The aspects of globalization that are seen in this film are not as pronounced as they are in some of the other films we have seen. One of the main plot points of this film is that Maria works for the government, making papelles, or papers for traveling. The papers are seemingly a hot commodity and she gets a lot of money faking them for people. I think it might be safe to say she is not making very much money at her job so she feels like she needs to do this to make more money. Her apartment is not terrible, just a little dingy. It seems she lives a good life for having lived on the “outside” for most of her younger life.
I think the concept of the “outside” in this film is the closest thing we see to the types of globalization we have seen previously. The poorer people living outside of the cities, basically ignored by the government because they are nothing and they have no influence. It is sad to me that Maria got exiled for being with William even though she didn’t remember him the second time and it should have been William that got in trouble instead of having his mind erased and being returned to his family. These poor people that live outside the cities, with no real “comforts” are reminiscent of some of the people and families we saw in The Workingman’s Death. They don’t have a lot of technology, when the people inside the cities clearly rely on a great deal of technology in their daily lives.
In a New York Times review of the film by A. O. Scott, he says “Filming on location in places like Shanghai and Dubai, in the sterile fluorescence of ultramodern airports and hotels and in impoverished outlying regions, he delineates a time of global mobility, extreme inequality and radical loneliness, distilling the fugitive moods of contemporary life into an ambience of muted, abstracted longing.” I think the idea of global mobility is very true of this film. If you have the papers you can travel basically anywhere you want but it is very difficult to get those papers, unless you have a great deal of influence. This again points out the great differences between the people that live in the cities and the people that live outside.
Code 46 takes the viewer into a futuristic dystopian world. It seems that large cities have been gated and the outside or “afuera” world of those gates is filled with outsiders with no “papeles” or papers. These papers seemed to be very hard to come by as Damian was saying that he tried eight years to get them. He could only come across with one illegally through Maria. The cities seem to be in its normal state like Shanghai but outside its limits, we see a vast barren land. The film gave me a “1984” vibe with the Sphinx representing Big Brother. Especially that the color palette was gloomy and seemed dreary like a post-apocalyptic feel throughout the film. We get a sense of transnational connections of globalization in the film. Yasser Elsheshtawy, author of The Prophecy of “Code 46”: ”Afuera” in Dubai, or Our Urban Future explains one aspect of globalization seen in the film.
Moreover, inhabitants of this futuristic world speak a language that is a mixture of English, Mandarin, Arabic and Spanish, further highlighting its transnational, cosmopolitan and interconnected character- by which it resembles present-day Dubai, home to more than 180 nationalities. (23)
It seems to me that this future world that Winterbottom projects, countries will in a way connect or mesh together but at the same time distance each other as we see with the vast desert land in between. It doesn’t give a good view of what our future may look like. Elsheshtawy also points out that Winterbottom purposefully tries to unsettle the viewer. “Introducing an unsettling element to help defamliarize the present. Everything looks familiar but seem strange at the same time. The filmmakers have referred to their strategy as a form of ‘creative geography’.” (23) I did feel kind of unsettled with this element. As a viewer, I wanted to relate to and recognize things such as the physical appearance of the city or understand the language but the meshing of the languages threw me off even though I could understand three of languages being spoken.
The Prophecy of "Code 46": "Afuera" in Dubai, or Our Urban Future YASSER ELSHESHTAWY Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Vol. 22, No. 2 (SPRING 2011), pp. 19-31 Published by: International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE) Article Stable URL: http://0-www.jstor.org.library.unl.edu/stable/23566275
This film raises many different political questions, such as eugenics and abortion. The "papelles" needed to go, well, basically anywhere "outside" made me think of books that I read as a child about communist countries and the difficulties in traveling to different places even within the country (I don't know how accurate those books were in their portrayal). This is a world highly controlled and regulated by the government, even down to the government being able to "erase" code violators minds. Roger Ebert brings up a good point in his review of the film. "India, apparently is not part of the DNA-protected zone, and indeed there are 'freeports' throughout the world where the rules don't apply. That raises the question of why anybody would go to the trouble of living under these rules: It's like moving all the way to Singapore just in case you're ever seized with the need to chew gum or spit on the sidewalk." This question could be answered by making a parallel in today's world. Why do people live in Third World countries and starve to death? If there is a First World with privileged inhabitants, why would anyone want to live in the Third World? In the film's world, as well as in our world, the answer is not a matter of want but of being forced into a certain life. However, in the futuristic world, as in our world, people fight the systems they are born into or forced into by other means, and we have seen this over and over again in the many films we have watched that deal with immigration. In "Code 46," we see this played out in Maria's illegal distribution of the "papelles."
Another aspect of globalization touched on in the film is the issue of race and language. It seems to be a more unified, globalized, melting-pot sort of world in regards to language, as everyone is speaking a variety of other languages inside the English language. Even the name, Maria Gonzalez, is interesting, for she looks to be Caucasian, not Hispanic. This can be compared to the concepts introduced in Babel, which go back to the origins of the story of the Tower of Babel. This world has figured out a way to unify it's "confused" language. It has blended the results of the "scattering." It is also more or less one place because it is so isolated from the rest of the world that does not have to follow the strict genetic rules.
