Nirvana | |
---|---|
Directed by | Gabriele Salvatores |
Written by | Gabriele Salvatores Pino Cacucci Gloria Corica |
Produced by | Vittorio Cecchi Gori Maurizio Totti |
Starring | Christopher Lambert Diego Abatantuono Stefania Rocca Emmanuelle Seigner Gigio Alberti Claudio Bisio Silvio Orlando Paolo Rossi Sergio Rubini Amanda Sandrelli |
Cinematography | Italo Petriccione |
Edited by | Massimo Fiocchi |
Music by | Federico De Robertis Mauro Pagani |
Distributed by | Cecchi Gori Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
Country | Italy |
Language | Italian |
Box office | $10 million (Italy) [1] |
Nirvana is a 1997 Italian cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Gabriele Salvatores. The film stars Christopher Lambert, Diego Abatantuono, Sergio Rubini, and Stefania Rocca. It was screened out of competition at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. [2] [3]
The film tells the story of a virtual reality game designer, Jimi (Christopher Lambert), who discovers that the main character of his game, Solo (Diego Abatantuono), has achieved sentience due to an attack by a computer virus. Asked by his creation (who feels everything the character in the game feels, including multiple deaths) to eliminate its existence, Jimi sets out to erase the game from the server of his employer, Okasama Star, before it's commercially released on Christmas Day, and thus spare Solo further suffering.
Jimi has been depressed since his wife Lisa (Emmanuelle Seigner) left him. He decides to make his search for her a part of his quest to delete Solo and the game. Along the way he recruits Lisa's friend Joystick (Sergio Rubini) and tech wizard Naima (Stefania Rocca) to help him avoid suspicious representatives of Okasama Star, who employ increasingly forceful methods to stop him. By the end, Jimi hacks into one of the company's servers. This hack is in the world of virtual reality interpreted as encounters with persons from Jimi's life; the network defends itself by projecting virtual representations of people such as Jimi's father and Lisa. It tries to keep the hacker's mind in the loop of his own memories as it burns the hacker's brain. Jimi manages to pass through the network defence mechanism by freeing his mind, forgetting about life before or after, about bodily feelings, and entering a state of pure concentration where one focuses only on the target (in this case the server with the company's bank account). It is similar to meditation where one tries to concentrate on breathing; people who are able to do this are referred to as angels (they are invisible to the system, can go anywhere they want, and their possibilities are limitless) in the film. In the end, Jimi feels enlightened and at inner peace with himself. He successfully deletes Solo, comes to terms with Lisa's leaving him, and understands why things happened the way they did. He is in the state of Nirvana. Yet, during the film ending credits, a message flashes - "Naima is on line" - meaning the whole Nirvana intrigue was indeed a game within another game, that the player (the spectator) completed.
The director, Gabriele Salvatores, shot the film mainly in the disused Alfa Romeo assembly plant in Portello, Milan. The whole place was converted in this sci-fi set where many ethnic sides of the city are shown. From the Indian to the Japanese to the Chinese, the film moves around the dynamic and the futuristic realms that the future created.
Nirvana was released on 24 January 1997 in Italy on 112 screens and opened at number two at the Italian box office behind The Cyclone with a gross of $1.7 million for the weekend. It went on to gross $10 million [1] [4] Dimension Films picked up U.S. distribution rights in March 1997, [1] and the film was dubbed in English and released in early 1998. [5]
Margaret Pomeranz of Special Broadcasting Service rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and stated that the film is too serious and not very fun. [6] Alan Jones of RadioTimes rated it 4 out of 5 stars and wrote: "This stunning cyber-fantasy is rich in design and innovative ideas, and intellectually engages the mind while always remaining enjoyable on the purest pulp levels". [7] Travis Mackenzie Hoover of Exclaim! stated the film is too derivative and has aged poorly. [8] David Rooney of Variety called it "a visually impressive, existential sci-fi yarn" that is "shortchanged by a poorly structured story". [9]
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański is a French and Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and convicted sex offender. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, ten César Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Golden Bear and a Palme d'Or.
Christophe Guy Denis "Christopher" Lambert is a French-American actor, producer, and writer. He started his career playing supporting parts in several French films, and became internationally famous for portraying Tarzan in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). For his performance in the film Subway (1985), he received the César Award for Best Actor. His other notable acting roles include Connor MacLeod in the adventure-fantasy film Highlander (1986) and the subsequent franchise of the same name, Raiden in Mortal Kombat (1995), Methodius in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), and Arne Seslum in Hail, Caesar! (2016). He also served as executive producer for Nine Months (1995).
