Code 46 – 2003
Posted by Scott on 02 Apr 2008 at 01:16 pm | Tagged as: Overlooked Films
Day 3 of sci-fi week brings us an offering from one of my favorite directors, Michael Winterbottom. Varied and unafraid to experiment with genre and narrative, Winterbottom has delved into the past (Jude, The Claim, 24 Hour Party People), the present (In This World, A Mighty Heart), and finally the future with Code 46, a forgotten little opus that transports us to a future where love is defined through genetics and those without legal ID are exiled to a desert wasteland.
Tim Robbins plays William Weld, an ‘Intuitive’ who investigates fraudulent identifications called “papeles.” William travels to Shanghai to probe a company where fake papeles are being circulated. His prime suspect is Maria Gonzalez (Samantha Morton), a free-spirited young woman whose cryptic dreams reveal her fate. William ignores Maria’s obvious guilt but can’t ignore his attraction to her. Together they hit the town for dinner and drinks, leading them back to Maria’s apartment. A night of passion ends with William flying home to Seattle, unaware that his brief affair has violated society’s most stringent law: Code 46.
His time home is cut short after hearing of a mysterious death in Asia. William returns to Shanghai only to find Maria has gone missing. He soon locates her at a hospital on the city outskirts; Maria believes she is there for a minor procedure, but William learns that her memory of him has been erased as punishment for breaking Code 46. William still exists in Maria’s dreams so they leave Shanghai fully aware the law forbids them to love. On the run, they realize their time together will not last.
Drawing similarities from the superb modern classic Gattaca, Code 46 presents a grim world where government restrictions disallow certain people to procreate. Winterbottom and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce present a tragic love story where science and technology are the real villains. Humans, armed with test tubes and petri dishes, blindly pursue perfection with no concern for the natural order of things. Love and sex are too messy. The science is true, but we can only hope that Code 46 remains fiction. Come on back tomorrow for day 4 of sci-fi week.
A scene from Code 46:
