Timecode
Time Out says
Depending on how you look at it, Figgis' fascinating film is the story of an alcoholic movie producer on the verge of a nervous breakdown; or it's about a two-timing lesbian starlet who gets her first big break; or it's a critical day in the life of a fledgling film production company; or it's a portrait of spurned wives, lovers and actresses on the LA scene. Four movies in one, Timecode splits the screen on a horizontal and a vertical axis to showcase simultaneously four unbroken shots, each 93 minutes long. The initial dizzying sensory overload doesn't last. An ingenious sound mix and the familiar faces of Skarsgård, Hayek, Tripplehorn, Sands, Hunter and Burrows invite you to conspire order from the chaos. Characters from the top left screen bump into their neighbours from bottom right, while at two o'clock they're bitching about those assholes screwing them at eight. Like a riff on Altman's Short Cuts and The Player, it adds up to a properly jaundiced satire of Hollywood on the rocks. The movie is a stunt, a conceptual in-joke; or it's a portent of cinema to come; or it's a brilliant but hollow technical exercise; or it's a dynamic if erratic ensemble improv. Make of it what you will, it's certainly something to see.
Details
Release details
Duration:
97 mins
Cast and crew
Director:
Mike Figgis
Screenwriter:
Mike Figgis
Cast:
Holly Hunter
Salma Hayek
Jeanne Tripplehorn
Julian Sands
Saffron Burrows
Stellan Skarsgård
Xander Berkeley
Glenne Headly
Danny Huston
Kyle MacLachlan
Salma Hayek
Jeanne Tripplehorn
Julian Sands
Saffron Burrows
Stellan Skarsgård
Xander Berkeley
Glenne Headly
Danny Huston
Kyle MacLachlan