The Code of Silence

CODE INCONNU (CODE UNKNOWN)
Michael Haneke, 2000

Ah. The feeling of wanting to say something but can't say it. This dilemma is what Austrian auteur Michael Haneke explores in Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages (otherwise known as Code Unknown).

It all started with a piece of thrown garbage. From there we see a series of vignettes about various lives, people who are trapped in various worlds of silence.

Jean (played by Alexandre Hamidi), an angst-ridden farm lad, is sick and tired of his emotionally distant father (Sepp Bierbichler). He runs away to live with his brother, an out-of-the-country photojournalist (Thierry Neuvic). Instead, Jean finds his brother's girlfriend, Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche), who gives Jean the key to their apartment. Being the douchebag that he is, Jean throws a piece of garbage at Maria (Luminița Gheorghiu), a foreigner begging on the street because she just lost her job as a newspaper vendor. Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke), a Frenchman of African origin, sees Jean's rudeness and demands Jean to apologize to the old lady; when Jean refuses to do so, the two guys fight, causing the police and Anne to enter the scene.

Communication, or the lack thereof, takes the center stage in Code Unknown. In this film, Haneke shows us different kinds of muteness: physical, foreign, forced, and self-inflicted.

Haneke Ranked

At its best, film should be like a ski jump. It should give the viewer the option of taking flight, while the act of jumping is left up to him.

– Michael Haneke

Along with Schubert, Romy Schneider, Helmut Berger, Christoph Waltz, and vienna sausage — I refuse to include The Terminator — Michael Haneke is one of Austria's national treasures.

(Just some trivia: Haneke is somewhat related to Waltz.)

I often recognize a Michael Haneke movie every time I see one. Abrupt transitions. Random shots of mundane things. Static shots. Isabelle Huppert. Susanne Lothar. Juliette Binoche. The names "Anne" and "George" and their variation. Long shots. And no music, because according to him: "usually music is used to hide a film's problems."

Rebellion Against Routine

THE SEVENTH CONTINENT
Michael Haneke, 1989

Have you ever felt drowned in your routine? So drowned that you want to off yourself like a goldfish jumping out of an aquarium?

The Schobers are a well-off Austrian family who plans to migrate to Australia, the seventh continent. But why the f*ck would they leave behind a good life just to risk it all in a place they've never been to before? Michael Haneke aims to answer that question — and the ones in this essay's first paragraph — in his existential feature film debut, The Seventh Continent.

The Seventh Continent shows the life and routine of a middle-class family. The film is divided into three chapters: 1987, 1988, and 1989.