It is not that I hate mainstream cinema. It is perfectly fine. There are a lot of people who need to escape, because they are in very difficult situations. But this has nothing to do with an art form. An art form is obliged to confront reality. -- Michael Haneke
Austrian film director Michael Haneke (born in 1942), is an internationally acclaimed Cannes Film Festival winner and relatively new to the American audience. After working in the Sudwestfunk Theater Company and creating television plays for many years, he began making feature films with the SEVENTH CONTINENT in 1989. Since then his prominent works have included BENNY’S VIDEO (1992), 71 FRAGMENTS OF A CHRONOLOGY OF CHANCE (1994), FUNNY GAMES (1997), THE CASTLE (1997), CODE UNKNOWN (2000), THE PIANO TEACHER (2001) AND CACHE (2005).
CODE UNKNOWN (Code Inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages, 2000) is more than a film. Once Michael Haneke brings his inside out, when his characters express themselves, then their feelings may also become yours, if you respond to them. If you sympathize, then you might have ‘fellow feeling’. If you do not understand, you might feel alienated from CODE UNKNOWN.
As Haneke points out, CODE UNKNOWN is “the incomplete tales of several journeys in which your journey might take place within the problems of immigration, racism, discrimination, uncommunicative relations, superstitions and war. It expresses itself in the wordless game of deaf students, in the search of Jeanne (Alexandre Hamidi), in the anger of French-African Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke), in the cry of Amadou’s mother (Maimouna Hélène Diarra), in the scream of Parisian Anne (Juliette Binoche), in the hardness of Jean’s dad (Josef Bierbichler), in the desperation of Romanian Maria (Luminita Gheorghiu), in the vulgarism of the young Arab (Walid Afkir) and in the war photographs of Georges (Thierry Neuvic). More than that, Haneke shows how people are stranded in the modern world’s conditions. Between the lines each character indicates different point of views. After taking war pictures, Georges returns to Paris from Kosovo. He notes with irony that Paris is more complicated whereas in Kosovo everything is simple. Another one of Haneke’s characters, Jean, wishes to leave the simple village life that he lives.
The stories of CODE UNKNOWN are like Russian matryoshka dolls. There are films within the film. Particularly, scenes of Anne’s rehearsals and dubbing serve as a reminder that you are watching another film. Different stories present multiple choices in a parallel editing which reinforces curiosity throughout the film. CODE UNKNOWN tells each story in a fragmented way. At the end some of the stories are coincidentally related, on the other hand some of them have no relation at all. This fragmentation is pronounced by a fade out between the stories. When you see the screen fade to black for the first time, you may think a technical problem has occurred; instead Haneke is only reminding you of himself. This is not what you expect from a director. Haneke knows that he is not dealing with mainstream cinema spectators and he wants to indicate that CODE UNKNOWN is not real although it deals with the reality. This film is not a casual escape created to relax you; it is as tough as the coldness of reality in each story.
The characters of CODE UNKNOWN are neither good nor bad. There is rarely a judgment about the characters, since Haneke captures them in a calm and detailed way. On the other hand in each story, you find the deeply affecting human nature. Haneke’s characters are confronted by the lack of emotion and empathy between each other. CODE UNKNOWN is the mourning of passionless souls like many people in today’s world. Georges best characterizes this gloomy outlook as he answers Anne’s question: “Is there anyone you made happy?” Haneke does not see anything good in today’s world; that is why he attempts to confront the evil sides of world in his films.
Like in his previous works, Haneke is again in the search for reality and illusion in CODE UNKNOWN. His characters are the passive victims of real life, they are as real to us as they seem. It is not very surprising to see that Haneke would raise the questions and leave them unanswered. He has said “I think it is one of the most important things for a filmmaker: to use the fantasy of the viewer. The audience has to make their own pictures, and whatever I show means the fantasy of the viewer.” Haneke lets the spectator find the answers, because, as he thinks, “If you give the answer, you lie”. That is why at the beginning and end of the film, several deaf children play charades and all of us are attempting to find the answer. The children have guessed: “Alone. Hiding Place. Gangster. Bad Conscience. Sad. Imprisoned.” Which is the answer for you?
-- Ozde Celiktemel, Austin Film Society Member and History Graduate, Bosphorus University, Istanbul, Turkey
Sources
• Turkish web discussion on Haneke