Code 46 is reminiscent of Gattaca: a sci-fi film that is grounded in a somewhat probable future and interrogates the societal consequences of governmental interference with genetics. While Gattaca is focused more on DNA manipulation and eugenics—along with its ramifications following birth—Code 46 focuses on the legislative response in utero, and the actual code 46 appears to play a much smaller role in the average life. Code 46 also offers a much bleaker depiction of genetics testing because of the lengths to which the government will go in order to deal with a violation: namely abortion and the erasure of memory. Yet both films also call into question this notion of fate or destiny (or predetermination) that was present in The International where, ironically, I was thinking of Oedipus when Salinger suggested “Sometimes a man can fulfill his destiny on the path he is taking to avoid it.” What's striking about Code 46 is that it shifts the dialectic of fate vs. free will to fate vs. government will. Though Maria believes her relationship with William is destiny due to his presence in her recurring birthday dream, it does not come down to her or William making a choice, but being forced to forget the notion completely. Still, the film also differs from Gattaca in that its biggest claims are largely kept in the background.
While the main focus of the film revolves around Maria and William's affair/love story, the film goes out of its way to hide or minimalize the details of this future society. From the quick citation of the code to its apparent interpretations which include forced removal of memory, I wonder if it is perhaps detrimental to the film's message that the audience focuses more on the memory of Mary and William than on the fact that political action has been the cause. Likewise, there is no explanation of how the “inside” or the “outside” came to be, or what “cover” really is (though we assume it is basically temporary clearance for travel to another location). Which brings up another aspect kept far in the background: what has caused the change in state names, or the mixing of languages? The film is attempting to hint at the biopolitical possibilities that might arise in the future, but quickly glosses over the notion of cloning in general. Cloning must be widespread enough that code 46 was made necessary, but the degree is never mentioned. With cloning, the legislation around pregnancy, and the ability to legally abort a pregnancy, the depicted society seems to adhere to Foucault's understanding of biopower in the strictest sense: it is government control over reproduction and life of the human species. But if the goal is to highlight these possibilities that might occur in the future, shouldn't the film at least show us how to avoid or react against them? While it's sad that Maria ends the film wondering the “outside” missing William, Code 46 asks its audience to fill in so many blanks that their relationship becomes the focal point, instead of being a vehicle through which to properly analyze larger and more sinister topics.
Globalization is seen in Code 46 through the constant change of languages that are used through passing and that these languages are used by most, if not all, of the characters. Almost all of the film takes place in Shanghai, China however we hear not only the Chinese language but also English and Spanish. All of these languages that are heard throughout the film make sense to the characters and are used on a regular basis by them. The exchange of language shows globalization.
I agree with Elsa in saying that the “outside” is the place were poor, unwanted people live and are not cared for by the government. It is similar to immigrants who arrive in a country without documents and the government of that country doesn’t show upon them the same rights as the documented citizens have. Another significant aspect of the “outside” is the fact that it is all a desert. This shows the vastness and heat of not belonging in the country. Beth Pinsker interviewed Michael Winterbottom after he shot the film and reports in her article, “Fade to Black”, that Winterbottom says that he “wanted to show the kind of desert landscape he saw at the refugee camps, where people are essentially outside the system and dispossessed” (1). This does make sense to me because refugee camps are large camps that are usually in the poor and desolate parts of a country, for example in deserts.
This film is a futuristic film that puts into perspective the aspect of cloning and what it will be like if it ever does become a common thing in our world. Code 46 made it illegal for any two clones to have a relationship and produce children. However, this did happen with Maria and William when they met each other. It wasn’t clear at first that these two characters were cloned with 100 percent the same DNA and it confused me. However, after the film I thought about it more and did realize that these two were cloned. Not only does the lady tell William when he goes in to get tested, but also because of the dream that Maria always has on her birthday. He is the one who she is looking for and finally runs into him and is complete.
I don’t get why Maria gets sent “outside” into the desert and is the one who is punished, when William is just as guilty as she, if not more. His memory is just erased and is sent back to his family without any consequence. His life is back to normal and her life is forever changed.
Elaina, I too found the incorporation of multiple languages an interesting choice. It suggests a fascinating potential future development, I think. Though, it's important to note that English was the primary language spoken, while other languages were used more often as salutations or short descriptors.
Critic Brian Michael Goss attends to the implications the use of English as a "base" language in a film in which characters demonstrate multilingual proficiency if not capability when he writes:
"...Code 46’s dialogue, English is the “base” and the contributions of other language families are distinctly limited to garnishing the semantic thrust of what is otherwise said in English. That is, the other tongues appear as words lexically airdropped into sentences otherwise comprehensible as English (“Did you come in a coche [car]?”) or as standalone thoughts and salutations (“Sí ” [yes], “claro” [of course]). In practical terms, Code 46 is a U.K. film production featuring native English-speaking principles (Robbins and Morton). In any event, globalized linguistic “cut and paste” is evoked, but the privileged tongue is English, as it also is in many or most international encounters beyond the world of Code 46."
The use of English as base language in the film strongly suggests that in the future Code 46 imagines, the West retains some of its hegemonic power, at least on a cultural level. We might ask why Michael Winterbottom made this choice. We should attend to the decision to set most of the movie in a futuristic Shanghai in which everyone (most crucially, the Chinese) are proficient in Western languages; a setting in which the West appears to have "conquered" the East in some sense.
I don't think we (Western viewers) are supposed to feel anxious about this. Rather, this is meant to be reassuring: Yes, the future looks somewhat grim and the government is (justifiable?) proactive in family planning. But there is still love, and there's still luxury. As long as you follow the rules. And also, don't worry: You don't actually have to learn a new language.
When I lived in Peru, I that before the Inca Civilaztion, the Native Americans had a tradition that one could not marry anyone who spoke the same language as you did. They did this to prevent incest, and thus was a system to produce genetically superior offspring, although they didn't know what genetics were. So, it would be like If i spoke English, I would have to marry someone who spoke Spanish. Doing this causes a wider variety of genes to be mixed into the gene pool and it also morphs the languages together as well.
