Without giving anything away, let me offer a comparison to the hollywood oscar winner "Crash" because they have similar themes. They both deal with the psychological and communicative dis-functions particular to our modern, multicultural world. Both films also deal with the suffering we create through our behavior toward one another by way of our assumptions, beliefs, and prejudices.

Stylistically, however, these two films have little in common. Whereas "Crash" plays like a pilot for a tv series, weaving its characters and their stories together in support of its themes (as it holds our hands throughout and takes us where it wants us to go), "Code Unknown" is a puzzle in fragments that we must assemble ourselves from the layered information we are given. Whereas "Crash" connects too many improbable conversations and events with possible ones in order to hit us over the heads and wrench our hearts with its message, "Code Unknown" entrusts us with cinematic clues and metaphors that we must use to construct our own understanding. In "Crash" everyone tells us everything they feel and think thereby limiting the possibilities of what we are allowed to imagine. To the contrary, "Code Unknown" invites us to rely our own abilities (as perceivers) to discover what truths there are."Crash" has a few brilliant scenes, but once we have seen it there is nothing left to experience, wonder about, or really discuss. The show is over, and now we know everything about it (just as with every hollywood film) . "Code Unknown" (like all works of art) is made up of one brilliant scene after another, but more importantly it entreats us to reflect, as well as interpret. It also invites us into conversation about it, even asks us to return and discover again.... cinewest