Code Unknown

A wonderful film - A 100% AWFUL DVD!!!
This is wonderful, innovative film that combines multiple story lines and characters in a method that seems jarring but that has a finer interrelation of lives in mind than the usual narrative. That said, this is an absolutely AWFUL quality DVD edition of Code Unknown as released by Kino in the US.

The transfer is a LOW resolution, letterboxed, non-anamorphic, non-16:9 enhanced, heavily compressed dupe with poor color quality and heavy video artifacts throughout. It is without any added features whatsoever or the ability to turn off the subtitles. Kino is obviously representing some fine films, but if future releases by Kino follow the pattern of Code Unknown it will poison the well of any enthusiasm on the part of the discerning audience Kino depends on to buy copies of these sorts of films.

The Kino release of Code Unknown is being sold at a premium price, but has the quality of a cheap knock-off DVD, no better than buying a VHS tape.

Life Interupted......
This review refers to the Kino Video DVD(2002)edition of "Code Unknown...Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys"....

In a film written and directed by Michael Haneke("The Piano Teacher")we find a theme that seems to be recurring in several movies lately. That is the lives of several people, some strangers to each other, and mostly by happenstance, seem to intersect in fateful ways. Some of the other films with this theme are "Magnolia", and the "Three Colors Trilogy". In "Code Unknown", it is the actions of one individual, an adolescent boy, discontented with the direction his life is headed, that sets off a chain of events for those around him.

The story is a complex one, but rather intriguing.
Jean runs away from the farm and the life his father had planned for him. Jean is seeking refuge with older brother Georges, a journalist, away covering the events in Kosovo. Jean turns to Anne, Georges' actress girlfriend for help. She feels for him but has her own...

The deciphering of human enigmatic behavior...
Code Unknown begins with a scene where a a large group of hearing-impaired students are playing charades by acting out emotional behaviors. As the audience observes the scene it becomes clear that the students cannot decode the acted out emotional behavior. The story is in regards to the human inability to understand or read these behavioral cues as they are presented in society and Haneke embodies these cues through a number of "incomplete tales of several journeys". These "incomplete tales" consist of a large number of scenes that begin in the middle and end before the end, which suggests that the ultimate beginning or ending does not really exist since all interactions are linked to the consequences and are deciphered by each individual. Clever directing fuses these scenes together with distinct fade outs that seems to lead haphazardly to a different character's tale, yet within the disorder Haneke creates a neat methodology that presents several intriguing...

Click to Editorial Reviews