occurs on a busy Paris city street early on in the film and then we are left to watch what happens to the lives of those who participated in that event. The event occurs when a brooding and spoiled young man tosses a used bag on the lap of a woman beggar. A young African man stops him and demands that he apologize to her. Of course, the police are soon summoned and it is the African man who is arrested. The film jumps back and forth between the various lives of those connected to the event but with little or no explanation of what is going on. In one particularly maddening scene, a woman finds a written note on her front door. She is immediately concerned. What does the note say? We are never told, not even in incidental dialogue. She suspects that her neighbor across the hall has written the note, but when she confronts the old woman, the old woman denies it. Later, she tells her husband of the note but he insists she should mind her own business. So what was the note all about? We can only vaguely guess. I suppose to string together a list of unrelated events and offer little or no explanation of what is going on, especially when one is clearly needed, can be mistakenly called clever filmmaking. I call it lazy.
If you are bent on watching a slice-of-life movie that follows people around in their daily lives as they live and lie and make mistakes and act and react as their lives intersect with other strangers, then may I suggest Robert Altman's Short Cuts. It is an infinitely more pleasing and interesting film. In Altman's film you are allowed in on all conversations and inside details and you begin to care about characters and their lives. Nothing of the sort happens in Code Unknown. In the end of Code Unknown when the woman locks her husband out of their apartment by changing the code we feel no emotion. So what. We are just glad the movie is finally over. Save your time and don't bother with this film. See Short Cuts instead.
Code Unknown is yet another film in that great tradition of pointless slice-of-life (often French) films. Unless you're a big fan of films that act as if the viewer is an unwelcome intruder and are long on empty quiet moments and short on plot and traditional narrative, this film may not be for you. My general problem with slice-of-life films that have little or no plot is this: why bother? If you want to watch life why not watch your own? Plot and narrative exist for a reason--they make a world that is more interesting than everyday life. Slice-of-life films seem to combine the worst of real life and art. And people wonder why these movies aren't more popular.
In Code Unknown an event occurs on a busy Paris city street early on in the film and then we are left to watch what happens to the lives of those who participated in that event. The event occurs when a brooding and spoiled young man tosses a used bag on the lap of a woman beggar. A young African man stops him and demands that he apologize to her. Of course, the police are soon summoned and it is the African man who is arrested. The film jumps back and forth between the various lives of those connected to the event but with little or no explanation of what is going on. In one particularly maddening scene, a woman finds a written note on her front door. She is immediately concerned. What does the note say? We are never told, not even in incidental dialogue. She suspects that her neighbor across the hall has written the note, but when she confronts the old woman, the old woman denies it. Later, she tells her husband of the note but he insists she should mind her own business. So what was the note all about? We can only vaguely guess. I suppose to string together a list of unrelated events and offer little or no explanation of what is going on, especially when one is clearly needed, can be mistakenly called clever filmmaking. I call it lazy.
If you are bent on watching a slice-of-life movie that follows people around in their daily lives as they live and lie and make mistakes and act and react as their lives intersect with other strangers, then may I suggest Robert Altman's Short Cuts. It is an infinitely more pleasing and interesting film. In Altman's film you are allowed in on all conversations and inside details and you begin to care about characters and their lives. Nothing of the sort happens in Code Unknown. In the end of Code Unknown when the woman locks her husband out of their apartment by changing the code we feel no emotion. So what. We are just glad the movie is finally over. Save your time and don't bother with this film. See Short Cuts instead.