Review of Nirvana (1997) by Paul F — 19 Mar 2005

Okay, so these two might not seem like a natural double feature. [i]Nirvana[/i] at first appears to be a direct-to-video Christopher Lambert sci-fi crapfest, while [i]I'm Not Scared[/i] is an arthouse hit from last year about a young boy who, well, isn't scared. But they're both by Italian director Gabriele Salvatores, and they share some similar themes, so it's not that weird that they're stuck together in this review. Plus, I never got around to reviewing Nirvana after I watched it a few weeks ago, and this is as good an excuse as any.

[i]Nirvana[/i] is, in fact, an Italian low-budget science fiction film with a bizarrely heady premise for something that stars Christopher Lambert. Lambert plays a video game designer whose virtual reality game Nirvana develops a weird bug after being hit with a virus. Solo, the lead character in the game, the one instructed by the player, becomes sentient, and can hear the voice of the player like God speaking to him. He begins to question the world around him and implores Lambert to find him a way out, or at least to longer feel the pain of being killed every time the player makes a mistake.

Meanwhile, Lambert is on a quest to find his missing girlfriend Lisa (Emmanuelle Seigner) and the two goals coincide with Lambert making his way through GCI-heavy streets and into the digital world itself, pursued by, among others, a psychologist for his employer. Things get stranger from there, and while the film never manages to get a Philip K. Dick level of cyberpunk existentialism, even when the plot starts to drag, the visuals are still worth a look.

That said, the Miramax version of the film is pretty atrocious, and the DVD only gives you the awful dubbed version. At least Lambert dubs his own voice, and he manages a performance that makes you think, "Hey, this guy can actually act when he wants to," a welcome change from the drivel he's been doing for the past couple decades.

Similarly, [i]I'm Not Scared[/i] presents a protaginist who must help someone trapped in a world they can't escape from on their own. In this case, it's 10-year-old Michele, who discovers a young boy being hidden in a pit near his house. He strikes up a sort of friendship with the boy, whose skin has gone practically white from lack of sun and who can sneak only brief glances into.

The sunlight for the same reason.

Michele lives with his parents and sister, and his father one day brings home a strange man from Milan to come and live with them for a while. The connection between the man, Michele's family and the boy is more than it at first seems, and the film presents the relationships entirely though Michele's eyes, so while certain characters and facts are left unexplored, their lack of development makes perfect sense.

[i]I'm Not Scared[/i] is in the tradition of films like Tiger Bay, The Window and Cloak and Dagger, in which a child becomes endangered after they witness a crime, but I'm Not Scared manages to be more engaging than the standard "end-of-childhood-innocence" tale. It's mostly due to the performace of young Giuseppe Cristano as Michele, making him an engaging enough character so that everything he does is fraught with tension. Some genuinely interesting plot twists help, even if the bad guys become a bit too obvious and exact motives behind some characters' actions aren't all there.

Both [i]Nirvana[/i] and [i]I'm Not Scared[/i] are beautifully shot films, the former making the best of its' low budget by creating a glossy, bright future and the latter creating some truly gorgeous scenes out of the farmland of southern Italy and making them seem simultaneously welcoming and menacing. Both are fine character-driven thrillers, even if Nirvana bites off a little more existentialism than it can chew. [i]I'm Not Scared[/i] emerges as an absorbing, tight thriller that could conceivably work well for kids of the age of the lead, at least in the more liberal-minded households.

Neither film received much distribution here, and [i]Nirvana[/i] sat on the shelf for nearly a decade before getting dumped to video. It's a shame, as both are worth seeing, and I'm certainly interested in checking out more from Salvatores, provited American distributors get off their butts and bring his films over here. ([i]Denti,[/i] in particular, has gotten good reviews and sounds interesting, but has yet to land a distributor. Instead, we get Roberto Benigni playing an 8-year-old puppet, dubbed by Breckin Meyer. Thanks, Miramax!).