Code 46 (Michael Winterbottom 2003)
Posted on June 27 at 7.57, 2007 by Eric Mahleb
In Code 46, Michael Winterbottom sends mixed messages about the city of the very near future. On the one hand, the effective cinematography captures beautiful images of Shanghai, London and Dubai to create a post-modernist and exotic view of the city that blends concerns for overpopulation and the impact of technology on individual freedom with a sense of acceptance and beauty towards the alienation created by the modern city. And on the other hand, the lead protagonists are shown to escape to a more ‘rural’ and primitive lifestyle, filling the narrative with a sense of nostalgia for a past when less was available but men were more free.
In the process, the film distorts space completely by mixing shots of various cities to give the impression of another (Hong Kong is Seattle) and by inserting spaces of desert where there should be none, portraying Shanghai as an overcrowded, fenced-in island surrounding by a sea of waste lands. The end result, which feels at times like a music video, portrays the city in a fragmented and ephemeral way, but with enough respect that the problems discussed in the film and the blame associated seem to somehow be shifted away from the city. The city is no longer responsible, simply the place where man’s experiments and the inevitable journey of progress occur.
Excerpt from Architectural Representations of the City in Science Fiction Cinema.
My vote: 
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