Code 46 seems to be showing a similar sort of process. In the film, one cannot conceive with someone with a 25% genetic similarity or more. And also, there seems to be batches of clones, which decreases the amount of unique DNA sets. This forces ethnic hybridization. Maria Gonzalez sounds like a Spanish name, but her features show little evidence of this heritage at all, as if it were washed away with breeding. It is a system that values homogeneity over heterogeneity, difference over similarities. The system that is in place in the world seems enforces ethnic mixing, just as the Native Americans in Peru did. One result of this is that the languages that are brought in to close contact with each other through such a system, get meshed together.
It seems that the world of Code 46 is quite diverse, yet the two main characters are both white. Is it a coincidence that they can't be together? The film shows that such a relationship is punishable by memory loss and exile. Both of the characters are upset with the morality of the system they live in. So, then, are they upset with diversity? Are they arguing that ethnic blending is a bad thing? Or are they just arguing that FORCED ethnic blending is a bad thing?
"It is a system that values homogeneity over heterogeneity, difference over similarities"
This is a contradictory claim: could you clarify which it is that you mean to say: that the system is about homogeneity (similarities) or heterogeneity (differences)?
Haha yeah, whoops. It is a system that values heterogeneity over homogeneity, difference over similarities. It's main goal is to diversify the gene pool, which in effect, diversifies the language.
Sadly, as I was unable to view this film in class, I did have the opportunity to screen it for myself at home. Interestingly, as I watched the film I almost immediately began to search for some supplemental material for this film. In the end, I came upon an article by Brian Michael Goss titled “Taking Cover From Progress: Michael Winterbottom's Code 46.” But before I get into that in detail, I did want to talk about a few things that undoubtedly most of my fellow students have already touched upon. Like almost everyone has noted, the papelles play a huge role in the film. Oddly I sort of began to tie this into the idea of a passport or any paper for that matter, one that is required to travel anywhere. But, in addition, I feel like using the idea of a passport in today’s terms might be a little lax. Yet, then again I tied this into Dirty Pretty Things in terms of without passports, these people were basically nothing. The characters couldn’t go anywhere without those items and more importantly those characters were basically nothing without those objects. With all that in mind, I turned my view toward our own society in a similar light. For lack of a better way to put it, without certain papers in our society that is as Elaina put it in relation to Code 46 “highly controlled and regulated by the government.” While this may be thinking too far into the matter, I do believe there is a little weight to what I might have said. Our governments today are in-fact much more controlling and regulating than before, and without “papers” to prove that we have been regulated, we are unable to get certain items, benefits, or perhaps even a life in general. Like I said before, this may simply be thinking too far into this idea, although I’m open to another idea.
Now, in terms of the article by Brian Goss there was one particular passage that I found extremely interesting. “Code 46 is not a documentary, despite points of striking correspondence between a class-based perspective on reality and the film’s representations of it. As is often true of science fiction, Code 46’s vision of the future can be construed as a heightened view of the present with regard to its market steered “liberal” order, spatialization of class within and between metropoles, internationalizing culture (with the English language as its flagship), and the ferociously classist order that permeates them” (71). It’s the increasing spatialization and classes that seemingly struck me in terms of how this film might relate to today’s world. Of course, as I watched this film in a different setting that many of you, I’m not exactly sure how my mindset might differ. But, I do feel like this classist idea does permeate into our society as we can perhaps draw this idea into both a racial class as well as wealth class difference. Like I said before, I'd be open to extra input on this idea as well.
In 2014, Michael Winterbottom’s film would most likely not be categorized as realist. Although I brought back to the scene from the International in which Jonas answers his “telephone” ala Marty McFly in Back to the Future: II. In 1989 this idea probably seemed far from real (yes, I remember that realism and reality are not interchangeable) but 20 years later communicating in real time via digital video is a common occurrence. Not necessarily of a particular space or time, the film has many relatable aspects that are applicable to our world in 2014. To add to this, it is not completely implausible that society may one day include legislation and societal structure similar to that in Code 46.
The film seemed to utilize many different shots, aerial, steady cam, shot-reverse-shot, some extreme closeups of Maria. Debra Allison in her take on Winterbottom’s work describes Code 46 as “tech-noir” in the vein of Blade Runner, and I would even throw in Gattaca, comparable both cinematically and story wise (2012, p. 115). Chandler has posted a more extensive synthesis on the correlations between the films although I see the two storylines as more related than not. Allison continues to deliberate the “unstable” genre of science fiction and the inability of film’s categorized as such “to generate intense emotion in their viewers” (p. 116). However she praises Code 46 as it “balances intellectual rigor with fetishism of sleek and stylized futuristic surfaces” (2012, p. 116).
Code 46, much like our previous films, utilizes International travel as a backdrop on which to identify issues and express opinions about globalization. However this film introduces an alternative viewpoint in that the characters are less than enthusiastic about technological innovation, versus say Andy’s character from Its a Free World and his fascination with Rose’s cell phone or the Minnesota community who relies heavily on technology to receive updates and identify the vaccinated (wrist bar code) and even the ability to produce such a vaccine in the first place. Dr. Volker Boehme-Neßler in his book Caught Between Technophilia and Technophobia: Culture, Technology and the Law explains:
“Scientific and technological developments are promoted or held back by cultural, economic and political parameters. That is one of the reasons why innovative technologies are able to develop sooner and better in certain regions of the world” (2001, p. 2).
