Review of Timecode (2000) by Adam W — 12 Apr 2009

Mike Figgis' digital manifesto is a tour de force of formal and theoretical hijinks. A real time plot unfolds with four simultaneous on screen perspectives as a director tries to cast his new film and a woman obsesses over her lover's infidelities.

Multiple characters and stories collide in an Altmanesque carnival but there's not an edit in sight. Fans of traditional narrative cinema would point to the fact that we know little of the characters or their motivations and care even less when it ends with murder.

But it's exactly the tropes of film grammar and construction that are under digital scrutiny. Littered with sardonic humour and satirical flourishes Figgis bites the hand that feeds him and runs off with his bloody spoils.