Audacious experiment

>> Mike Figgis splits the screen with Time Code

by MATTHEW HAYS

With Time Code, Figgis furthers the concept Hitchcock pushed as far as technology would allow in his day and age. In his 1948 film Rope, Hitchcock shot the action in ten-minute increments, which was all a film magazine would allow for. Figgis has taken the 93-minute digital cassette and wound a film around that time span. Upping the ante, he's employed four different cameras, interwoven an odd ensemble of actors (all of who improvise their way through largely-preplanned-but-not-written-in-stone storylines) and split the screen into four, allowing the bits and pieces of action to unravel at the same time.

It's an eyeful. Figgis, with copious clear and affectionate nods to Altman, has crafted an extremely intriguing film here, one that surprisingly never seems too self-conscious considering its brave new form.

Like Altman's The Player, Figgis takes broad pot shots at the skanky folk who populate L.A.'s film scene. There's the ambitious, bi actress (Salma Hayek), her possessive lesbian girlfriend (Jeanne Tripplehorn), who rightly smells infidelity, and a rather slutty producer (Stellan Skarsgard), among others. Execs meet as nervous people travel to auditions, while others choose unusual places to do the nasty. Similar to Short Cuts, which culminated in a final, shocking earthquake, Time Code is punctuated throughout by several shockwaves and tremors (which points up the intricacies of making a film like this one--coordinating all the actors to shake at the right moment must have proven a bit of a headache).

While a highly commendable bit of film work, Figgis's revolutionary experiment--forcing the audience to take in four different storylines at once--isn't quite as revolutionary or as experimental as it sounds in basic description. Figgis does, it turns out, guide our attentions to certain corners of the screen at given moments, privileging them by turning up the volume on one or two squares at a time while shutting out the noise on others.

This is a very minor complaint, more of an observation than a disillusionment with the film. Time Code stands as an audacious feature, one which will stimulate those desperate for a fix of big-screen novelty. :

Time Code opens Friday, May 12