ellkew A mesmerising film that spoke to me on so many levels. The opening sequence (after the deaf children) which kick starts the several narrative strands is such a brilliantly filmed sequence. An admittedly wrong act by a youngster (how often do we see that) which is responded to by a passer-by thus setting in motion a chain of events that touch the lives of various people. The sub-heading of the film 'Incomplete tales of several journeys' reminded me of '71 fragments....'. Life is incomplete, unfinished and things are not resolved. What Haneke is taking on board here is the responsibility as a filmmaker to present the fiction as honestly as possible. This is perhaps why he is interested in using the fixed camera approach. A sort of anti-Hollywood (if you like) shooting style. By minimising the shots and dispensing with editing within a sequence he is presenting something in real time and with the intent I imagine of being more honest and less manipulative. That said I think in a work of fiction it is still possible to present a narrative using a variety of shots to engage theviewer. As a filmmaker you are manipulating time but who said a filmmaker had to be true to the viewer. Film is fiction, even documentary. It could even be argued that documentary is less honest than fiction. What is truth? Or is film really the truth 24 times a second. We know who said that. So as a filmmaker just by presenting a narrative we are presenting fiction, however we show it for we are giving our interpretation of events, that we have written. Haneke is trying to straddle a fundamental problem here. One of truth. I think he fails in being honest but succeeds in making a superb piece of cinema. The acting is beyond reproach. Binoche excels herself in a scene which is a rehearsal for a film within the film. It is a fixed video camera filming her as she reacts to the direction given her by the director off camera. It is a wonderful scene. Another powerful scene is when Binoche is on the metro and is pestered by two youths. She moves seat but is confronted again. It is a brilliant example of how we are unable to break out of our rigid class system and confront what is happening around us. Afraid of the world around us. Tied to a rigid system of behaviour. Mute. The big bad city is all around us and it will chew us up and spit us out, whatever path we choose. We are slaves to its rules. I suppose Haneke is saying this is the route we are going down. He is also saying that often the route is out of our control. Meaning our lives are out of our control. We are at the mercy of chance encounters, brief moments that we pass by without acknowledging. These small instances are what really govern all our destinies and the incomplete time we spend here.

sansay I am French and I must say this is a rather disappointing movie. It starts well with an interesting event in which 5 persons are involved. Then we follow each of them in their own thread of life, switching from one to the other without any connection. This kind of scheme usually leads to some interesting plot where destinies cross each other. But not there. It just goes nowhere. And then it's real, real slow. I usually am an admirer of movies where you get the time to think, to observe an interesting scene. But not here. In this film many scenes linger on without any reason at all. It feels like we are just put on hold! What a bore.

Rogue-32 So this is my third foray into the cinematic world of Michael Haneke (the first two being the frustrating-but-still-good Cache and the brilliant La Pianiste). Code Unknown is definitely thought-provoking, on many levels. I appreciate the way he gives the film a secondary title, Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys; this warns us going in that what we will experience is not yer basic 3-act presentation with a beginning, middle and a spoon-fed end.Code Unknown is, instead, just what he tells us to expect - little 'snippets' of several different characters' lives, after these lives intersect near the start of the movie. Each scene goes to black just when we're either getting emotionally into it or trying to figure out why it's being shown in the first place. The first time this happened, in fact, I thought there was something wrong with the VHS copy I was watching (the movie is available in this format very cheaply, by the way, through half dot com). Once I realized this was part of the movie and started expecting it - Haneke has to train his viewers to experience his films! - this technique was bearable and of course a huge part of the film's structure, a clever and effective way to portray these incomplete journeys.I also appreciate how Haneke continually subverts the standard feature film process by finding creative ways to NOT tell his stories. He has a great quote here at IMDb where he states, "A feature film is twenty-four lies per second." I like that. And I mostly agree with him; the majority of commercial movies (the big mainstream blockbusters in particular, the formula-type movies) are worthless garbage because they show and tell us nothing new, it's the same crap recycled yet once again for mass consumption; they are films made without heart or soul, produced purely for the purpose of making money. This is not to say that there aren't some worthwhile mainstream movies created. I'm not a film snob, not one of those people who thinks that a film is worthwhile only if it has sub-titles and is filmed in blurry black and white with a rain-stained hand-held camera. I enjoy sitting in a dark theatre with popcorn sometimes, too, seeing a film that is not delving into the Big Unanswerable Questions of life on the planet. I can thoroughly get off on a light comedy, say, that leaves me smiling at the end, so long as it's well-written and has some sort of original slant in the way it's presented. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm almost always up for an intellectually stimulating film, the art film, the non-popcorn movie. He has another statement here at IMDb which I agree with 100%, about how when a book is read, that book is experienced differently by every reader because the reader brings his or her own perspective and perceptions along into the pages. He said he feels the same is true with a film, that no two people will see the same movie, and this is completely valid, no question. With Code Unknown, this is definitely the case. The thing I found most revealing, for me, while watching it, is how much I rely on finding someone in a movie that I can relate to, or sympathize with, or at the very least, like (or even strongly dislike). There was no character that fit any of those categories in Code Unknown for me, not really. But I still enjoyed the film because I realized it was challenging my own perception of what a film 'should' do for the viewer. I was watching a movie that was saying to me, "I didn't make this film so YOU could like it, this is THEIR story." And as the viewer, I could choose whether to keep watching or say "the hell with this." I chose to watch. At the end, I felt a little disoriented, sure, and not entirely certain of what I had seen. But we all feel like that, don't we, to some extent, every day.

EVOL666 CODE UNKNOWN is not my favorite of Haneke's films, but it is another well-made and interesting study. Dealing with topics that Haneke often tackles, such as relationships, socio-political relations, apathy, remorse, love, hate, prejudice, etc...CODE UNKNOWN is a semi-coherent film about a few individuals and their lives, related from a chance encounter...Jean is a teenager who leaves his father's farm and comes to Paris to visit his brother. His brother is a photographer who is in Kosovo filming war-material - and a random act on Jean's behalf (throwing a piece of trash on a beggar) sets off a chain-reaction that gives the audience a glimpse (often through short, sometimes unintelligible clips) into everyone affected by the incident...CODE UNKNOWN is not an "open-and-shut" sort of film, rather - it's a somewhat clinical look into several people's/families lives. Filmed in the "cold" style that Haneke is so well-known for, the audience is merely observers to the the happenings of the subjects in the film - and in the end, there's no real resolution or explanation. That annoys me about some of Haneke's films, but it tends to work in this one. Fans of his other films should check this out, if you've never seen anything of his before, I'd suggest perhaps FUNNY GAMES or BENNY'S VIDEO first, as they tend to be a bit more "straight-foward" and will prepare you for Haneke's unique style...7/10 for CODE UNKNOWN