Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys is the most technical film of Austrian director Michael Haneke. Haneke is known for his minimalist approach both in technical and artistic terms. His editing is always meticulous and the cinematography and narratives are eccentric to say the least. Code Unknown follows the lives of four characters and their families who manage to somehow create havoc to each others existence. The film is composed of 46 scenes of which most are tracking shots, the longest lasting approximately nine minutes, without cuts.The scenes are abruptly cut, separated by a black screen that creates a mosaic reality, which is also visible in the narrative of the film.
(Horton 2001) Haneke's films scrutinize the modern world, and Code Unknown especially explores communication and its importance in society and alienation that the contemporary world creates. The most visible form of cinematography in the film Code Unknown is the long take. Nearly all scenes are made with few or no cuts. The long take is an alternative to a series of shots, and is a strong creative resource.A long take, in this case, evokes emotions in the viewer without forcing it. In a series of short takes, the viewer is mentally jumping from an illusion to the next, without receiving a chance to explore the scene.
(Wyss 2008) In Code Unknown, the viewer is encouraged to supply their own conclusions about what is unfolding in front of them. The film consists of static sequences from a single perspective to avoid patronizing or manipulating the viewer. (Haneke 2004) Haneke uses the long take in Code Unknown to emphasize the importance of communication between the characters.The longest take of nine minutes, in the beginning of the film, tracks the four characters as they walk on a busy street in Paris.
As they pass each other and finally collide, they are at a loss for words to diffuse the situation. The camera follows Jean as he tries to flee the scene, and there is a static medium shot of Amadou failing to explain the situation to the police. Another similar scene is when Jean returns home after running away to Paris.The static shot of the father eating when Jean accompanies him, with only a few words muttered, creates a very tense mbiance that continues as the father follows the camera into the bathroom to sit by himself. The bleak scene lasting a few minutes does not specifically add to the narrative, but the viewer senses an emotional distance and longing between the characters.
Even though the cinematography in Code Unknown is the form the viewer might draw attention first, Haneke also uses editing to further the theme of miscommunication. His use of abrupt cuts between scenes carry out a sense of discontinuity, not only in the narrative, but in the relationships between characters.Cutting scenes in the middle, even in the middle of sentences, at times, is an extremely rare way of editing and used mostly in European art house cinema. This method leaves the viewer unsure of the events that are unfolding before them, in comparison to commercial film editing, where the viewer is kept tightly in the know. (Wheatley 2009, p. 117) The way Code Unknown is edited, it seems that scenes are randomly put together and do not co-exist with narrative, except when thinking of the themes of miscommunication and alienation.
The scene of the beggar's deportation is a perfect example of this discontinuity, since the scenes before it and after it have no connection to this particular scene. A static shot of a boarding airplane that shows random persons getting on the airplane, does not ring any bells in the viewers head, since the narrative did not let on that anyone was going on a trip. Finally after a few minutes the beggar is escorted on the plane by police officers, and when she is on the plane, the scene is again quickly cut into a scene that does not relate.Haneke gives his viewers little pieces of information in every scene, which he expects the viewer to put together. The characters will never meet each other or learn of the others fates, even though the viewer is desperately waiting for this to happen.
The blunt editing and even the lack of it hints that Code Unknown is only a presentation of different characters and their actions towards each other. Haneke uses other forms of editing on top of his blunt cutting methods. The montage presentation of photograph still lifes with narration is an interesting disunity to the rest of the film.The first set of approximately 20 photographs that represent the terrors of war in Eastern Europe are presented with Georges reading a letter in the background. The narration and the photographs are both passive ways of storytelling, which again emphasizes the lack interaction between characters.
The second set of photographs are shots secretly taken of exhausted people sitting in the Underground of Paris. The way they are portrayed, alone and in deep thought installs a sense of alienation into the viewer. All the characters in the film are usually presented on their own or with strangers.The problems they undergo, they deal with alone, with really no help from others. The lack of communication and alienation can uniquely be presented by the photographs, since they do not require an interaction. The usage of photographs, as well as the long take, also leaves the viewer to co-create the image in their heads, since only so little is told.
The other of the two disunities in the film editing is the scenes of The Collector,a film that is being shot in Code Unknown. Haneke is known for his critique of commercial cinema and its fast continuity editing.In the scenes of The Collector, a thriller genre film, Haneke used fast cuts to emphasize the manipulation of the viewer that is usual in Hollywood action and thriller films. The juxtaposing of these two different methods articulate the observational style in which Haneke shoots his films.
"The reduction of montage to a minimum tends to shift responsibility back to the viewer in that more contemplation is required. " says Michael Haneke. (Haneke 2004) The scenes from the The Collector were easier to watch and follow, but there was no deeper meaning in them.The previously analysed themes were not present, so the scenes really did feel like they were from a completely different film. The viewer did not have to give thought or find their own conclusions, since all the work that was to do to uncover the scene was done for them.
Code Unknown portrays its characters in various ways with the help of cinematography. Some characters are presented in close medium shots, while some are shot from a far or apart of a group. The usage of cinematography in this case gives the characters different roles in the overall story.One of the only static close medium shots used in the whole film is of the mother of Amadou. She is shot from the front at a straight angle, which makes the scene entirely about her. In front of her is a man with whom she is talking with, but the man is only visible by the slight shot of his head.
The dialogue between them is represented almost as if the woman was talking to the viewer. In this sense she is only an individual character that does not interact with others. A completely different portrayal of a character is Anne who is never shot in a close-up except for the scenes from The Collector.In her scenes there is always something more important happening that is beyond her.
Because the cinematography is presenting her from a far, the viewer is more in tune with the sounds or the mise-en-scene, for example. The scene of her ironing in her living room shows her from a far medium shot that lets the viewer focus on more than just her character. The scene of her ironing has a far medium shot of her that shifts the attention, in this case, to the screaming heard from upstairs. Anne is not the main character of this scene anymore, it is the girl screaming, even though she is never shown on camera.Michael Haneke makes it difficult to uncover the meaning in Code Unknown, but with the help of editing and cinematography the themes of miscommunication and alienation can be discovered. Haneke uses his technical craftsmanship to slowly help the viewer to realize the purpose of the movie.
Cinematography in the form of a tracking long take emphasize the lack of communication and interaction between characters and the static medium shots make it obvious that the main characters are not always the most important parts of a scene.Abrupt editing creates a cracked, incomplete feel to the film that makes the viewer fill in the blanks, and the two disunities, such as the still lifes and the scenes of The Collector, reinforce the relationship between cinematography and editing in the film. Andrei Tarkovsky has said that "the true artistic image is always based on an organic link between idea and form" (Tarkovsky 1989, p. 26), and Haneke does just that. He supports his ideas with his technicality.
