By reading the title: "Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages" which is translated as "Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys", you can already know what to expect. You'll get several story lines and none of them will be thoroughly explained or even finished. That means of course that there is a big chance you will not understand it or that you'll have to stay very focused from the beginning until the end. Personally I don't mind watching 'weird' movies with a special concept, but I know many people don't like it all that much.
"Code Inconnu" tells the story of several people who don't seem to have anything in common except for the place where they live: Paris. But what they don't always know is that their lives are all connected in one way or another. George, a young farm boy, wants to leave his silent father and wants to go living with his older brother in Paris. That brother is a photographer who covers the war in Kosovo and therefor can't let him in. He's upset and throws a bag of half-eaten pastry into a beggar's lap. A black man witnesses it all and sees it as a form of disrespect and racism towards the beggar. He starts a fight with George, which upsets Anne Laurent, the young men's sister-in-law. This fight also colors her relationship with her husband, when he returns from the war in Ex-Yugoslavia. In the meantime both the black man and the beggar have been arrested, the beggar is send back to Kosovo and Anne is the subject of racism herself when she is verbally attacked on the subway by some young Arabs...
The main problem that I had with this movie is that it never seemed to finish what it started. Michael Haneke, the director and writer of the script, has come up with an original idea, but should have stayed with only three or maximum four people. I understand that he wanted to show the world that we are all connected in one way or another and that we all affect each other's lives, but sometimes it was impossible to keep it all apart and to see it as one solid movie. It sometimes was a bit messy and I can understand that many people who don't like or who aren't very familiar with 'foreign' cinema, will not like it at all. Still, I don't have the feeling that Michael Haneke deliberately wanted to make this movie look like an arty and pretentious project. I just think that he was a bit too ambitious in his drive to make it all connect in one way or another.
By watching the acting, you can also see that he wanted his movie to be as normal and as natural as possible. Overall the acting is good. Especially Juliette Binoche did a nice job in my opinion. She understands the way to act naturally without to much extras and knows how to make her characters speak for themselves without having to act in a very obvious and theatrical way. I really appreciate that. But also the other actors did a nice job. I don't know many of them and can't remember I've ever seen them play in another movie, but what I said about Binoche also counts for them.
All in all this movie shows a portrait of Paris like many people don't want to see it. In this movie you'll not see Paris as the perfect and romantic City of Light. That's an image that only exists in Hollywood, with the touristic service of Paris and in the minds of young couples. In reality it is a noisy city full of traffic and hasty people. So in that perspective, I must say that Michael Haneke really showed Paris the way it really is. And yes, racism also is a part of that, just like it is in all the big cities...
As a conclusion I would like to say that it is a shame that the story has been divided in so many sub-stories, if only the directer had made a choice between some of them and had left the rest out of the movie, this might have been a masterpiece, because the acting and the idea behind it are really good. Now it's sometimes a bit messy and makes it a lot of the viewers loose all interest. I give this movie a 7/10.
