Code 46
directed by Michael Winterbottom
directed by Michael Winterbottom
This older (2003) movie shared themes with such stories as Brave New World and Gattaca among others. It resonated with current day political, sexual, and cultural tensions. It's something of a film noir. And though I didn't think the two leads had great chemistry this wasn't a bad romance story.
If you read the New York Times or other liberal papers you will see that many urban intelligentsia believe that it's unfair that rural low population US states get the same votes in the US Senate as highly urbanized and highly populated states.
People often cite states such as either of the Dakotas, Montana, or Wyoming. Other people argue that nationalism and the nation state are retrograde concepts that should be dropped.
In their view people born in Shanghai or Mumbai should have the right to enter or live in New York City, Los Angeles, or Berlin just as much as people who were born in those cities. This means that there must be an evolution (I would call it a devolution) of political and economic authority away from the people, beyond the state or nation, to supra-national organizations and corporations.
Code 46 takes this change for granted. The viewer may feel differently but my point is that the film doesn't take sides. I would view this film as a dystopia but the characters themselves don't see it that way.
In the very near future, possibly because of climate change, the middle and upper class of humanity generally all live in cities. Travel in and out of most cities is highly monitored and restricted.
The common language is no longer English but a pidgin mix of Mandarin, English, Portuguese, and Hindi. People are able to purchase "viruses" that allow them to speak languages they don't understand or do other things which we would consider superpowers.
As mentioned you can't travel among cities without the proper documentation. These passports are called papelles. William Geld (Tim Robbins) is an insurance fraud investigator who's been assigned to find the person who's behind the latest round of forged papelles.
William can't exactly read minds or dominate people but he does have an empathy virus which allows him to come close to doing both of those things. In Shanghai William tracks down the forger, a young woman named Maria Gonzales (Samantha Morton).
But not only does William let the wrong head do the thinking when it comes to Maria, he's also strangely drawn to her for emotional, not physical, reasons. William identifies someone else as the forger. This doesn't fool William's bosses, who wonder if his empathy virus is interfering with his job. William is sent back to Shanghai and ordered to find Maria.
Upon his return William and the viewer see why he's so invested in Maria and what that will mean for both of them. The movie ran a little long but was still an interesting, if not always compelling, view of the limits of love and the awesome extent of state and corporate power. Violence is minimal. There is some full frontal female nudity. The cinematography gets you invested in the story even more than the actors.
