Code Unknown

Code Unknown (2000)
Directed by Michael Haneke
****

Some movies are popcorn movies, good for a laugh or an edge-of-your-seat gasp. Others take a completely different approach, serving up a work of art as polished and inviting as any painting or sonata. German director Michael Haneke specializes in films from the second category. Code Unknown, his fifth film, follows several people whose lives become connected and disconnected throughout the course of the film. In a masterpiece of understatement, Haneke's plot tantalizes us with bits of scenes, not necessarily in order, and leaves it up to us to tease out the back story, the character history, the significance of what has just happened. Illegal immigrants cross paths with an actress, a runaway, others whom we never meet but who are just as significant. We're left fascinated but with a sense of incompletion, as if we were allowed to be omniscient for 2 hours but wonder now if there's any Providence among all this wandering.