He equates technological use to that of a knife, “ key domestic tool or a dangerous weapon,” and do technological innovations really equate to a better life in overall scheme of things? Patrons in Code 46 are limited in their travel (usage of “covers”), a contrast to the ease of transglobal movement seen by characters in our other films. Many choices are denied to Code 46 characters by the laws dictating habitation locations and reproductive rights. This inhibits the freewill of the characters and provides an alternative viewpoint of globalization that we have not explored as in depth.
Allison, D. (2012). The cinema of Michael Winterbottom. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Boehme-Neßler, V. (2011). Caught Between Technophilia and Technophobia: Culture, Technology and the Law. In Pictorial Law (pp. 1-18). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
I had trouble spotting the elements of globalization while watching this movie, but after doing some research online and thinking about it more I believe this movie shows something we have seen in almost all of the previous films we’ve watched. The people in Code 46 are just looking to survive or make ends meet. As present, in the other films as well, this often requires moving to a different country or continent. The papeles are basically equivalent to a present-day passport. Just as how in It’s a Free World, the family from Iran struggled and the father couldn’t find work due to not having a passport I think this is the same type of situation in Code 46. People on the “outside” are disadvantaged and have little to no opportunity – which makes them do desperate things such as taking a papel that causes them to bleed to death (Damian).
The language these people speak in Code 46 is a mixture of English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Italian, Farsi and Mandarin. This is globalization in itself, what I took from this is that people who spoke these languages eventually intermixed so much that they created one language. This is actually more realistic than I originally thought. It wouldn’t seem far off to propose that at some point in the future our cultures would intermix. It’s not like new languages are coming about, in fact many have died so a bunch of them conjoining as one could potentially happen. It’s also noteworthy that Maria who looks very much Caucasian, has a somewhat Latin or Spanish name – Maria Gonzalez and she lives in Shanghai, yet we see very few Asian people. It seems language and races have all been kind of mixed as one, in this futuristic dystopian society.
We also see William travel to Shanghai to Seattle and Dubai. It’s interesting these three locations that seem to have nothing in common were chosen as where the film would take place. I don’t recall any other places throughout the world being brought up which makes me wonder if they still existed in this society that seemed to mesh together so much.
In The Prophecy of “Code 46”: “Afuera” in Dubai, or Our Urban Future by Yasser Elsheshtaw, it talks about how the director, Michael Winterbottom, chose the location of Dubai because of it’s “large transient population and the fact that it epitomizes a multicultural future.” I think Winterbottom was purposely trying to represent a society that no longer had the barriers of race or language.
It’s interesting to see this but also that there are still many problems, such as those who are forced to live on the “outside” and the people on the “inside” being very much controlled by the government. Although Winterbottom’s idea of one intermixed culture is interesting it also takes away the uniqueness of different cultures and the heightened control of the government in this society is problematic.
As some of my classmates have stated I too found the language of the movie very interesting but at times too distracting. I think it is very interesting to show globalization in this way. Here in the US, I think there is already some evidence of this type of language homogenization happening with our use of Spanglish. As Dillon stated it is important to note that the language used is primarily English with just a few words used from other languages. While this language is an example of globalization, it is clear that the culture that is being globalized is western culture. On this note, I found the karaoke scene to be somewhat confusing. Maria talks about singing a song in Mandarin that she doesn't understand but all of the Chinese people do. I was left wondering if in this world there are still multiple languages.
I found the portrayal of gender is this film particularly troubling. I wonder why Maria is exiled for a crime that both her and William knowingly committed while William is just wiped of his memory and gets to go home. It also seems troubling how dependent Maria becomes on William and how forgiving William's wife is of his infidelity. The women in this movie seem to have no agency at all, they are completely at the will of William.
This film's connections to what we have been talking about is kind of obvious. There the boarders, papers, those is a tight situation due to the power of the establishment, but this time Tim Robbins. Code 46 also seemed to be about how humans are going to want to do what humans want to do with their lives.despite the establishment saying no. This move is about humans deifying a totalitarian state and their genetically imprinted laws, and I am not sure if I was into it personally.
With the papers Code 46 seemed to remind me a very little of Gattica. Though i dislike Jude Law, that movie id great. However we see similarities. In the future genetics rule and if you don't have them, then you are cast out. Code 46 in this case, like Gattica play off a "Brave New World' dystopian near future.
This movie could have easily been about the government in this future, but they were only mentioned a few times and the Sphinx was never fully explained. Nor was the fact everyone was using multiple foreign languages with their speech, as if the world'd languages have come together to form strange mesh. The entrances into the cities sprayed card with some sort of disinfectant and you can swap fingers. None of this was ever explained. To this movie love seemed to be the main topic. A genetic Romeo and Juliet if you will.
With love being the main subject, and a forbidden love at that, I am not sure what this movie is trying to say about globalization. Perhaps humans are always going to do what humans have always done. Or love is greater than any virus to make on afraid of someone else.
The aspects of globalization that are seen in this film are not as pronounced as they are in some of the other films we have seen. One of the main plot points of this film is that Maria works for the government, making papelles, or papers for traveling. The papers are seemingly a hot commodity and she gets a lot of money faking them for people. I think it might be safe to say she is not making very much money at her job so she feels like she needs to do this to make more money. Her apartment is not terrible, just a little dingy. It seems she lives a good life for having lived on the “outside” for most of her younger life.
ReplyDeleteI think the concept of the “outside” in this film is the closest thing we see to the types of globalization we have seen previously. The poorer people living outside of the cities, basically ignored by the government because they are nothing and they have no influence. It is sad to me that Maria got exiled for being with William even though she didn’t remember him the second time and it should have been William that got in trouble instead of having his mind erased and being returned to his family. These poor people that live outside the cities, with no real “comforts” are reminiscent of some of the people and families we saw in The Workingman’s Death. They don’t have a lot of technology, when the people inside the cities clearly rely on a great deal of technology in their daily lives.
