I don't know why this film wasn't on my radar for so long. It's such an interesting and beautiful film, and the lack of attention that it gets really surprised me. The movie is about choices. The whole idea of the film is that anything is possible if you don't choose. The film explores the different paths of all of Nemo Nobody's possible lives. While watching the film, it has a sort of Cloud Atlas aspect to it. Cloud Atlas came after this film, but it has the same sci-fi, disconnected storytelling that Mr. Nobody has, but Mr. Nobody is able to tie all of the beautiful paths with a plot that makes you think about the film as a whole, while Cloud Atlas feels separated in my memory.
The main reason I'm blogging about this film is because it feels very STAC. It's one of those films that nobody has heard of but is fantastic. You finish the film with the feeling of "what just happened" which is best feeling to have after experiencing art. What really upsets me is the reviews of this film. It's a general trend that I'm noticing about movie critics, they never analyze the film for what it actually is. Some of the critiques I've read have been nothing but a page of adjectives attached to the single grievance that it's confusing. Yes, it's confusing. It's supposed to be. I hate it when people dismiss a piece of art just because they don't understand it. Imagine if Waiting for Godot was a major motion picture before a play. Imagine how awful it would have been received by critics because "it's confusing". These experts are too focused in it trying to make sense than actually experiencing what is happening. That's how I differentiate the good confusing from the bad. If I'm standing in a museum in front of a piece of wood with nails in it, I try to experience what the piece is conveying, but after a couple of seconds I'm able to dismiss it as stupid and move on. If I stood in front of the piece and started to try and make sense of it, like so many people would, I'd come to the same conclusion, or worse, get caught up in the message of the piece and accept it as good. The ability to experience art is what is missing from the individual.
Take my mother, every so often I accompany her to a film. She get's the satisfaction of spending time with her son, and I get to go to any R-rated movie I want to for free. I try and take her to the best films that I can find or hear about, and sometimes I feel that it's wasted on her. After every film, on the drive home, I try and talk to her about the film, and I notice that most of the movies just fly over her head. I see that her mind focuses on the tiniest details of a film, and overlooks the film itself. For example, last week I went with her to see Lucy. I honestly didn't have high expectations for the film, but that day I was in the mood for some mind numbing sci-fi action so I decided that this film would do fine. I was surprised to actually find some substance in the film, and even though it has its faults in my mind, it still had aspects that could be thought about and discussed. Like first, Lucy as a character. She is the absence of character, which is extremely captivating because it allows the film to take on much more philosophy because there is little need to discuss Lucy's purpose or past, she acts as a vessel for the story to be told, rather than a story told about her. I wish that the filmmakers remembered this and didn't try and Hollywood it up with the French love interest, but the scenes of Lucy losing her humanity were captivating and satisfied more than the creation of a backstory that didn't need to exist. Also, [spoiler] the way Lucy is able to survive after her death in the end. She explains how time is what creates reality, and how without, one cannot exist. The final power Lucy acquires is the ability to control time, and so when Lucy dies in the end, the moment when the consciousness loses time and stops existing, she's able to survive as a sort of ghost, which could be seen when she send the text to the Police officer saying "I am everywhere". Anyway, after all of that, the first comment that I hear from my mother is that she thinks that the movie should have addressed other humans who were able to acquire these super powers, and she specified Jesus. I exploded on the inside when I heard that. First off, the comment makes me think that she wasn't paying attention, or actually, she was paying so much attention on the two minute scene with Morgan Freeman talking about super powered brains that she just decided to check out for the rest of the film. Secondly, the criticism is that an entirely new movie should have been made. That's like asking your friend if she thinks your soup needs salt, and she tells you that the duck would have been better. With a little salt, Lucy would have been amazing. There are honest criticism to be made on the film, like how the car chase scenes and the final break in scene are ridiculous, but people like my mother and movie critics so often ignore what they are looking at to focus on unimportant details.
