CODE 46
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B+
United Artists
Directed by: Michael Winterbottom
Written by: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Cast: Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton, Om Puri, Jeanne Balibar,
Nabil Elouhabi, Togo Igawa
Screened at: MGM, NYC, 4/8/04
What would happen if you seated President Bush and his
attorney-general, John Ashcroft, in a screening room, and told
them that "Code 46" might conceivably represent the results of
their policies forty years from now? Michael Winterbottom's
thoughtfully provoking sci-fi pic would probably evoke mixed
reactions from the two major policy-makers, whose activities
during the past three-plus years have been globally resonant.
"Code 46" deals with cutting-edge issues like cloning,
globalization, global warming, and government control, with the
addition of an Oedipal incest theme that could have the two
honchos enthusiastic enough about globalization, in denial
about the global warming that their policies have advanced,
saying "I told you so" about the consequences of cloning, and in
favor of the ways that governments in the not-so-distant future
keep a tight lid through a rigorous stand on I.D. cards for their
citizens.
You might think that Winterbottom, whose most recent film "In
This World" (about a journey by a pair of young Afghani men
from a refugee camp in Peshawar to London) is going far afield
into Steven Spielberg-Ridley Scott territory by dealing with such
a futuristic landscape. A closer look, however, allows us to see
that there's a straight line from the director's interest in world
politics to his intriguing and actually credible vision of the
dystopian society that is to come. As with "Minority Report,"
"Code 46" deals with attempts of civil administrations to stop
crimes before they can happen. As with "Blade Runner,"
Winterbottom uses a handful of officials to track down people
who have made their way out of their appropriate orbits.
Though the production notes indicate that the budget for the
film was moderate, Frank Cottrell Boyce's script puts us in
Shanghai and Hong Kong, Dubai and Jaipur the locations used
to contrast life in big, efficient cities, the wasteland of the desert,
and the sort of exile that the unfortunate Greek King Oedipus
ultimately faced. Featuring the considerate acting talents of
Samantha Morton and recent Oscar-winner Tim Robbins, "Code
46" takes us on the journey of insurance investigator William
(Robbins) who is sent from Seattle to investigate a fraud carried
out by an employee, who is making fake papalles an I.D. card,
visa for travel and insurance policy emanating from the
Shanghai office of William's Sphinx Insurance Company.
Equipped with an "empathy virus" which allows him to read
people's minds, William quickly discovers that the culprit is the
sexually assertive Maria (Morton), but chemistry has a way of
frustrating criminal investigations. Soon Maria and William are
bedded, while (shades of "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless
Mind"), the government discovers Maria's pregnancy and
compels her to submit not only to an abortion but to an erasure
of her memory. She has violated Code 46, the text of which
should not be revealed here lest it undermine the surprises.
When Winterbottom is not honing in on the fast-developing
relationship of the loving couple, he exposes a view of the
Brave New Society whose global warming has converted much
of the world into a barren wasteland, while shortages of
necessities like oil have condemned a large part of the
population into outcastes both literally and figuratively people
who have been denied valid papalles and therefore exist on the
fringe. Sophisticated identification technology effectively
prevents the dispossessed from entering into cities, while
genetic engineering, so despised by Bush and Ashcroft, has
had at least disastrous consequences for the two lovers.
As the critic David Thomson states in his film encyclopedia,
Winterbottom has embraced a single theme: that of lost souls
who are putting on a busy display of being safe and sound.
Among the many themes covered by this effort is the idea that
we tend to love people most like ourselves, which is to say that
ultimately, we marry people who most reflect our own values
and even our own physical features. Technology has not led to
happiness but has in fact consumed whatever natural bounties
we have been afforded since the days of Eden. A prospective
audience hoping for "Robocop" or "Hellboy" will be disappointed
by the pacing and emotional frigidity depicted here, but those
who like their science fiction to be realistic commentary on
today's society, on experiments being conducted this very
moment, will be rewarded.
Rated R. 92 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at
Harveycritic@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
38380
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1302229
X-RT-TitleID: 1134465
X-RT-SourceID: 570
X-RT-AuthorID: 1123
X-RT-RatingText: B+
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