The Code

The Code: The show is about a sexless couple who go through ups and downs in their relationship during the early days of the pandemic.

After Eugene Kotlyarenko’s film Spree divided and impressed (virtual) audiences at Fantasia Film Festival 2020 and got talked about for the rest of the year, the writer/director made a strong impact on the Fantasia scene. His new picture, The Code has a plot about the pandemic’s chaos through the eyes of a wannabe documentarian Celine (Dasha Nekrasova) and her boyfriend Jay (Peter Vack) who try to film a movie about the pandemic.

This premise, in our opinion, seems a good opportunity to delve into the ways that the society’s response to the COVID crisis transformed the image of the internet, particularly as it relates to those who don’t view the virus as a threat to them personally.

Celine and Jay’s perspective towards the COVID-19 virus is also mocked by the film for example people who are scared of wearing masks while driving their cars or people who don’t brush their hands against strangers when shaking hands and people don’t take any steps in order to try to avoid getting the virus in the first place.

Naturally, the film depicts events in the earlier phases of the pandemic when very few people were educated about any of the contributing factors towards COVID and adherent selfishness was common to the point that it’s never been featured in any film that focused on the pandemic up until this point.

As did Spree, Kotlyarenko employs, in this case, the Polariods social network to underline loneliness within Celine and Jay relationship during the COVID pandemic, structure through a combination of devices ranging from hidden cameras, Zoom, FaceTime, GoPro, drones, 360 cameras, text messages, and of course, classic Sony XDCams. The language conceives a conflict that is now well over three dimensions and is easily the most distinctive aspect trying to emphasize how the Coronavirus has affected the relationship of a younger couple who are unable to have sexual intercourse with one another.

What I find particularly striking about Kotlyarenko as a director is his insistence that the film we are watching is a meta-narrative and not a sole plot, even in its more romantic and sweeping moments. Structure is especially important in them since the director has made it clear the cameras are not to be pointed at random because he always does which scene comes which way.

This, of course, makes its meta-narration paradoxically more complex than if it was entirely confined within the expository boundaries set out by Celine’s world. However, there is always the possibility of seeing the creative process, which in itself, makes one all the more willing to settle into the film that the ‘creators’ have embarked upon.

But, Kotlyarenko’s cardinal error lies in the fact that he rather portrays empty images that only serve as an ignorant provocation which is offensive, banal, and not funny at all instead of providing insightful critique of the most interesting aspect regarding the construction of facades within Celine’s computer game-like environment. Kotlyarenko did the same with Spree as well, but he had at least something to say in this case since he managed to talk about the very fact themselves of how online culture makes people participant in meta exploitation.

As for the Code, in this case, he develops the thesis of Spree, namely that the internet makes culture rotten and bullying a built in feature of cyberspace. This, however, does not stop him from trying to foray into this thesis from the perspectives of a culture hater, even when he exploits halftone TikTok filters and fast cuts from mass influencer culture, which is in itself an indication of the level of popular culture.

It’s true, our humanity is in the gutter, disbelief of scientific literacy in people who are misled by various online messiahs – be it antivaccine or Zero COVID intersects, influencers possess greater power over the minds of their followers and direct them to whatever they want, and narcissism reign supreme within most individuals’ believes.

Kotlyarenko highlights the extent of the ignorance of these online people and I must admit the parts of the foringer story that said that “COVID’s the big thing. I’m sure it’s gonna be a big hit.” Some of the COVID’s awareness campaigns are therefore easy to understand how the war will be turned into a narrative hogging it for what it is worth.

In one of the scenes, Celine appears alongside a women in talks with a son who has been diagnosed with the Jim Henson disease. What Celine and Jay did here was out of the ordinary, instead of providing support Celine tells her daughter exactly what she expects her to do – collapse and start banging her head against the window. It is pure exploitation. It is artificial. Never compassionate.

And in the case of Kotlyarenko’s work, though one might disagree with his criticism, there is a tissue connection, because he makes it clear to the viewer that Celine does not cover anything — and this position is sometimes acceptable, only it’s hard to sympathize with people who are allegedly sympathetic. In this context, Stepan responds to a complete stranger with irritation, which steals the viewer’s attention when they could simply turn their heads to the side and look at Stepan, wondering why we should care how Celine covers the COVID crisis in her narratively fabricated documentary. When faced with an empty narrative, some people look for audacity to create avatars and along the way fail to develop any meaningful core.

It also does not help that Dasha’s acting is awful and a depressionist distracts the viewer with self-ironic tropes that can be clearly viewed through the lenses of Kotlyarenko’s animation. She could not be emotionally similar to the actress who portrayed Bobita, a character in a cutting satire by Radu Jude Auspicissimo so Ianas Manolache arguably performs better. The COVID documentary focuses on the online world’s perception of real life where online avatar Angela never experienced everything situated outside her character.

In The Code, it is all the more poignant because it is all fake. Maybe that was supposed to be the case, but it gets tedious and annoying very quickly. Instead of being able to say, even in passing, that the culture of the economy has made any discussion about COVID all but impossible, Kotlyarenko, on the other hand, tries to dish out a lot of shallow stimuli into his movie to elicit aggressive responses from audiences.

There is the possibility that it did do well at Fantasia, but this lack of interest in pursuing any such thing which it has completely obliterated the heat the opening scene created. Even with the reverse Radu Jude handwriting credits, which he has credits for do not expect too much from the end of the world, failed to collar Kotlyarenko movie too.

The end credits inside the digital environment Celine and Jay created then going back to the bear bone essence of film is so much easier. It is a shame film will never have the impact that Jude’s biting satire on society’s enshittification will lead us to total destruction of The Code.

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