Title: Code 46 |
Release Date: 2004 |
Nationality and Language: UK/China, English |
Running time: 92 min |
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Distributor and Production Company: United Artists/ |
Director; Writer: Michael Winterbottom, wr Frank Cottrell Boyce |
Producer: |
Cast: Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton, Jeanne Balibar |
Technical: HDCAM Cinemascope format SDDS Digital |
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Review: First, a “Code 46” violation is an illegal conception—you got it, in a futuristic society that has tried to create a kind of Spartan social utopia in a dying planet. The term somehow makes me think of “FDCPA violation” (for debt collectors). What fascinates me about this movie is the visual
encyclopedia of a world reduced to simple social hierarchy. The well-off and
privileged or established live in cities, but only with permits. The proles like in the desert—yes, the world has pretty much
turned to a The “story” itself is less compelling. An investigator,
William (Tom Robbins) travels from his family enclave in I have authored a treatment myself, called “Prescience,” which might become a novel or screenplay. After an alien invasion, survivors have escaped to a second Earth a hundred or so light years away where there is one inhabited Atlantis-like continent. There is a top social caste of young adults that is allowed full use of technology and self-expression. People are expected to mature into family-formation, in a ring of suburbs. But there is no fiat money, only a “treasury of merit.” But you can get kicked out, and then you are exiled to the countryside, where you can have capitalism if you want—and the battle is to catch up technologically before the second Earth is destroyed by an approaching Brown Dwarf. Getting kicked out is both a profoundly pleasurable and catastrophic experience. Funny, though, real art and music, however homemade, are flourishing only in the countryside. Then there is the question of body art. Anyway, this film comes kind of close. |
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