In a New York Times review of the film by A. O. Scott, he says “Filming on location in places like Shanghai and Dubai, in the sterile fluorescence of ultramodern airports and hotels and in impoverished outlying regions, he delineates a time of global mobility, extreme inequality and radical loneliness, distilling the fugitive moods of contemporary life into an ambience of muted, abstracted longing.” I think the idea of global mobility is very true of this film. If you have the papers you can travel basically anywhere you want but it is very difficult to get those papers, unless you have a great deal of influence. This again points out the great differences between the people that live in the cities and the people that live outside.
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C05E3DE123CF935A3575BC0A9629C8B63
Code 46 takes the viewer into a futuristic dystopian world. It seems that large cities have been gated and the outside or “afuera” world of those gates is filled with outsiders with no “papeles” or papers. These papers seemed to be very hard to come by as Damian was saying that he tried eight years to get them. He could only come across with one illegally through Maria. The cities seem to be in its normal state like Shanghai but outside its limits, we see a vast barren land. The film gave me a “1984” vibe with the Sphinx representing Big Brother. Especially that the color palette was gloomy and seemed dreary like a post-apocalyptic feel throughout the film. We get a sense of transnational connections of globalization in the film. Yasser Elsheshtawy, author of The Prophecy of “Code 46”: ”Afuera” in Dubai, or Our Urban Future explains one aspect of globalization seen in the film.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, inhabitants of this futuristic world speak a language that is a mixture of English, Mandarin, Arabic and Spanish, further highlighting its transnational, cosmopolitan and interconnected character- by which it resembles present-day Dubai, home to more than 180 nationalities. (23)
It seems to me that this future world that Winterbottom projects, countries will in a way connect or mesh together but at the same time distance each other as we see with the vast desert land in between. It doesn’t give a good view of what our future may look like.
Elsheshtawy also points out that Winterbottom purposefully tries to unsettle the viewer. “Introducing an unsettling element to help defamliarize the present. Everything looks familiar but seem strange at the same time. The filmmakers have referred to their strategy as a form of ‘creative geography’.” (23) I did feel kind of unsettled with this element. As a viewer, I wanted to relate to and recognize things such as the physical appearance of the city or understand the language but the meshing of the languages threw me off even though I could understand three of languages being spoken.
The Prophecy of "Code 46": "Afuera" in Dubai, or Our Urban Future
YASSER ELSHESHTAWY
Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Vol. 22, No. 2 (SPRING 2011), pp. 19-31
Published by: International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE)
Article Stable URL: http://0-www.jstor.org.library.unl.edu/stable/23566275
This film raises many different political questions, such as eugenics and abortion. The "papelles" needed to go, well, basically anywhere "outside" made me think of books that I read as a child about communist countries and the difficulties in traveling to different places even within the country (I don't know how accurate those books were in their portrayal). This is a world highly controlled and regulated by the government, even down to the government being able to "erase" code violators minds. Roger Ebert brings up a good point in his review of the film. "India, apparently is not part of the DNA-protected zone, and indeed there are 'freeports' throughout the world where the rules don't apply. That raises the question of why anybody would go to the trouble of living under these rules: It's like moving all the way to Singapore just in case you're ever seized with the need to chew gum or spit on the sidewalk." This question could be answered by making a parallel in today's world. Why do people live in Third World countries and starve to death? If there is a First World with privileged inhabitants, why would anyone want to live in the Third World? In the film's world, as well as in our world, the answer is not a matter of want but of being forced into a certain life. However, in the futuristic world, as in our world, people fight the systems they are born into or forced into by other means, and we have seen this over and over again in the many films we have watched that deal with immigration. In "Code 46," we see this played out in Maria's illegal distribution of the "papelles."
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of globalization touched on in the film is the issue of race and language. It seems to be a more unified, globalized, melting-pot sort of world in regards to language, as everyone is speaking a variety of other languages inside the English language. Even the name, Maria Gonzalez, is interesting, for she looks to be Caucasian, not Hispanic. This can be compared to the concepts introduced in Babel, which go back to the origins of the story of the Tower of Babel. This world has figured out a way to unify it's "confused" language. It has blended the results of the "scattering." It is also more or less one place because it is so isolated from the rest of the world that does not have to follow the strict genetic rules.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/code-46-2004
Code 46 is reminiscent of Gattaca: a sci-fi film that is grounded in a somewhat probable future and interrogates the societal consequences of governmental interference with genetics. While Gattaca is focused more on DNA manipulation and eugenics—along with its ramifications following birth—Code 46 focuses on the legislative response in utero, and the actual code 46 appears to play a much smaller role in the average life. Code 46 also offers a much bleaker depiction of genetics testing because of the lengths to which the government will go in order to deal with a violation: namely abortion and the erasure of memory. Yet both films also call into question this notion of fate or destiny (or predetermination) that was present in The International where, ironically, I was thinking of Oedipus when Salinger suggested “Sometimes a man can fulfill his destiny on the path he is taking to avoid it.” What's striking about Code 46 is that it shifts the dialectic of fate vs. free will to fate vs. government will. Though Maria believes her relationship with William is destiny due to his presence in her recurring birthday dream, it does not come down to her or William making a choice, but being forced to forget the notion completely. Still, the film also differs from Gattaca in that its biggest claims are largely kept in the background.
