On a bustling Paris streetcorner, four separate lives intersect, setting into motion a stunning film by acclaimed filmmaker Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Funny Games), which has been called "the most intellectually stimulating and emotionally provocative piece of European cinema of recent times." Carefully interweaving the stories of Anne, a promising actress (Juliette Binoche), her photojournalist boyfriend Georges (Thierry Neuvic), a young teacher of African descent (Ona Lu Yenke) and a Romanian illegal immigrant (Luminita Gheorghiu), Haneke crafts a compelling portrait of life in a fractured, lonely world. As these divergent stories gradually unfold, the seemingly unrelated lives prove to have very much in common, as they struggle for love and acceptance in society of locked doors and cold stares.

CODE UNKNOWN CODE INCONNU (DVD MOVIE)

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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.

13 of 17 found the following review helpful:

Life Interupted......Aug 22, 2003
By L. Shirley "Laurie's Boomer Views"
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 busy schedule to tend to and Jean is left frustrated and angry. In his frustration he throws a piece of trash down at a beggar woman and this seemingly minor infraction starts the wheels in motion for this unique take on lives connected by happenstance.

The film is shot in a way that takes you through bits and pieces of each life involved and then blacks out to the next. On returning to the indivdual stories, some time has passed and it seems it is up to the viewer to fill in the blanks. The final scene, shot with a mesmerizing musical piece, will still leave you thinking about it for quite some time. Haneke also interweaves scenes from a deaf children's school, where the students are pantomiming emotions, that also gets us to thinking.

Although, I did not feel as personal with these characters as I did with the "Three Colors Trilogy", I felt it was an intriguing story and well made film, that gives a realistic look at life and was absolutely worth the view. One that I will most certainly watch many more times.

Juliette Binoche stars as the up and coming actress and as always gives us a really true to life performance. Her co-stars include Thierry Neuvic,Sepp Bierbichler Ona Lu Yenke and Luminita Gheorghiu,(Whew... I hope I spelled all those right!)all turning in excellent performances as well.

The film is in French(mostly), with English subtitles. It is letterboxed(1.85:1)and is presented in Dolby Dig 2.0. The DVD picture was nice and clear for the most part and the sound was good.For a film made so recently, the transfer could have been better, but there was nothing that took away from the enjoyment of the film. The only thing that may be bothersome is if you want to watch it without the subtitles. I could not find a way to delete them. The subtitles are nice and clear but not in the black bar portion, they are at the bottom of the picture.

A nice one to add to your foreign film collection.
enjoy...Laurie

also recommended:
Three Colors Trilogy (Red / White / Blue) [Import](All-region)(Remastered)
La Sentinelle
La Passante du Sans-Souci [Region 2]

17 of 23 found the following review helpful:

A brilliant shot of European LifeNov 26, 2002

It is rare when watching a film, to see reality realistically depicted. Code Unknown is one of those rarities.

Haneke's film is a modest masterpiece, devastating in its honesty and sincerity. Taking "snapshots" of various peoples lives communicated in about 50 sequences he poses universal questions about conscience, consequence, communication and reality.

In her finest performance ever Juliette Binoche is stunning as the actress on the verge of success. Just watch her act straight to the camera in a terrifying scene that turns out not to be real at all, and then be harrassed on a train in a horrible episode that turns out to be too real.

Code Unknown is at times frustratingly opaque - like life. It is a film that has never been fully recognised for it's brilliance or originality. Unsurprising considering how difficult it is. Stick with it however and discover a richly satisfying film, worthy of repeat viewings and much argument.

As for the DVD. The quality is not great in it's full frame letterboxed transfer. The print is scratchy and the sound hollow. A huge pity. This film deserved a lot better.

10 of 13 found the following review helpful:

The deciphering of human enigmatic behavior...May 22, 2004
By Kim Anehall "www.cinematica.org"
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 tales. These tales deal with several social and political issues such as racism, love, attitude, poverty, and much more. Code Unknown displays the possibilities of great cinema as Haneke deliberately forces the audience into contemplative action through his creative scene constructions and challenging cinematography. In addition, the cast performs brilliantly, one example is a close-up shot of the character Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche) as she is preparing for a film role where she is going to die. This shot is modern film history as it personifies fear with cinematic brilliance. In the end, Code Unknown is cinematic art that leaves the audience with an enigmatic riddle of human behavior which is left for the audience to decipher as the story suggests.

5 of 6 found the following review helpful:

What we have here is a failure to communicate...Jul 19, 2006
By Trevor Willsmer
Code Unknown was a revelation. The first Michael Haneke film I've seen, I was surprised at how vitriolic the reviews have been here and on the film's IMDB page - arty-fartsy and incomprehensible seems to be the general concensus, yet I found it remarkably vital and accessible for a film revolving around race relations and everyday failures to communicate. Starting with an incident on a French boulevard where misinterpreted actions have consequences for all the wrong people, it proceeds in a series of incomplete scenes by people linked by the incident or their relationships with those involved, taking in a multi-ethnic city where so many people have shut off from those around them that they either fail to understand each others' problems or to even make the effort.

What's particularly interesting is that it plays on the audiences own prejudices and presuppositions - at one point we naturally assume that a young black character is seated away from the window booth he requested in a restaurant because of his color, but no: it's because he turned up 45 minutes late and the place is busy. Similarly, it doesn't presume that people in what are supposed to be empathetic or compassionate professions are inherently good - when Juliette Binoche's actress asks her war photographer boyfriend advice about the sounds of child abuse from a neighboring flat, he doesn't want to know and her anger is more because he won't give her an out but forces the situation back on her. Her solution: ignore it. Even the innocent victim of the opening incident has to admit with shame that she herself had done the same thing to people she looked down on. It's beautifully worked out with several powerful sequences that are uncomfortably familiar to city dwellers (the metro sequence is particularly powerful) and somehow comes across as exhilarating as it is uncomfortable.

Great filmmaking - although if you have a multi-region player you may be better off getting the UK PAL DVD for a better transfer than Kino's Region 1 disc (and it has a nice extras package, too).

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