CODE 46
UK, 2003, 92 minutes, Colour.
Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton, Jeanne Balibar, Essie Davis.
Directed by Michael Winterbottom.
Code 46 is a futuristic film (with echoes of such films as Gattaca). In the not too distant future, climate has been change with cities like Shanghai surrounded by desert. People are confined to the cities because of climate changes. Travel is difficult and there is a need for "pappels", a kind of insurance and passport document which can be circulated illegally.
The focus of the film is on an insurance investigator, played by Tim Robbins, who comes to Shanghai from the United States. He has had an empathy virus implanted in him which enables him to detect criminals. However, he does not denounce the person circulating illegally the pappels, played by Samantha Morton. He falls in love with her. They spend the night together but then he returns to his family in Seattle. He discovers that she is a clone of his dead grandmother. There are complications with her being taken away, hospitalised, a pregnancy terminated, memories of all that experience eliminated. When he tries to escape with her, and goes also to another country, he tries to reactivate the memories. In a car crash, he is injured and taken to a hospital where all memories of these episodes are eliminated as well.
The film is brief, was shot on digital video, is quite striking in its use of locations (especially Shanghai, Dubai). The film creates an eerie look at the future, not by high technological special effects, but by showing familiar places in unusual ways and by using ordinary hospitals, offices as scenes for something sinister underlying them. The film was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce who had written many screenplays for director Michael Winterbottom, Jude, 24-hour Party People, The Claim.
1. The collaborations of Frank Cottrell Boyce and Michael Winterbottom? The fruitful collaboration, strong screenplays, strong direction? The variety of films?
2. The interest in the near future, extrapolation of contemporary problems to the future: climate changes, travel and communication, supervision and technological control of people, psychological improvement by drugs, the threat of terrorism?
3. Science fiction, science fact? Exploring possibilities of how human beings will interact, controlled? Human emotions and technological control? The question of who supervises and makes decisions?
4. The use of Shanghai as a modern city, with its poverty? The use of Dubai with the city surrounded by desert? The reality of these locations and yet the strange and eerie juxtaposition? The musical score, the songs?
5. Maria and her voice-over, her talking to William, her explaining the situation, her memories, the emotional changes? Her perceptions of herself, her work, her crime, the relationship with William?
6. Maria and her work, her illegal supplying of pappels? Seeing her at her desk space? Her boss? His concern about the crime in the office?
7. William, arrival from America, getting used to the strange situation in Shanghai? His empathy virus? Persuading people to let him in - by knowing their passwords? The discussion with the supervisor? The interviews with all the workers, their different life stories and elements of their life that they chose to offer him? His deciding not to report Maria? His reporting the other man who would lose his job? His later explaining that he thought Maria was an accomplice? The firm satisfied with his work?
8. His meeting Maria, their having a drink together, meeting Damien - his ambitions about bats, Maria later giving him a pappel, his death precipitating a crisis? William returning home with Maria, their love affair, the morning, his having to return to family? The contrast with his family in Seattle, his loving wife, his son and their joy to see him? The lifestyle in America?
9. Further problems in Shanghai, his having to return, his explanation about Maria? His search for her, finding her in the hospital? His discovering that she was pregnant? His persuading the nurse to allow him in? The discussions, his discovery that she had lost all memory of the sexual encounter, the father of her child, the pregnancy? The new relationship, his getting her away from the hospital? The lovemaking - but it interfering with her programming? His taking her DNA with the hair, the testing, the discovery that she was a clone of his own mother? The implications of this kind of forbidden relationship?
10. Their going on the holiday, escaping supervision? On the desert road, Maria kissing William, his losing control of the car, the crash?
11. William and his hospitalisation, the removal of these memories? His wife not being told the truth, the happy reconciliation with his wife and his child? Maria and her being relegated to nothing?
12. The psychological implications of relationships in this kind of world? The physical repercussions? The technological repercussions? The author of the screenplay alluding to the mythological aspects of the characters and the situations, forbidden situations, fate and destiny?
