Mr. Nobody: The Labyrinth, The Key, Why It Matters to You, and How It Helps Me Order Breakfast
By: Ellie K O'Donnell
Tags: Videogames, Decisions, Choices, Mr Nobody, Butterfly Effect

“And what side do you want with that?” the waitress asks looking up from her tab. I go back and forth in my brain: “Fruit? Pancake? Pancake or Fruit?” Time is running out. “Potatoes, please,” I stammer. I close my menu and extend it towards her, fully relieved that this horrible ordeal is over. The waitress walks away. Why did I order potatoes? I didn’t even want potatoes.

This scene happened way too often. I used to hate making decisions. From ordering food to deciding which university to attend to choosing a career choice — there was nothing I found more uncomfortable. I always had, and that is why I love the film Mr. Nobody so much.

The argument Jaco Van Dormael, the screenplay who devoted ten years of his life to perfecting Mr. Nobody, makes is that life is a game and making choices is how you play. The outcome of the game is irrelevant (there is no winner nor loser) if you never even play the game. Dormael presents a chaotic coagulation of nine different versions of Nemo Nobody’s life, exploring different choices bifurcation after bifurcation, in order to prove that any version of life lived is not any more valuable than the other. By creating such distinct and differing acts, but in the end revealing that none of them had ever occurred, Dormael creates a labyrinth in which he traps his audience and forces him or her to play his game — he forces him or her to choose. He alleviates the pressure of making the right choice and emphasizes the importance of just making a choice in order to move forward.

Jaco Von Dormael uses different styles of recording and editing in order to visually draw differences between the acts of Nemo’s life, which sublimally makes the audience feel different emotions. For example, each act was recorded in different fashions in order to evoke different moods. In an interview about the film Mr. Nobody, Dormael explains, “ ‘For life with Elise, the camera was on the shoulder the whole time and not stable. When he’s a widower, the camera is far from him, like he’s far from himself…The camera helped to make each of the characters different.’ ” Additionally, he contributes to this visual manipulation by associating each act with a different color. In a separate interview with Dormael, he explains: “ ‘We also tried one main color for each life. At the beginning all the colors exist; when Nemo chooses the girl in the yellow dress, everything becomes more yellow. And when he is an old man all the colors disappear, and everything is black and white.’ ” I think this is especially interesting because at the beginning, when there is an infinite amount of choices, there are an infinite amount of colors. This adds a sense of stress to the viewer as he or she not only notices Nemo’s life is running out of colors, but also running out of choices. By adding visual components to evoke different emotional responses to each of Nemo’s lives, Dormael increases the degree of separation between the different Nemos.

Dormael presents various snippets of these different lives in a confusing, disorganized manner in order to entrap his audience. The only unifying scene is the one in which Nemo, aged 118, is telling the stories from all his different lives. The reporter (obviously confused) asks Nemo which version of his life actually occurred, to which Nemo replies:

“ ‘Each of these lives is the right one! Every path is the right path. Everything could have been anything else… and it would’ve had just as much meaning,’ ” (Dormael, Mr. Nobody).

The name Nemo Nobody is a repetitive-double entendre; “nemo” translates from Latin to “nobody” and Nobody — well, obviously: means nobody. Nemo goes on:

“ ‘You don’t exist. Neither do I. We only live in the imagination of a nine-year old child. We are imagined by a nine-year-old child faced with an impossible choice,’ ” (Dormael, Mr. Nobody).

Because Nemo never made the choice whether to go with his mother or father, he never existed. Because he never chose to be somebody, he was nobody.

And this right here…is when I found myself stuck in Dormael’s labyrinth. I realized that I had just waited two hours and thirty-seven minutes to discover what part of the story was true. Waiting for the movie to condense and explain itself in a neat, little storyline. What was the point of watching that movie if it didn’t mean anything in the end? And this right here…is when I started to play in Dormael’s game. As I began to reflect upon the movie, my frustration decreased while my admiration increased. I realized that by failing to provide the audience with a definitive ending, the screen writer forced the viewer to make a choice about the movie. Here, I decided that the movie in fact did have meaning, and more importantly — I had the power to decide exactly what this meaning was…I realized that because Nemo never decided to go with his mother or father, he could not move forward with his life. I realized that it truly did not matter which parent he ended up staying with, because any version of his life actually occurring would have been better than not living a life at all. Dying in the worst way possible or having the most miserable life was something, rather than nothing.

And that is exactly what Dormael wants us to figure out. In another interview with Dormael, the interviewer questions him about his fascination with the road less travelled. Dormael answers, “ ‘The kid that is unable to make a choice because he doesn’t know what is the good choice and the old man that has the feeling that all the choices are interesting and that there is no bad choice, there are only good choices and that all lives are worth living. In every life, there is happiness and pain and what’s most important is just to be alive.’ ” Dormael uses the different versions of Mr. Nobody’s life to explain that every life is beautiful and any one is not any more meaningful than another. By providing completely different narratives, Dormael proves to his viewers that the outcomes of decisions are obsolete.

Dormael also aims to alleviate the pressures of everyday choices by using Chaos Theory to diminish the responsibility an individual has in undesirable outcomes. In one version of Nemo’s life, he spends the entirety of it searching for his lover, Anna. He finally finds her, and she leaves him with a note with her telephone number on it. Immediately after she leaves, a single drop of water falls from the sky and lands on the note, completely dissipating the ink and losing the number forever. The narrator goes to explain that the drop was caused by a Brazilian man, who disrupted the osmotic equilibrium of the atmosphere — which in turn caused a drop of water to fall on the other side of the world — after he decided to cook a hard-boiled egg. In a Weebly article, “The Science of Mr. Nobody,” the author refers to this incident and goes on to explain that the butterfly effect is a principle of Chaos Theory and, “it states that small changes in initial conditions causes change in end behavior.” Through providing the viewer with an example of Nemo’s life that is ruined because of extraneous situations out of his control, the film removes responsibility of the tragic ending from Nemo. This helps take away the pressures of making a choice because it shows that sometimes it does not even matter what you choose. The universe chooses for you.

Dormael annihilates fears of decision making by proving that no outcome is better than another and attributing less desirable outcomes on extraneous situations. He allows the audience to make whatever he or she wants out of the movie. He gives the audience the freedom and liberty in making this choice in every way but one: forcing them to make a choice. You see, if you decide to not interpret and make sense of the movie, the movie means nothing, and you receive nothing from it. Therefore, it is imperative for you to make a decision. If Nemo would have chosen ANY life — even the shitty ones when his wife gets killed in a car accident on their wedding day or when he drowns after he drives off a bridge — it would have been better than the ending. At least then there would have been an ending. Any choice would have better than no choice. Any life is worth living.

And it is with this mentality, that has changed the way I think about everything. I no longer care about which breakfast side I am going to order because I know I will enjoy each and every single one — and even if I would have enjoyed the pancake or fruit more than the potatoes — it simply does not matter. I am no longer scared to choose. I am no longer scared to have less options. I have discovered you cannot dwell on the possibilities of what could happen or what could have happened. The film proves that your life will never be able to advance if you are too afraid to choose, too afraid to move forward. What is important is that you live whatever life you have to the fullest, fearlessly, and unforgivingly, because every single life is meaningful — and not one outcome is more meaningful than another.