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IMDbPro

Code Unknown

Original title: Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages
  • 20002000
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 1h 58m
IMDb RATING
7.1/10
14K
YOUR RATING
Code Unknown (2000)
A young man harasses a homeless woman, another man protests, the police arrest both and the woman has to leave the country. What were their various story-lines leading up to this event?
Play trailer1:51
1 Video
70 Photos
  • Drama
A young man harasses a homeless woman, another man protests, the police arrest both and the woman has to leave the country. What were their various story-lines leading up to this event?A young man harasses a homeless woman, another man protests, the police arrest both and the woman has to leave the country. What were their various story-lines leading up to this event?A young man harasses a homeless woman, another man protests, the police arrest both and the woman has to leave the country. What were their various story-lines leading up to this event?
IMDb RATING
7.1/10
14K
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Michael Haneke
  • Writer
    • Michael Haneke
  • Stars
    • Juliette Binoche
    • Thierry Neuvic
    • Josef Bierbichler
Top credits
  • Director
    • Michael Haneke
  • Writer
    • Michael Haneke
  • Stars
    • Juliette Binoche
    • Thierry Neuvic
    • Josef Bierbichler
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 76User reviews
    • 76Critic reviews
    • 74Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 2 wins & 4 nominations

    Videos1

    Trailer [OV]
    Trailer 1:51
    Trailer [OV]

    Photos70

    Juliette Binoche in Code Unknown (2000)
    Michael Haneke in The Seventh Continent (1989)
    Code Unknown (2000)
    Code Unknown (2000)
    Code Unknown (2000)
    Code Unknown (2000)
    Thierry Neuvic in Code Unknown (2000)
    Code Unknown (2000)
    Code Unknown (2000)
    Juliette Binoche and Thierry Neuvic in Code Unknown (2000)
    Code Unknown (2000)
    Juliette Binoche in Code Unknown (2000)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Juliette Binoche
    Juliette Binoche
    • Anne Laurent
    Thierry Neuvic
    Thierry Neuvic
    • Georges
    Josef Bierbichler
    Josef Bierbichler
    • The Farmer
    • (as Sepp Bierbichler)
    Alexandre Hamidi
    • Jean
    Maimouna Hélène Diarra
    • Aminate
    • (as Helene Diarra)
    Ona Lu Yenke
    • Amadou
    Djibril Kouyaté
    • The Father
    Luminita Gheorghiu
    Luminita Gheorghiu
    • Maria
    Crenguta Hariton
    • Irina
    • (as Crenguta Hariton Stoica)
    Bob Nicolescu
    • Dragos
    Bruno Todeschini
    Bruno Todeschini
    • Pierre
    Paulus Manker
    Paulus Manker
    • Perrin
    Didier Flamand
    Didier Flamand
    • The Director
    Walid Afkir
    • The Young Arab
    • (as Walide Afkir)
    Maurice Bénichou
    Maurice Bénichou
    • The Old Arab
    Carlo Brandt
    Carlo Brandt
    • Henri
    Philippe Demarle
    • Paul
    Marc Duret
    Marc Duret
    • The Policeman
    • Director
      • Michael Haneke
    • Writer
      • Michael Haneke
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Michael Haneke began the project when Juliette Binoche wrote to him expressing an interest in working with him.
    • Quotes

      Anne Laurent: Look over by the wall. That's the black kid who harassed Jean. Don't let him see...

      [abrupt cut]

    • Connections
      Featured in Mein Leben: Michael Haneke (2009)

    User reviews76

    Review
    Top review
    7/10
    unknown code = no access to any life
    Paris, in the year 2000. A thoughtless gesture (a scrap of paper thrown in the hands of a beggar) causes a general altercation. As a matter of fact, the Austrian film-maker Michael Haneke goes from this incident to relate bits of various characters' lives. There's among others, Anne (Juliette Binoche), an actress who travels from movie to movie. Her husband, Georges a war photographer whose photos express pain and suffering from the countries he visited. Jean who fled from his father's farm in the north of France to come to Paris. Amadou who works in an institute for deaf and dumb children and Maria, a Romanian woman who has trouble to make ends meet by begging. Like "71 Bits" (1994), Haneke's movie is a patchwork of sequences shot in real time and interrupted with short black screens to have a break and in the same time to think about the sequence shot we have just seen.

    Shortly before the incident when Jean wants to go to Anne's flat, the latter tells him the code of her flat: "if you want to enter my flat, the code of my building is B4718". I'm not sure whether it's the right code but the building could epitomize a metaphor of a man's life. Every man's life is similar to a building kept generally by a code. The title of the film is rather easy to understand. The famous "unknown code" is a blocked access to any character's real life. This code is unknown for the strangers who surround him or her and as a consequence they don't known anything of his or her real life. It's this situation that is represented in Haneke's movie.

    On the surface, "Unknown Code" seems more breathable than Haneke's previous works and looks like a "Magnolia" (1999) à la Francaise. Michael Haneke juxtaposes different characters'different lives belonging to different social classes. They have apparently nothing in common except maybe that their own lives are kept by this unknown code for the others. However, they are affected by terrible sorrows which paralyze the Western society without this latter realizes it. In this Haneke's opus, there's neither the uppercut of "Benny's video" (1992), nor the icy violence of "Funny Games" (1997) but through an accurate study of these different journeys, a quiet, impressive of rigor making, the director offers a disillusioned and black vision of this society. So, he remains faithful to his favorite topics: the difficulty of communication (Amadou who tries to explain in a clumsy way his anger in front of Jean's unconsidered gesture). The way in which violence has become a feature of everyday life in a society which has become insensible to it (we can remember perfectly the sequence shot when Anne irons, she can hear shrill cries near her. She hesitates then resumes to iron). The omnipresence of racism and the insurmountable barrier of social classes (the scene in the tube is a grievous example). They are serious topics that are generally way off cinema's regular radar. It takes all Haneke's courage to explore them. Something he has relentlessly done since "the Seventh Continent" (1989). So, "Unknown Code" is a logical extension of Haneke's obsessions. To come back to the characters, they feel either humiliated either difficulties to communicate. When it crosses our minds that we live inside this distressing universe, it sends shivers down our spines. Once again Herr Haneke stirred some of the viewers's deep fears.

    So, ultimately, "Unknown Code" isn't as accessible as Haneke's other works by its nonexistent linear narration and the seriousness of its theses but I think that it's a winner in Haneke's work. Of course, to watch a movie that breaks narrative conventions and expresses deeply pessimistic things is not for all tastes and that's partly why there'll never be general agreement about the famous Austrian film-maker but at least this movie brings to the light of day, thorny subjects hidden in the obscurity of cinema. It is a worthy movie far better than Hneke's next opus, "the Pianist" (2001) but that's another story...
    helpful•57
    9
    • dbdumonteil
    • Jun 2, 2005

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • November 30, 2001 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • France
      • Austria
      • Romania
      • Germany
    • Official sites
      • Atalanta Filmes (Portugal)
      • Juliette Binoche: The Art of Being - Official Fansite
    • Languages
      • French
      • Romanian
      • Malinka
      • French Sign Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys
    • Filming locations
      • Mali
    • Production companies
      • Arte France Cinéma
      • Bavaria Film
      • Canal+
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $95,242
    • Gross worldwide
      • $95,242
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 58 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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