ReplyDeleteWhile the main focus of the film revolves around Maria and William's affair/love story, the film goes out of its way to hide or minimalize the details of this future society. From the quick citation of the code to its apparent interpretations which include forced removal of memory, I wonder if it is perhaps detrimental to the film's message that the audience focuses more on the memory of Mary and William than on the fact that political action has been the cause. Likewise, there is no explanation of how the “inside” or the “outside” came to be, or what “cover” really is (though we assume it is basically temporary clearance for travel to another location). Which brings up another aspect kept far in the background: what has caused the change in state names, or the mixing of languages? The film is attempting to hint at the biopolitical possibilities that might arise in the future, but quickly glosses over the notion of cloning in general. Cloning must be widespread enough that code 46 was made necessary, but the degree is never mentioned. With cloning, the legislation around pregnancy, and the ability to legally abort a pregnancy, the depicted society seems to adhere to Foucault's understanding of biopower in the strictest sense: it is government control over reproduction and life of the human species. But if the goal is to highlight these possibilities that might occur in the future, shouldn't the film at least show us how to avoid or react against them? While it's sad that Maria ends the film wondering the “outside” missing William, Code 46 asks its audience to fill in so many blanks that their relationship becomes the focal point, instead of being a vehicle through which to properly analyze larger and more sinister topics.
Globalization is seen in Code 46 through the constant change of languages that are used through passing and that these languages are used by most, if not all, of the characters. Almost all of the film takes place in Shanghai, China however we hear not only the Chinese language but also English and Spanish. All of these languages that are heard throughout the film make sense to the characters and are used on a regular basis by them. The exchange of language shows globalization.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Elsa in saying that the “outside” is the place were poor, unwanted people live and are not cared for by the government. It is similar to immigrants who arrive in a country without documents and the government of that country doesn’t show upon them the same rights as the documented citizens have. Another significant aspect of the “outside” is the fact that it is all a desert. This shows the vastness and heat of not belonging in the country. Beth Pinsker interviewed Michael Winterbottom after he shot the film and reports in her article, “Fade to Black”, that Winterbottom says that he “wanted to show the kind of desert landscape he saw at the refugee camps, where people are essentially outside the system and dispossessed” (1). This does make sense to me because refugee camps are large camps that are usually in the poor and desolate parts of a country, for example in deserts.
This film is a futuristic film that puts into perspective the aspect of cloning and what it will be like if it ever does become a common thing in our world. Code 46 made it illegal for any two clones to have a relationship and produce children. However, this did happen with Maria and William when they met each other. It wasn’t clear at first that these two characters were cloned with 100 percent the same DNA and it confused me. However, after the film I thought about it more and did realize that these two were cloned. Not only does the lady tell William when he goes in to get tested, but also because of the dream that Maria always has on her birthday. He is the one who she is looking for and finally runs into him and is complete.
I don’t get why Maria gets sent “outside” into the desert and is the one who is punished, when William is just as guilty as she, if not more. His memory is just erased and is sent back to his family without any consequence. His life is back to normal and her life is forever changed.
I forgot to site the work I used-
ReplyDeletePinsker, Beth. “Fade to Black.” The H.W. Wilsom Company, 2002. www.millimeter.com.
Elaina, I too found the incorporation of multiple languages an interesting choice. It suggests a fascinating potential future development, I think. Though, it's important to note that English was the primary language spoken, while other languages were used more often as salutations or short descriptors.
ReplyDeleteCritic Brian Michael Goss attends to the implications the use of English as a "base" language in a film in which characters demonstrate multilingual proficiency if not capability when he writes:
"...Code 46’s dialogue, English is the “base” and the contributions of other language families are distinctly limited to garnishing the semantic thrust of what is otherwise said in English. That is, the other tongues appear as words lexically airdropped into sentences otherwise comprehensible as English (“Did you come in a coche [car]?”) or as standalone thoughts and salutations (“Sí ” [yes], “claro” [of course]). In practical terms, Code 46 is a U.K. film production featuring native English-speaking principles (Robbins and Morton). In any event, globalized linguistic “cut and paste” is evoked, but the privileged tongue is English, as it also is in many or most international encounters beyond the world of Code 46."
The use of English as base language in the film strongly suggests that in the future Code 46 imagines, the West retains some of its hegemonic power, at least on a cultural level. We might ask why Michael Winterbottom made this choice. We should attend to the decision to set most of the movie in a futuristic Shanghai in which everyone (most crucially, the Chinese) are proficient in Western languages; a setting in which the West appears to have "conquered" the East in some sense.
I don't think we (Western viewers) are supposed to feel anxious about this. Rather, this is meant to be reassuring: Yes, the future looks somewhat grim and the government is (justifiable?) proactive in family planning. But there is still love, and there's still luxury. As long as you follow the rules. And also, don't worry: You don't actually have to learn a new language.
Linkage: http://0-jci.sagepub.com.library.unl.edu/content/31/1/62.full.pdf+html
DeleteWhen I lived in Peru, I that before the Inca Civilaztion, the Native Americans had a tradition that one could not marry anyone who spoke the same language as you did. They did this to prevent incest, and thus was a system to produce genetically superior offspring, although they didn't know what genetics were. So, it would be like If i spoke English, I would have to marry someone who spoke Spanish. Doing this causes a wider variety of genes to be mixed into the gene pool and it also morphs the languages together as well.
ReplyDeleteCode 46 seems to be showing a similar sort of process. In the film, one cannot conceive with someone with a 25% genetic similarity or more. And also, there seems to be batches of clones, which decreases the amount of unique DNA sets. This forces ethnic hybridization. Maria Gonzalez sounds like a Spanish name, but her features show little evidence of this heritage at all, as if it were washed away with breeding. It is a system that values homogeneity over heterogeneity, difference over similarities. The system that is in place in the world seems enforces ethnic mixing, just as the Native Americans in Peru did. One result of this is that the languages that are brought in to close contact with each other through such a system, get meshed together.
