Timecode 2000

Using split-screen technique, Timecode 2000 tells four stories simultaneously, all centered around the offices of Hollywood production company Red Mullet.

Rose (Salma Hayek) is an aspiring actress sleeping her way to the top. Her jealous lover Lauren (Jeanne Tripplehorn) suspects Rose's infidelity and plants a bug on her. Thus, Lauren catches Rose in the act with Alex (Stellan Skarsgaard). His marriage to Emma (Saffron Burrows) is in crisis.

The stories of the four main characters intertwine, ultimately intersecting in the finale.

Like the Dogme 95 films, it's difficult to tell if Time Code 2000 is supposed to be taken seriously, as a piss take, or as both.

As soon as I heard of the film I thought of the likes of Vertov and Eisenstein. And, sure enough, they are among the names checked by one of the filmmaker characters within Timecode 2000. Yet, the producer within the film says this is a load of pretentious crap and calls the filmmaker's bluff.

One wonders if Figgis really knows or understands what he's doing here. One the one hand, he's made an aleatory, democratic, highly participatory experimental digitally shot film. On the other, he's used the sound mix to lessen these elements and focus our attentions on one corner of the screen at once, producing a more conventional viewing experience.

Is he trying to make an experimental work but failing because his audio and visual elements work against each other's intentions, or is he successfully pointing to the irreconcilable contradictions inherent in doing such an experimental work?

On the plus side the digital cinematography is easy on the eyes and the sound mix easy on the ears. On the down side it's hard to care about any of the manipulative, shallow, substance abusing main or subsidiary characters. One wishes they would all just do a Leaving Las Vegas and drink or poison themselves to death.

Uniquely rich or just the emperor's new clothes? You decide.