a film by Michael Haneke
On a busy Paris boulevard, a youth scornfully tosses a crumpled paper bag into the outstretched hands of a beggar woman. This is the bond which, for an instant, links several very different characters. The course of their lives has been determined by an encounter with people they will never even know, and the film explores each life in turn following this chance event.
Anne, an actress who travels from movie to movie. Her boyfriend Georges, a war photographer whose images express great pain and suffering. His father, a farmer in northern France, and younger brother Jean, who contrary to his father's wishes, has no interest in inheriting the farm and has fled to Paris. Amadou, a music teacher in an institute for deaf-mute children, and his family who originate from Africa. And Maria, a Romanian immigrant who has returned to Paris after being deported for begging.
Code Unknown is a complex series of free-standing vignettes, a patchwork of sequences shot in real time. It is a fascinating study of powerful emotional forces, subtle connections and the barriers between people, social classes, and races – and the difficulty of communicating in the modern world.
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