It seems that the world of Code 46 is quite diverse, yet the two main characters are both white. Is it a coincidence that they can't be together? The film shows that such a relationship is punishable by memory loss and exile. Both of the characters are upset with the morality of the system they live in. So, then, are they upset with diversity? Are they arguing that ethnic blending is a bad thing? Or are they just arguing that FORCED ethnic blending is a bad thing?
"It is a system that values homogeneity over heterogeneity, difference over similarities"
DeleteThis is a contradictory claim: could you clarify which it is that you mean to say: that the system is about homogeneity (similarities) or heterogeneity (differences)?
Haha yeah, whoops. It is a system that values heterogeneity over homogeneity, difference over similarities. It's main goal is to diversify the gene pool, which in effect, diversifies the language.
DeleteSadly, as I was unable to view this film in class, I did have the opportunity to screen it for myself at home. Interestingly, as I watched the film I almost immediately began to search for some supplemental material for this film. In the end, I came upon an article by Brian Michael Goss titled “Taking Cover From Progress: Michael Winterbottom's Code 46.” But before I get into that in detail, I did want to talk about a few things that undoubtedly most of my fellow students have already touched upon. Like almost everyone has noted, the papelles play a huge role in the film. Oddly I sort of began to tie this into the idea of a passport or any paper for that matter, one that is required to travel anywhere. But, in addition, I feel like using the idea of a passport in today’s terms might be a little lax. Yet, then again I tied this into Dirty Pretty Things in terms of without passports, these people were basically nothing. The characters couldn’t go anywhere without those items and more importantly those characters were basically nothing without those objects. With all that in mind, I turned my view toward our own society in a similar light. For lack of a better way to put it, without certain papers in our society that is as Elaina put it in relation to Code 46 “highly controlled and regulated by the government.” While this may be thinking too far into the matter, I do believe there is a little weight to what I might have said. Our governments today are in-fact much more controlling and regulating than before, and without “papers” to prove that we have been regulated, we are unable to get certain items, benefits, or perhaps even a life in general. Like I said before, this may simply be thinking too far into this idea, although I’m open to another idea.
ReplyDeleteNow, in terms of the article by Brian Goss there was one particular passage that I found extremely interesting. “Code 46 is not a documentary, despite points of striking correspondence between a class-based perspective on reality and the film’s representations of it. As is often true of science fiction, Code 46’s vision of the future can be construed as a heightened view of the present with regard to its market steered “liberal” order, spatialization of class within and between metropoles, internationalizing culture (with the English language as its flagship), and the ferociously classist order that permeates them” (71). It’s the increasing spatialization and classes that seemingly struck me in terms of how this film might relate to today’s world. Of course, as I watched this film in a different setting that many of you, I’m not exactly sure how my mindset might differ. But, I do feel like this classist idea does permeate into our society as we can perhaps draw this idea into both a racial class as well as wealth class difference. Like I said before, I'd be open to extra input on this idea as well.
http://0-jci.sagepub.com.library.unl.edu/content/31/1/62.full.pdf+html
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ReplyDeleteIn 2014, Michael Winterbottom’s film would most likely not be categorized as realist. Although I brought back to the scene from the International in which Jonas answers his “telephone” ala Marty McFly in Back to the Future: II. In 1989 this idea probably seemed far from real (yes, I remember that realism and reality are not interchangeable) but 20 years later communicating in real time via digital video is a common occurrence. Not necessarily of a particular space or time, the film has many relatable aspects that are applicable to our world in 2014. To add to this, it is not completely implausible that society may one day include legislation and societal structure similar to that in Code 46.
ReplyDeleteThe film seemed to utilize many different shots, aerial, steady cam, shot-reverse-shot, some extreme closeups of Maria. Debra Allison in her take on Winterbottom’s work describes Code 46 as “tech-noir” in the vein of Blade Runner, and I would even throw in Gattaca, comparable both cinematically and story wise (2012, p. 115). Chandler has posted a more extensive synthesis on the correlations between the films although I see the two storylines as more related than not. Allison continues to deliberate the “unstable” genre of science fiction and the inability of film’s categorized as such “to generate intense emotion in their viewers” (p. 116). However she praises Code 46 as it “balances intellectual rigor with fetishism of sleek and stylized futuristic surfaces” (2012, p. 116).
Code 46, much like our previous films, utilizes International travel as a backdrop on which to identify issues and express opinions about globalization. However this film introduces an alternative viewpoint in that the characters are less than enthusiastic about technological innovation, versus say Andy’s character from Its a Free World and his fascination with Rose’s cell phone or the Minnesota community who relies heavily on technology to receive updates and identify the vaccinated (wrist bar code) and even the ability to produce such a vaccine in the first place. Dr. Volker Boehme-Neßler in his book Caught Between Technophilia and Technophobia: Culture, Technology and the Law explains:
“Scientific and technological developments are promoted or held back by
cultural, economic and political parameters. That is one of the reasons why
innovative technologies are able to develop sooner and better in certain
regions of the world” (2001, p. 2).
He equates technological use to that of a knife, “ key domestic tool or a dangerous weapon,” and do technological innovations really equate to a better life in overall scheme of things? Patrons in Code 46 are limited in their travel (usage of “covers”), a contrast to the ease of transglobal movement seen by characters in our other films. Many choices are denied to Code 46 characters by the laws dictating habitation locations and reproductive rights. This inhibits the freewill of the characters and provides an alternative viewpoint of globalization that we have not explored as in depth.
