Visual jazz.

Mike Figgis' quad-screen film, a Warholian extrapalation of digital technology, is more than just a cybernetic manipulation of time and space, it is a visual poem. It is a breathtaking spectacle that heightens time, elongates space, and punches holes in our preconcieved notions of film, art, energy, drama, tension, symbiosis (quadbiosis?), time, space, the time space continuim, chronology, logic, life, love... you name it.

The film somehow melds together a story in four angles. These angles start as desperate but somehow continue to intertwine and mesh until the four seeming moebius strips somehow converge on points in time that become axis at the intersection. Dramatic and artistic loop-de-loops. It's a wonder to behold. The film weaves and bobs and turns and juxtaposes and superimposes without superimposing. It's a bold and conscise concentric circle that overlaps and and then becomes spherical. A daisy chain of images and imagination.

The acting in the piece is extraordinary. And it is even more amazing when the performances converge and coagulate. There are moments in the film that are perfection. They somehow snap together, through brilliant editing and direction, like the clasps on a parachute. Every actor is given a task and in their own way makes the film mystical. The magic comes from the actor being "on" continuously, never knowing when the camera may turn on them, never knowing when the sound may become "live."

Figgis filmed the piece using 4 digital camera. Each camera did one continuous 100 minute take. All 4 takes are simulataneously shown on a screen that is divided, and divided again. A plus sign of images. Warhol. Figgis manipulates the sound and perfectly punctuates some scenes with music so that the collage of sound continually draws our attention this way or that yet images do not cease. Cameras do not stop. Like life, it goes on. Only sound is manipulated to make us look one way or the other. Some scenes drop to silence, we crane our head, our eyes move in their socets. Where is the action at now? Like life, we must be on our toes. We don't want to miss anything. When images show the same scene from different angles, as it does on occassion, the Warholian feel evolves into modern technological newscast. Flipping channels, we see the drama from different news camera angles, with different correspondents on the scene. Yet the drama is the same. Modern technology. Our television intellect used for art. Someone else has the remote.

A poem of images. The language of visuals. A prehistoric moment. The time will come, has come with DVD and computer, where we will manipulate these images ourselves. Tomorrow we, not Figgis, will be the Wizard of Oz. We will become the man behind the curtain. We will edit our own film into art. "Give us all the images and let us decide," the masses cry. "Tomorrow," the artist answers back.

Holly Hunter is wonderful. Selma Hayek is great. Richard Edson has enormous fun. Kyle MacLachlan adds just the right amount of perfected pretention.

Stellan Skarsgard is a revelation. His deconstructing man, unfolding, unfurling into four men, fits the film perfectly. The film is Skargard's Alex. And Alex is all about film. But he is breaking down. He is a piece of paper, folded into fours, opening, opening to become nothing, to become blank. It is mesmerizing. He is being bulk erased. He is being reformmated against his will. He is revolting against it all.

The film, the characters, the story, they all may seem a little pretentious. But Figgis addresses this humorously. His film laughs at itself. But it does so in a way that makes us love it all the more. It folds in upon itself. Again the art becomes life becomes art becomes life becomes newscast becomes life becomes drama becomes art...

It is the language of images and it is a poem and a song of images. It is no surprise that Figgis is a musician. His film pops with a complex and intricate time signature. His film is jazz. Visual jazz.

Sprocket holes holding together images of time and space. The film is so seemless, I see no reel changes. Are there reel changes? There must be. The 35mm format demands them for a feature, even if, in 2000 AD, it is only one required. I see it not. The film is seemless, even broken up into equal rectangles of images.

If there is any complaint to make of the film, it is in story. Figgis employs yet another gay stereotype to cause dramatic action in the film. This is a shame. The film is far too bold and brilliant to be bogged down by politics. Figgis is too fine a filmmaker to make such an unwise choice. We deserve better.

Still, "Time Code" is a masterpiece. The revolution of images, of cinema, has officially begun.

Note

Also with Xander Berkeley, Saffron Burrows, Golden Brooks, Viveka Davis, Aimee Graham, Glenne Headly, Andrew Heckler, Danny Huston, Suzy Nakamura, Alessandro Nivola, Julian Sands, Steven Weber ("TV's "Wings").

A funny joke about Matt Stone and Trey Parker is made.

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