LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Code 46
built 657 days ago
When scraped clean of its doublespeak, Code 46 is a simplistic fable. Boy attempts to arrest Girl but falls in love, and we’re meant to accept their love as the sublime thing that happens when two people make eye contact from across the room. (They call it genetics instead of fairy tales in science fiction.) The Boy agrees not to arrest the Girl, and they sleep together. This causes a chain reaction that forces the Boy to return to the Girl in order to finish his original job, and find out more than he bargained for. Since it’s well-acted, well-photographed, and well-researched (with a futurescape as thought through as Minority Report), sleepwalking viewers may take it to be profound. No — it's just hokum.
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Code 46 is more of a sci-fi Wings of Desire than a Blade Runner retread. Robbin's character is as detached from Maria as the angels in Wings of Desire are from the life in Berlin. He's part of the future, augmented by technology and able to travel the world at will. Maria is a link to a simpler life. She wants to leave the sprawl of Shanghai for Jebel Ali, a place she sees as a promised city.
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When Michael Winterbottom presented an unfinished version of “Code 46” at the Venice and Toronto festivals last autumn, he came in for some pretty heavy criticism. Those lucky (or unlucky) enough to attend the first screenings described the film as an “all-over-the-place experience” – a style-over-substance story with no real chemistry between the leads (Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton) and a few storylines that went nowhere. Apparently Winterbottom took the criticism to heart, for he went back to the editing room, re-cut “Code 46” until it formed a coherent whole, and started experimenting with the soundtrack. When he was done, he took his new version of the film to Rotterdam and presented it at the RIFF, taking pains to emphasise that this wasn’t the final cut, either. Apparently, he is thinking of reverting to the original music (whatever that was) and of making some changes to Samantha Morton’s voice-over.
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Obviously, the success of Code 46 will hinge in large part upon the performances of the thespians portraying William and Mary. That makes Winterbottom's casting of 2004 Academy Award Best Actor and Actress nominees Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton something of a masterstroke. Principal photography occurred in the first quarter of 2003, so whether by luck or fate, the timing of their nominations is serendipitous for the $7.5 million production. The fact that both are among the finest talents of their generation counterbalances the potentially off-putting pseudo-incestuous subject matter to a large degree. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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The story of ‘Code 46’ is complex and takes time to become clear even with Maria giving a retrospective voiceover narration. This is not your obvious science fiction movie with high-tech gadgetry and visuals to provide the proof of advanced time, but relying heavily on rules and language to imply it is set somewhere in the future. English is spoken, yet it is interspersed with many other languages, often with only one word interchanged – “papelles” being an example, which are a form of visa.
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Afterward, Maria enters a somnambulistic state ... caused by her virus which forces her to report the further Code 46 violation to the authorities. She is unconscious of this though William is aware of the virus's reaction. They then rent an old car and travel away to escape the authorities who are tracking them. William eventually crashes the car while avoiding a collision with pedestrians, while Maria is playing with the steering wheel, and they are both knocked unconscious.
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Code 46