One more film exploiting the concept of multiple scenarios in one’s life. Perhaps Kieślowski’s “Przypadek” (Blind Chance) was the first (and the best), but the idea keeps appearing and re-appearing in diverse versions in the cinema. Perhaps because everyone wonders from time to time – what if – what if I did go left instead of right, what if I did go out with that person, what if I did not say some things to someone I just met, what if I was born in a different place, in a different country, what if… Everyone knows these sort of doubts that almost always present with us. Because we are people and we have so many choices in our lives that sometimes too many things depend on one important or seemingly unimportant decision.
This film could also be read from a different angle – perhaps the versions of life of the main character are not different scenarios of ‘what if’, but perhaps he has lived all of them in all of his incarnations. From this perspective, it is somehow similar to “Cloud Atlas”.
Probably the most important message of “Mr. Nobody” is that until you make a decision, everything is possible – like the famous case of Schroedinger’s Cat. Until you open the box, the cat may be dead and alive at the same time. Everything is possible until you make it happen one way or another.
A message we could probably be sending to our teenagers – to people who desperately need to know how to learn to not only make good decisions, but learn to make decisions. Decisions, that sometimes will not be good, sometimes will be the worst decisions of their lives, but they need to be made. Because life is about making decisions. Not pending on making them.
Blondoner's Blog 