Rating: 
Country: USA
Release Date: October 25, 2005
Distributor: MTI Home Video
Director:
· Vincenzo Natali
Cast:
· David Hewlett
· Andrew Miller
· Marie Josée-Croze
· Stan the Turtle
Related Sites:
· IMDB Link
Grade: A
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DVD Review: Nothing
by Troy Riser
Published: September 22, 2005
In the opening credits, the filmmakers swear to the truth of the film Nothing no less than five times, verbally (by the deep, Godlike voice of the narrator), in writing, and once on a stack of Bibles. So what they’re saying is that Nothing is true; that is, the story upon which the film entitled Nothing is based is, in fact, a fact. The events described in the film, according to the filmmakers, really happened. Get it? Nothing is true? Nothing is true?
Never mind. It’s a Canadian film. Ordinarily, one can’t watch a Canadian film without entering the land of self-referential metafiction at some point, but usually that point is somewhere after the opening credits and before the end. ‘Outside the box’, from a mainstream, big-budget Hollywood perspective, really means somewhere in or around Toronto.
Belying the title, Nothing is a film about something: Dave and Andrew, two lifelong loser friends, suddenly find themselves gifted (or cursed) with the ability to make the things they don’t like simply disappear. They discover this amazing power when they hate the world away, leaving only themselves, Andrew’s house, and Stan, Dave’s pet turtle (whose stolid, plodding presence, by the way, lends the film a much-needed gravitas, strange as it sounds). In the absence of the world, all is white: the sky, the ground, everything. The all-white ground, after some exploration by the two, has the consistency of tofu and the bounciness of a trampoline. There are no living things other than themselves. There is, however, electricity in the house, along with cable TV originating from…somewhere.
Nothing was directed by Vincenzo Natali, who also directed Cube, the dark—even nihilistic—science fiction thriller about a group of amnesiac strangers trapped in a huge killing machine puzzle box. Nothing, while tentatively a comedy, is thematically a cousin to Cube: reduced to essentials, the common thread running through both is the concept of ordinary people stuck in extraordinary, bleakly surreal situations. Both films are filled with visual puns and metaphors. The world of Cube is that of the vast, impersonal machine, a grim Giger-like world of instant, gruesome death. Nothing, on the other hand, makes one think of the work of Magritte, the French surrealist who specialized in skyscapes filled with floating, mustachioed dandies sporting derbies and umbrellas. Going further, one could say that Cube is Kafkaesque, as in Franz, while Nothing is Keatonesque, as in Buster. Judging from these two films alone, the ordinary versus surreal metaphysical dichotomy seems to be Natali’s fixation, the focus of his oeuvre -- at least in Cube and Nothing. Think Michael Crichton and amusement parks. Think Oliver Stone and conspiracy. Think David Cronenburg and the merging of flesh and machines and viral contagion and sex and blood and semen and death. There is nothing particularly bad about artistic obsession on a single theme, or several closely intertwined thematic concepts. Thematic obsession gave us Hokusai’s glorious 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, after all.
“Yeah, okay,” you say, “But what’s it about?” Nothing is about friendship. The nature of subjective reality. Identity. At one point, Dave and Andrew discover they can also wish away bad memories. Since we are, at least in part, the sum of our experiences, what happens if one washes those memories —- the bad ones, especially -— down the hole? People change in this movie; that is, they are changed by the events that take place within the film. It is the aspect of the film, rampant absurdity aside, which engages most completely. Andrew’s transformation, for example, from weak, agoraphobic nebbish to strong, resourceful, independent thinker is a delight to experience.
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CD Giveaway - Paper Bird, "Rooms"
Ends May 28, 2013
Drifting ever so slightly away from traditional folk music, this Colorado band delivers harmony and energy aplenty. |
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