Mr. Nobody

Recently I sat down and watched the 2009 film, "Mr. Nobody".  It premiered at the Venice Film Festival back in 2009.  The film is about Nemo Nobody, who is the last truly mortal man left on planet Earth, at age 118.  The rest of our race has acheived semi-immortality, being able to live significantly longer than naturally possible.  Nemo is about to die, but is joined by a journalist who has been tasked with documenting Nemo's life, as the last true mortal.  He describes his parent's divorce, three possible love interests, and other trying moments in his life.  Theses aspects are told at ages nine, fifteen and thirty-four.  What makes this story different is that Nemo doesn't stick to one story.  These alternate timelines are switched around incredibly quickly, as Nemo makes split second decisions.  This makes the film very non-linear as we bounce between nine possible realities.

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This film also takes a look at different science fiction concepts.  Often times this non-linear format even gives way to the butterfly effect.  We see Nemo affected three times, in multiple realities based on the butterfly effect.  We see a drop of water, leaf in the road and a bird in the road change Nemo's life drastically.  In addition to the butterfly effect, we also see a lot of talk of "The Big Crunch".  The Big Crunch can most readily be described as the opposite of the big bang.  At the end of the universe, everything will contract rapidly.  We see this science play a significant role because Nemo is a science television host in one universe.  

Overall this film features incredibly beautiful shots (and not just because our lead actor, Jared Leto, has gorgeous eyes).  We see many close ups, that help add to the sense of disorientation and fast pace, as we never are given much time to establish a scene.  The attention to detail is immense when it comes to the cinematography.  We also see countless beautiful time lapse shots that create an incredibly surrealist feel.  All of this is complimented by some very intense production design.  Very often, Nemo's worlds are surrealist but uniform.  

This includes a world where everyone wears plaid and drives red cars.  This pattern required a lot of work by the entire production design team.  Overall this film is a beautiful surreal piece, all tied together by the realization from Nemo that, "Each of these lives is the right one! Every path is the right path. Everything could have been anything else and it would have just as much meaning." 

Colors and other Elements in Requiem for a Dream

For the 89398th time, I watched Requiem for a Dream last night with a few of my friends. I’ve always admired this movie for it’s cinematography, whether it was the split screens, the extreme closeups, or for strapping the camera to the actor. However, while watching the film this time around I noticed something that really stood out to me; color. In a lot of my classes recently we’ve been learning about how important color is in any sort of media: photography, television etc. In this film 

In the beginning of the film, there is a strong use of cool colors, showing the calmness of all the protagonists who are not yet in any real trouble. However you start to begin to see the color red a lot more frequently when things begin to go down hill. For example, one of the films protagonist Sarah Goldfarb, has a recurring dream of herself on a television show in the same red dress. She becomes obsessive with this red dress, as she does with being on television. This obsessed begins her downfall and soon more reds show up. Next, she decides to dye her hair a similar shade of red.  These reds really stood out to me more than any other color. The reds played the role as a foreshadow for her losing her mind and symbolized danger in her life and mind. A scene that really portrays this is when she’s spinning around in her red dress and applying red lipstick on herself. This creepy slow motion scene is full of reds, and gives an eerie feeling. The bright red was the only color that would stand out in the scene, making you focus your attention on her and only her. 

Although the other character’s did not have colors that stood out, there was a strong use of cool colors when Harry Goldfarb another protagonist was fantasizing or drugged up. When he lays with his girlfriend doped out, the lighting has a blue tint to it and when he fantasizes about her, the blue sky stands out more then any other color. This represents the tranquility and calmness in his mind. 

This movie has a lot of amazing elements other then colors, the soundtrack adds to the plots mood and the camera shots as mentioned before differ from each other and really stand out. Although this movie has a sad ending and isn’t for the weak stomach, I recommend this film to anyone who loved Black Swan or The Fountain.