Main Cast: Christopher Lambert, Diego Abatantuono, Emmanuelle Seigner
Release Year: 1996
Country: IT/FR
Run Time: 112 minutes
Plot
A computer virus endows Solo (Diego Abatantuono), the hero of a virtual reality game, with human consciousness, thereby creating all kinds of headaches for his creator Jimi (Christopher Lambert). The trouble begins in the futuristic metropolis of Northern Agglomerate three days before Christmas. With little time left, video-game designer Jimi has no choice but to give his newest game, "Nirvana," to his powerful bosses. Unfortunately, the virus strikes just before the deadline. At first Solo doesn't know he is a graphic image, but when he finds out, he fervently pleads with Jimi to destroy every existent copy of the game so that he will not have to live the same sequence of events over and over for eternity. Jimi, vulnerable after the mysterious and sudden disappearance of his lover Lisa (Emmanuelle Seigner), agrees to honor Solo's wishes, but is unable to simply erase the program because his every move, on and off the job, is monitored by a giant, Orwellian computer. He therefore takes off for the Arab quarter and enlists the aid of two hackers, Joystick (Sergio Rubini), an expert at sabotaging databases, and Naima (Stefania Rocca), a woman with the skills to destroy the prototype of the computer game. With the company's henchmen hot on their heels, the threesome set off on a colorful journey through real and virtual worlds to destroy Solo before it is too late. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The movie tells the story of a virtual-reality game designer, Jimi (Lambert), who finds out that the main character of his game, Solo (played by 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 his employer server before it's commercially released, and thus spare Solo further suffering.
Jimi feels desperate because his wife Lisa (played by Emmanuelle Seigner) left him. He starts to search for her as he tries to delete the Solo character from the game. This two paths of his life complement in the story through the whole movie. By the end the character of Jimi hacks into one of the company's server. This hack is in the world of virtual reality interpreted as encounters with persons from Jimi's life. That is the way how the network defend itself. It tries to keep the hacker mind in the loop of his own memories as it meanwhile burning the hacker's brain. The only way how to pass through this network defence mechanism is to free one's mind. To forget about the life before or after. To forget about the feelings of body. To enter into the state of pure concetration. Where one concentrate only on the target (in this case the server with company's money account).It is similar to meditation where one tries to concentrate on breathing. Peoples who are able to do this are in the movie called angels (they are invisible to the system, they can go anywhere they want and their possibilities are limitless). In the end Jimi feels enlightenment. He is in internal peace with himself. He saved the character, understood why Lisa left, he understand why the things happened in a way they happened. He is in state of Nirvana.
Nirvana is one of the rare Italian science fiction films to use extensive computer generated special effects. The director, Gabriele Salvatores, shot the movie mainly in "Portello" the old Alfa Romeo assembly plant in 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 movie moves around the dynamic and the futuristic realms that the future created.
The storyline itself exemplifies several main themes of cyberpunk, such as the Philip K. Dick quote "Living and unliving things are exchanging properties", meaning computers are becoming human, and humans are becoming less so, both by the influence of technology.
Despite a poor box office reception amidst accusations of weak plotting and simplistic rendering of the main themes, Nirvana has achieved something of a cult status, especially in Europe. The title of the film is key to understanding its comparison of reincarnation with being endlessly reborn in a video game.
