Nirvana (film)

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Nirvana

Directed by	Gabriele Salvatores
Produced by	Vittorio Cecchi Gori, Maurizio Totti
Written by	Gabriele Salvatores, Pino Cacucci, Gloria Corica
Starring	Christopher Lambert, Diego Abatantuono, Stefania Rocca, Emmanuelle Seigner, Gigio Alberti, Claudio Bisio, Silvio Orlando, Paolo Rossi, Sergio Rubini, Amanda Sandrelli
Music by	Carlo Rustichelli
Distributed by	Vittorio Cecchi Gori
Release date(s)	1997
Running time	111 min.
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
IMDb profile

Nirvana is a science fiction movie, produced in Italy in 1997 by director Gabriele Salvatores, starring Christopher Lambert, Diego Abatantuono and Stefania Rocca.

[edit] Plot

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 cease his existence, Jimi sets out to erase the game from his employer server before it's commercially released, and thus spare Solo of further suffering.

[edit] Overview

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 having been accused of a simplicistic rendering of the 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.