Now we have "Code Unknown", which is not nearly as cruel an experience as "Funny Games", but which has the same strict intellectual armature. With as radical a technique as Godard's, Haneke takes a short scuffle in the streets of Paris as the point of departure for a meditation on true knowledge in a world of chance and mischance.
Haneke breaks the film up into short, disconnected fragments, with black spaces between them. In several no words are spoken, while others turn out to be "inside" films that the "lead" character, an actress played by Juliette Binoche, is making. Many are long, single shots - sometimes gliding along to follow the characters, but sometimes rooted in one spot as the characters drift to and fro. And the "stories", such as they are, wander too, from Paris to what looks like the Balkans, as Haneke follows Binoche, her war photographer boyfriend, his brother and father, a street beggar who is deported from Paris, a young black teacher of the deaf, and a host of other ancillary characters. What they don't understand - but we do - is that the course of their lives has been largely determined by encounters with people they'll never even know.
These people may think they're drowning in "too much information" - but actually, they don't have ENOUGH information; Haneke's recurring theme is our attempt to interpret a largely-unknown reality - and the problem of our responsibility to act on that interpretation. And despite a handful of longeurs, the effect is mostly completely absorbing. Those who were fascinated by the backwards-moving "Memento" will have a field day with "Code Unknown", where we have to tease out relationships, back story, and whether or not the narrative we're watching is "really" happening at all, with a lot fewer clues than Guy Pierce ever got.
And THEN - and this is what's interesting - somehow Haneke demands that we "make up our minds" about what we've seen; we feel compelled to judge, and yet we cannot - is the kid we see mistreating a beggar really a bad kid? Is the actress really being sealed up to die in a windowless room? Was the note from "a defenseless child" really written by an abused little girl (she turns up dead, so with a shock we appreciate what's at stake in our pause to consider the issue)? "Code Unknown" offers no answers - but then neither does life. The film ends with a scarily-happy drum-pounding by a chorus of deaf children.
I suppose what's startling about Haneke is that he has such an assured technique and yet eschews almost all directoral razzle-dazzle. He's not a Darren Aronofsky, ringing a dozen eye-popping changes on an essentially-empty story. And his intense horrors are justified by the depth and purity of his concerns - unlike those of, say, Tarentino or (God help us!) Guy Ritchie. Haneke's smarts are story and conceptual smarts, not adolescent film smarts; he's wildly daring, but he's icily mature. I'd almost say he's the heir to Kubrick's mantle, but these days that might be tarring him with an unwanted brush (as I watched "Code Unknown" I suddenly realized I was glad Pauline Kael was dead - she'd feel driven to sabotage this much intellectual challenge!).
The film centers mainly on Mann (Ving Rhames), a World War I veteran who travels aimlessly on a horse in search of land that he is willing to pay good money for. When he shows up at a town auction and becomes one of the highest bidders, he does nothing but generate sneers and racist remarks from the patrons. Mann is, for the most part, impassive towards the criticism. One of his friends that he grows closer to over time is Don Cheadle's Sylvester, who happens to be one of the strongest character actors of this or any other decade.
The hostility towards blacks skyrockets when the mentally unstable woman, Fanny Taylor (Catherine Kellner) is triggered into a screaming frenzy repeatedly saying a black man beat her, but did not rape her. The reality is, Fanny is a victim to the abuse of her lover, who consistently throws her around and leaves her bruised and battered. Regardless, there is simply no justification for this kind of impulsiveness.
And thus, the bell begins to ring louder and for longer and the towers slowly begin to fall; the town becomes even more racially divided than before, violence breaks out in the streets, houses are burned, neighbors become enemies, and secrets holding important, valuable information are kept until it's too late. A white sheriff (Michael Rooker) has an understanding of the events that occurred with Fanny Taylor, begins to piece together that the story of the evil black man beating the white woman is a myth, but is unfortunately silent about the event until violence overwhelms the once humble town. Even Mann grows aware of the impending violence and unsafe nature of this town, and fears because of his "new" status that he will fall victim to murder.
The film touches on some other topics not usually explored in a period piece, such as how the idea of racism is spread through explicit teachings from father to son. One father teaches his son how to make a noose, and continuously reminds him that the blacks are the enemies in which the whites must take action against. This even involves the father taking the son along on trips where they go hunting, and I don't mean for animals.
Writer Gregory Poirier illustrates this story on a large, limitless canvas for John Singleton to direct with a looming challenge. There is an unusually broad amount of talent here and a plethora of characters and situations to document, and Poirier is careful never to spend too much time on one specific situation, but takes the time to balance the events out evenly. It wasn't long before this that Singleton constructed Boyz N The Hood, a film detailing the tribulations of growing up on the wrong side of the street. That appears on my list of most captivating dramas for its poignant dialog and incredible performances. Rosewood is in an entirely different league; a film that features many different scenes, all highly detailed and illustrated intricately, that is strung together by an easily understandable story.
Speaking in terms of aesthetics, the costume and set design here is lavish and meticulous. From the sets of the stores, to the simplicity of the roads, the people, the clothing, and the shops, everything is portrayed in such a refreshingly different light that it becomes indescribably powerful. The care and attention here is not only commendable, but award worthy.