Personal reflections on the last January FFF

Cinema doesn’t change anything; but it makes people understand many things. It is not the movies that will change the world, but the people who watch those movies.

Krzysztof Kieślowski 

The year was 2016. I saw a film. I had just finished that year’s English language examination, led by people who were coming to my school in Istanbul all the way from Cambridge. There was a small room inside the school building called the “Film Room.” It would only be open on special days and occasions. In my memory, I have only been there two times – this time being one of them. Maybe to reward us, one of our teachers had opened the room and allowed the kids to pick a film which had been downloaded to her computer. The film had already started when I came in. I asked a friend what the title was, and he said, “something called Mr. Nobody.” Then for the remainder of the following two hours, I sat there amazed at what I was seeing. None of us in that room understood all of what was happening. But things were happening on the screen. Things I felt were important. Things which would shape my life and love of cinema. 

Since then, I have seen Mr. Nobody three times – all during very important moments in my life. Its flaws became more clear in each viewing, but so did its philosophy and emotional core. 

Mr. Nobody is the story of Nemo – which means “nobody” in Latin. He is the last mortal person on Earth, in the year 2092. The now immortal mankind awaits his natural death while a psychiatrist and a journalist try to penetrate the memories of this mysterious man. But his claims are contradictory and seem to indicate that several lifetimes have happened all in one. 

At nine, he is a kid at a train station who needs to make the most important decision of his life. As a result of his parents’ divorce, his mother is already on the train – leaving their town for the city, while his father means to stay. Who should Nemo go with? 

Because angels had forgotten to erase his memory of the future while being born, he has the ability to see his multiple futures. However, the knowledge of all these possibilities makes it even more difficult to make decisions. Alongside the protagonist, the audience travels with Nemo through space and time (literally) to observe where his decisions might take him. 

Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael’s take on chance and possibilities is nothing short of ambitious. While watching the film, you definitely get the feeling that this screenplay took a lot of time to develop. In fact, the very roots of this project are embedded in a short film he made in 1982. The narrative feeds on popular theories about concepts like the butterfly effect, Schrödinger’s cat, chaos theory, etc. It doesn’t expect you to know these, and even if you do, the narrative still goes on to explain them for the audience – which is one of the reasons why people can be taken aback by the film. It is very heavy on its themes, and it really seems to want viewers to take them in – so much so that it sometimes borders on spoon-feeding. Yet, there still is more than meets the eye here. 

Films about multiple realities caused by different decisions have existed for a while before Mr. Nobody came on board. The earliest example would probably be Kieslowski’s rather political Blind Chance (1987), where the three possible futures of a Polish medical student are presented in an episodic structure. Then came Sliding Doors in 1998, a banal romcom framed in an interesting way about a woman experiencing two alternative realities, one in which she lives in ignorance of her lover’s unfaithfulness and one where she finds herself another love interest. 

It can be argued that there’s an evolution in how this concept has been tackled over the years. In all three films, it doesn’t seem a coincidence the locations where the alternative realities start to manifest themselves are railroad stations: places of exchange and travel. Hitchcock similarly had used the train station as an integral part of Strangers on a Train’s themes of exchange. Yet, they all serve different purposes. Kieslowski’s observations on Polish society’s relationship with left-wing politics doesn’t have much to do with Gwenyth Palthrow’s love life, but this shift of focus seems to be integral in how Mr. Nobody came to be.

One of the reasons why this film is compelling to me relates purely to its emotional appeal. It’s striking how the film centers the multiverse narrative around love, but without falling for the same trap that Sliding Doors did by making caricatures of love interests. The film uses this unique structure to explore different kinds of love. Even though this is overtly a science fiction film, it works even better as a romance. There’s a shot where child Nemo passes by the three girls from his neighborhood sitting next to each other, all of which fall in love with Nemo in different alterations of the future. The colors they wear are also colors that are purposefully implemented in their segments; they represent their personalities. 

Jean wears yellow and her segments are also color-graded in yellow. She loves Nemo unconditionally, and they end up being rich and successful in the future. Yet, Nemo seems depressed in this dream life of wealth and health. Thus, yellow becomes the color of a life of luxury. 

Maybe the most complex character here, Elise is seen in a blue dress. She is established as a frustrated teen, who loves a man that doesn’t love her back. So, she ends up with Nemo. Even though she is loved and cared for by Nemo and her kids, she is still haunted by regrets. She contemplates what her life could have been if she hadn’t been married. While Nemo’s lack of decision allows the viewers to voyeuristically travel through different possible features, the sense of regret is thrown aback. Elise balances that out, as she is a woman haunted by these choices. This is a life which wants her, but that she doesn’t want. She can’t love Nemo back in the way that he loves her. This subverts the reality with Jean. There, Nemo is loved but he himself cannot love. Here, Nemo loves truthfully but Elise can’t love him. That is why her world and clothes are presented in the sorrowful blue. 

Finally, there’s Anna. She seems to be the key of the narrative in many ways. A love so impossibly true that even the universe seems to be trying so hard not to let it happen. Such a massive deus ex machina like a raindrop ruining the paper Nemo’s holding where her phone number’s written is ridiculous – but romanticism often comes in extravagant packages. This kind of perfect love is of course embodied in arguably the most passionate of colors: red. 

At its core, Mr. Nobody is a film about decision-making. As a child, I used to have a hard time making decisions. Nothing seemed harder than picking a choice between two different things. I have just recently been thinking about how I was back then, and how I am now. After becoming conscious of how, over the years, I have become more eased in my decisions, it makes me wonder if my repeated viewings of this film had an unconscious impact on me. Because it seems the core philosophy of Mr. Nobody is that every decision is the right decision. 

No Nemo is the same as another in the different timelines, simply because of the different paths they took in life. Yet, that difference is not always a bad thing; in fact, it’s the acceptance that you are who you are now because of your decisions which is maybe what makes this a comforting watch for me. It’s not a perfect film. Many flaws can be found here and there, and even the overall style of the narrative might turn people off – but it has been, and in many ways, is, a film that I adore. Science fiction might be considered the “coldest” genre, yet Mr. Nobody has a heart like no other, and is humane in the ways it explores our psyche, our decision-making process, but most importantly, our longing for love. 

I programmed this film for January 31st for CINSSU’s Free Friday Film series, because I wanted to see if this film actually has the power to resonate with people. By the time this gets published, I might have even talked to you after the screening. Maybe you weren’t there at all. But that’s alright with me because at the end of the day, we are the decisions we make.