Allison, D. (2012). The cinema of Michael Winterbottom. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Boehme-Neßler, V. (2011). Caught Between Technophilia and Technophobia: Culture, Technology and the Law. In Pictorial Law (pp. 1-18). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
I had trouble spotting the elements of globalization while watching this movie, but after doing some research online and thinking about it more I believe this movie shows something we have seen in almost all of the previous films we’ve watched. The people in Code 46 are just looking to survive or make ends meet. As present, in the other films as well, this often requires moving to a different country or continent. The papeles are basically equivalent to a present-day passport. Just as how in It’s a Free World, the family from Iran struggled and the father couldn’t find work due to not having a passport I think this is the same type of situation in Code 46. People on the “outside” are disadvantaged and have little to no opportunity – which makes them do desperate things such as taking a papel that causes them to bleed to death (Damian).
ReplyDeleteThe language these people speak in Code 46 is a mixture of English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Italian, Farsi and Mandarin. This is globalization in itself, what I took from this is that people who spoke these languages eventually intermixed so much that they created one language. This is actually more realistic than I originally thought. It wouldn’t seem far off to propose that at some point in the future our cultures would intermix. It’s not like new languages are coming about, in fact many have died so a bunch of them conjoining as one could potentially happen. It’s also noteworthy that Maria who looks very much Caucasian, has a somewhat Latin or Spanish name – Maria Gonzalez and she lives in Shanghai, yet we see very few Asian people. It seems language and races have all been kind of mixed as one, in this futuristic dystopian society.
We also see William travel to Shanghai to Seattle and Dubai. It’s interesting these three locations that seem to have nothing in common were chosen as where the film would take place. I don’t recall any other places throughout the world being brought up which makes me wonder if they still existed in this society that seemed to mesh together so much.
In The Prophecy of “Code 46”: “Afuera” in Dubai, or Our Urban Future by Yasser Elsheshtaw, it talks about how the director, Michael Winterbottom, chose the location of Dubai because of it’s “large transient population and the fact that it epitomizes a multicultural future.” I think Winterbottom was purposely trying to represent a society that no longer had the barriers of race or language.
http://0-www.jstor.org.library.unl.edu/stable/23566275?seq=2&Search=yes&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Ff1%3Dall%26amp%3Bf0%3Dall%26amp%3Bf3%3Dall%26amp%3Bf2%3Dall%26amp%3Bf5%3Dall%26amp%3Bf4%3Dall%26amp%3Bf6%3Dall%26amp%3Bc6%3DAND%26amp%3Bc4%3DAND%26amp%3Bc5%3DAND%26amp%3Bc2%3DAND%26amp%3Bc3%3DAND%26amp%3Bc1%3DAND%26amp%3Bla%3D%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bisbn%3D%26amp%3Bsd%3D%26amp%3Bed%3D%26amp%3Bq4%3D%26amp%3Bq5%3D%26amp%3Bq6%3D%26amp%3Bq0%3Dcod%2B46%26amp%3Bq1%3DMichael%2BWinterbottom%26amp%3Bq2%3D%26amp%3Bq3%3D%26amp%3Bpt%3D&prevSearch=&resultsServiceName=null
It’s interesting to see this but also that there are still many problems, such as those who are forced to live on the “outside” and the people on the “inside” being very much controlled by the government. Although Winterbottom’s idea of one intermixed culture is interesting it also takes away the uniqueness of different cultures and the heightened control of the government in this society is problematic.
As some of my classmates have stated I too found the language of the movie very interesting but at times too distracting. I think it is very interesting to show globalization in this way. Here in the US, I think there is already some evidence of this type of language homogenization happening with our use of Spanglish. As Dillon stated it is important to note that the language used is primarily English with just a few words used from other languages. While this language is an example of globalization, it is clear that the culture that is being globalized is western culture. On this note, I found the karaoke scene to be somewhat confusing. Maria talks about singing a song in Mandarin that she doesn't understand but all of the Chinese people do. I was left wondering if in this world there are still multiple languages.
ReplyDeleteI found the portrayal of gender is this film particularly troubling. I wonder why Maria is exiled for a crime that both her and William knowingly committed while William is just wiped of his memory and gets to go home. It also seems troubling how dependent Maria becomes on William and how forgiving William's wife is of his infidelity. The women in this movie seem to have no agency at all, they are completely at the will of William.
This film's connections to what we have been talking about is kind of obvious. There the boarders, papers, those is a tight situation due to the power of the establishment, but this time Tim Robbins. Code 46 also seemed to be about how humans are going to want to do what humans want to do with their lives.despite the establishment saying no. This move is about humans deifying a totalitarian state and their genetically imprinted laws, and I am not sure if I was into it personally.
ReplyDeleteWith the papers Code 46 seemed to remind me a very little of Gattica. Though i dislike Jude Law, that movie id great. However we see similarities. In the future genetics rule and if you don't have them, then you are cast out. Code 46 in this case, like Gattica play off a "Brave New World' dystopian near future.
This movie could have easily been about the government in this future, but they were only mentioned a few times and the Sphinx was never fully explained. Nor was the fact everyone was using multiple foreign languages with their speech, as if the world'd languages have come together to form strange mesh. The entrances into the cities sprayed card with some sort of disinfectant and you can swap fingers. None of this was ever explained. To this movie love seemed to be the main topic. A genetic Romeo and Juliet if you will.
With love being the main subject, and a forbidden love at that, I am not sure what this movie is trying to say about globalization. Perhaps humans are always going to do what humans have always done. Or love is greater than any virus to make on afraid of someone else.