Life Is Beautiful is a 1997 Italian comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, who co-wrote the film with Vincenzo Cerami. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian bookshop owner, who employs his imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp. The film was partially inspired by the book In the End, I Beat Hitler by Rubino Romeo Salmonì and by Benigni's father, who spent two years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Anthony Minghella, based on Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel. Set in the 1950s, it stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, a con artist who is sent from New York City to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf, a rich and spoiled playboy, to return home – however, after failing, Ripley takes extreme measures. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman also appear in supporting roles. This film was released forty years after the adaptation that had been made in 1960, Purple Noon by René Clément with Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet and Marie Laforêt.
Avalon, also known as Gate to Avalon, is a 2001 Polish-language science fiction drama film directed by Mamoru Oshii and written by Kazunori Itō. An international co-production of Japan and Poland, the film stars Małgorzata Foremniak as Ash, a player in an illegal virtual reality video game whose sense of reality is challenged as she attempts to unravel the true nature and purpose of the game.
The Deauville American Film Festival is a yearly film festival devoted to American cinema, which has taken place since 1975 in Deauville, France.
Lifehouse is an unfinished science fiction rock opera by the Who intended as a follow-up to Tommy. It was abandoned as a rock opera in favour of creating the traditional rock album Who's Next, though its songs would appear on various albums and singles by the Who, as well as Pete Townshend's solo albums. In 1978, aspects of the Lifehouse project were revisited by the Who on Who Are You. In 2000, Townshend revived the Lifehouse concept with his set Lifehouse Chronicles and the sampler Lifehouse Elements. On 1 May 2007, he released an online software called The Lifehouse Method in which any "sitter" could create a musical "portrait". The site is now defunct. The artwork and design of the box set was undertaken by designer Laurence Sutherland.
Overdubbing is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more available tracks of a digital audio workstation (DAW) or tape recorder. The overdub process can be repeated multiple times. This technique is often used with singers, as well as with instruments, or ensembles/orchestras. Overdubbing is typically done for the purpose of adding richness and complexity to the original recording. For example, if there are only one or two artists involved in the recording process, overdubbing can give the effect of sounding like many performers.
Mathieu Demy is a French actor, film director, and producer.
Benoît Magimel is a French actor. He was 14 when he appeared in his first film, and has starred in a variety of roles in French cinema. At age 16, Magimel left school to pursue acting as a career. In 2001, he won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher. He also starred in Claude Chabrol's La Demoiselle d'honneur.
Giovanna Mezzogiorno is an Italian theatre and film actress.
Gabriele Salvatores is an Italian Academy Award-winning film director and screenwriter.
Sergio Rubini is an Italian actor, film director and screenwriter.
Charlie Strapp and Froggy Ball Flying High is a 1991 Swedish animated feature film directed by Jan Gissberg after an original script by Thomas Funck, using Funck's already well-established characters. It follows a shorter film made by the same team in 1987, Kalle Stropp och Grodan Boll räddar Hönan. This is the first time since before 1954 where a Kalle Stropp production features voice acting by others than only Funck himself, only with the exception of children that had participated in other productions as well.
Rita Rusić, also known as Rita Cecchi Gori, is a Croatian-born Italian producer, actress and singer. Rusić's career began as an actress with a major role in the 1982 film Attila flagello di Dio. She was eventually moved into the film industry, with Il pentito in 1982. Later that year she also began filming Joan Lui - Ma un giorno nel paese arrivo io di lunedì.
Five Moons Square, also known as Five Moons Plaza and Piazza of the Five Moons, is a 2003 political thriller film written and directed by Renzo Martinelli, who had also directed Porzûs (1997) and Vajont (2001). It is inspired by Italian politician Aldo Moro's kidnapping and murder by the Red Brigades (BR) terrorist group; the film presents a possible reconstruction of this story within a fictive conspiracy theory.
Westworld is an American science fiction dystopia media franchise that began with the 1973 film Westworld, written and directed by Michael Crichton. The film depicts a technologically advanced Wild-West-themed amusement park populated by androids that malfunction and begin killing the human visitors; it was followed by the sequel film Futureworld (1976). The franchise moved to television in 1980 with the series Beyond Westworld on CBS. In 2016, a new television series based on the original film debuted on HBO; the series broadcast four full seasons before being cancelled.
How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) is a German coming-of-age dark humor crime television series co-created by Philipp Käßbohrer and Matthias Murmann. The first season, consisting of six episodes, was released on 31 May 2019, on Netflix. The series stars Maximilian Mundt, Lena Klenke, Danilo Kamperidis, Damian Hardung, Luna Baptiste Schaller, Leonie Wesselow and Bjarne Mädel. The second season premiered on Netflix on 21 July 2020. On 28 July 2020, Netflix renewed the series for a third season. It premiered on July 27, 2021. On 12 August 2022, for dwdl.de, creators Matthias Murmann and Philipp Käßbohrer said in an interview that Netflix gave the green light for a fourth season.
$1,664,693; $1=L1,590