communication breakdown

Movie Review: Timecode (2000)

[ 2 / 10 ] I respect creativity, innovation, and thinking outside the box as much as anyone. I recognize that great leaps forward in human history are often the result of one person standing out against the crowd. But there's one catch: there has to be a context, a driving purpose. Innovation for the sake of being innovative is relatively meaningless. But this is what director Mike Figgis has given us in "Timecode" - an experiment in being experimental. There's no greater purpose, no higher good in this film: it is pure pretentiousness...

This review will be short for two reasons: first and foremost, I didn't like the film, so I'm not going to belabor it much. But second and equally as important, there isn't much to tell. Here's what you need to know about this film: it consists of multiple stories, all shown at the same time, which each occupty a quarter of the screen. It is also the first film to be created from a single take. Impressive? Yes. Redeeming in and of itself? Unfortunately not.

Essentially, the story is about a day in the life of several Hollywood types - a film producer, his wife, his lover, several other movie execs, and some aspiring actors. But what happens to them? Outside of some earthquakes, tame discussions (which you mostly can't hear), a little romance, and a minor surprise ending, not much. Not much at all.

Here's the problem with "Timecode": the story is weak. So weak in fact that it will be a challenge for viewers to stay focused, made all the more difficult by the fact that your eyes are drawn to 4 different places at once. Figgis attempts to control this by adjusting the audio from one screen to the other at certain points, but this does little to lessen your uncomfortability. But there just isn't much here to capture your interest, outside of the physical presence of the filming style itself. The characters, though portrayed well (all of the scenes were improvised by a very talented cast), don't portray very captivating characters. And this is understandably so, since you're unlikely to be able to build much character development with 4 screens running simultaneously.

If the story was particularly gripping, or for some reason suited to this format, I could make exceptions. Maybe if it was worth watching multiple times, to make sure you caught every nuance of a complicated story, I could understand. But the story isn't worth watching even once, let alone in such a frustrating environment. There has to be payoff, some kind of reward for a patient audience - but there really is none.

I can't recommend this film. I can't even cut it slack for being a "directorial project" intended for aspiring directors - if this were the case, it should have been left as a private project that is viewed in film school, not released as an independent film. When a movie is distributed to the public, it must deliver (on one level or another) as entertainment - in this sense, "Timecode" fails utterly. All I can do is give the director points for his creative spirit. 2 points, to be exact - out of 10.