Mr. Nobody is a fantasy drama by Jacques Van Dormal, which was released in 2009 and, due to the peculiarities of its plot, has become the subject of numerous reviews and reviews. It is difficult for an inexperienced viewer to understand some moments of the picture, but the meaning of the film Mr. Nobody lies in the idea that lies on the surface – the difficulty of human choice.
What is Mr Nobody about?
The plot of the film takes place in the world of the future, where the main character Nemo wakes up. By this time, the mechanism of endless cell renewal has befallen humanity, and the central character is the last mortal. This is the reason to make a reality show starring Nemo, describing his life. Due to his 129-year-old age, the hero collects puzzles from his biography and recalls the past with the help of hypnosis sessions. However, the hero talks about events in a rather unusual way, revealing alternative versions of events, but not talking about which of them actually happened.
Before Nemo is born, he finds himself in a world of oblivion, where unborn children can see everything that can happen to them in the future. They choose families for themselves, after which the angels of oblivion touch the lips of the kids and they forget everything that happened here, and also lose the ability to see the future. Nemo is bypassed by angels, after which he comes to a world in which visions and forebodings come to him about what will happen.
Further, the fate of the hero undergoes the problem of choice. When his parents divorce, Nemo chooses to stay with his father or mother. In the first case, he marries Eliza or Jill. In the last option, the hero moves to live in another city and meets Anna, with whom his relationship is very ambiguous.
The hidden meaning of the movie “Mr Nobody”
What is the meaning of the movie “Mr Nobody”? The film contains a philosophical reference to the teachings of Plato. They tell a myth about the world before birth, in which knowledge about everything is available to a person. After birth, this knowledge is available only in the form of memories. This term describes the ability of people to comprehend knowledge not from the outside, but with the help of organs of perception, that is, to find it in oneself. The reasoning of some philosophers is nothing but their ability to rise into the ideal world and contemplate the true essence of things, not based on experience and external sources.
The abstract world is a place of absolute knowledge, where every thing has its own meaning, and many of them are mythical faces in the form of gods and angels. All this is justified by the fact that in the teachings every thing has a changeable and unchanging part. The protagonist has lived for more than 100 years and during this time every cell of his body has changed countless times, and the constant part that was with him before birth, during life and after it is the meaning. Therefore, any choice that the hero makes will still carry meaning.
Nemo has the ability to rise to the very absolute knowledge that gives him the ability to see the options for the meanings that the choice will bring him. But given this opportunity, the character cannot determine which one is correct. Since the goal is to achieve happiness, Nemo makes it the main selection criterion. At the same time, the hero understands that the outcome of events depends on many external factors, which divides his choices into externally conditioned and emotional ones.
The first type of decision depends on external factors, for example, when the hero ran after the train, his shoelace broke. Nemo used the same way to choose when he tossed a coin or decided to marry the first girl who would dance with him. Guided by an emotional choice, the hero began to live with his mother. But none of the proposed options for the development of fate satisfied the character and plunged him into a stalemate, where any action is doomed to failure. The meaning of the film Mr. Nobody is tied not only to the appeal to science fiction and myths, but also to objective scientific principles and theories.
Scientific concepts
It is worth making a reference to the pigeon experiment, which is shown at the beginning of the picture. Like the pigeon who associates the accidental supply of grain into the feeder with the push of a button, so Nemo does not understand the hopelessness of any of his decisions. Any action he performs will be accompanied by countless circumstances. This problem is revealed in the film with the help of a theory called the butterfly effect.
The essence of the concept is given with the help of examples when Nemo’s shoelaces broke, a jeans factory went bankrupt, a Brazilian boiled an egg and steam caused rain, which destroyed Anna’s number written on a piece of paper.
Another detail is the fact that Nemo works as a presenter and talks about scientific principles. Fragments of the recording of programs are explanations of the essence of the plot by the hero himself. You can highlight the part of the film where the host talks about the impossibility of turning back time and about the desire of the universe for chaos. These clippings partly explain the fallacy of Nemo’s tendency to control his own destiny and why all of his choices are equally right in their wrongness.
The meaning of the ending of the movie “Mr Nobody”
The denouement is the director’s introduction to the part where Nemo is asked which of his choices is correct. The hero is cunning about the correctness of all his decisions, but also declares the hopelessness of any outcome of his choice. He says that the present time may not exist objectively, but be his next vision, and the hero himself is a 9-year-old boy who could not make a choice.
Despite the fact that the film affirms the equivalence of all outcomes that await a person, regardless of his choice, the author gives the viewer his own assessment of the choices. It consists in the fact that Nemo sees all the paths that surround him, rises above situations and makes choices outside of options.
Mr. Nobody is an example of a film that an unprepared viewer can comprehend. The problem of choice is widely covered in the picture and can be interpreted by everyone at his own discretion. It provides an opportunity to understand the duality of human nature in the pursuit of happiness, as well as to comprehend the fact that the worst choice is the one that is not made.
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