Several overlapping dialogue-saturated soundtracks have more or less existed since Robert Altman started clarifying his intent by muddling his sound design in the early 1970s. Nothing new there either. But with Time Code, Figgis has come up with an original work that is a subtitler's nightmare so extreme it may well prevent distributors from bringing out the film in non-English speaking countries. Time Code consists of four split screens. The rising and falling mix of the soundtrack cues the audience to which quarter of the screen to pay attention to as the four interlocking points-of-view unspool. More importantly, each visual track is one 90 minute long take. There is no editing except what goes on in your own brain as you choose to focus on of the four images running simultaneously. You get four films for the price of one. And as with Citizen Kane and Hiroshima, mon amour, form means just as much as content.

Mike Figgis is that rare brand of film auteur who not only directs what he writes, but also usually composes the film score. Figgis grew up in Newcastle, England, after a brief stint as a child in Kenya, before his British parents relocated the 8 year-old in 1957. By his late teens Figgis had become a rhythm and blues and jazz musician, performing for a while with the group Gas Board that included Bryan Ferry. Figgis went on to become an actor with the touring troupe known as The People Show - an experimental group that performed throughout most of Europe, South America and the U.S. Figgis was rejected by the British National Film School in 1976, but using his own funds, made a short film in 16mm and eventually persuaded Channel 4 to finance an hour long production called "The House." After a rather interesting yet uneven first feature - Stormy Monday - that includes Sting as both actor and musician, Figgis made two Hollywood films starring Richard Gere: The rough and tumble Internal Affairs and the studio-mangled Mr. Jones. Disgusted with the way his Mr. Jones, thoughtful film about bi-polar disorder, was leavened to the point of feel-good idiocy, Figgis decided to make an agressively downbeat movie that would remain that way. Ironically, his micro-budgeted Leaving Las Vegas was nominated for Best Screenplay Adapatation and Best Director, won Nicolas Cage a Best Actor Academy Award and put auteur Figgis back on the proverbial movie map.

If distributors are loathe to release Time Code in the land where you live (and provided its August showings in Locarno and Edinburgh or early-September screeningin Deauville are out of reach), write Sony/Columbia's European office and demand an un-subtitled release of Time Code. Everybody should have the right to watch film history being made.

Filmography

Timecode (2000)
Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999)
Miss Julie (1999)
One Night Stand (1997)
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
The Browning Version (1994)
Mr. Jones (1993)
Liebestraum (1991)
Internal Affairs (1990)
Stormy Monday (1988)

Glenn Myrent