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剧情：摄影师Evan Aaronson原本为婚礼作摄影师，当他被解雇之后，他决定记载自己的生活，……
"以下是一个真实的故事。人物是确实存在的，名字也是真实可信的。一切都经过查证。戴维和安德鲁是最好的朋友。从九岁开始，他们就是最好的朋友。安德鲁是个非常神经质的年轻人。他害怕一切东西。戴维是个完全以自我为中心的人，从来不能让事情按他满意的方向发展。他们两个都和别的孩子合不来。不久以后，他们意识到，他们生存的最好机会是团结起来。悲惨的安德鲁在他父母去世后变得更加焦虑，很快的甚至变得害怕离开家门。就像尝试做的其它事情一样，戴维成为摇滚明星的梦想被婉转拒绝。身无分文，也没地方可去，戴维搬去和安德鲁一起住，而安德鲁也非常需要帮助。共同生活的日子，戴维提供基本的生活必需品，安德鲁提供一个好朋友的精神支持。戴维勇敢的走出家门找到了工作，而安德鲁留在家的安全区域内作线上旅游经纪。在和社会进行了一生的斗争后，戴维和安德鲁最后快乐的生活在一起。但难过的是，没有什么是永远的。"
以上是加拿大电影《nothing》的开场白。在一连串的平面动画和故事背景的阐述后，剧情展开了。首先便是打破“永远”的起因，戴维要搬去与女友同住。他抛下安德鲁以及从前那些朋友信义的承诺，潇洒的走出家门去追求自己的新生活。接下来的事情如从小以来那样背运，戴维发现不仅女友并不爱他，还盗用他的名义挪用了他公司相当数量的公款。公司起诉了戴维。不得已，戴维逃回安德鲁处。
戴维走后，安德鲁努力战胜恐惧心理出门扔垃圾，却不想把自己关在门外。正在恐惧之时，一个童子军小女生前来兜售小饼干一类的东西，帮助了安德鲁。女童军的用意在于能卖出东西，因此很热情的对待安德鲁。但安德鲁的紧张和恐惧使他赶走了女童军。小女生气愤之余喊来了妈妈，并诬陷安德鲁虐待她。妈妈威胁安德鲁，要向警方报案。
安德鲁自杀未遂，被及时返回的戴维发现。戴维说服安德鲁和他一起潜逃。他们决定先卖掉房子，换些钱财。不过屋漏偏逢连夜雨，有政府官员来说他们的房子属于违章建筑，下午三点必须被拆除，接着警察来了，房子外面乱作一团。眼看最后大限的三点逼近，戴维和安德鲁无处可去，在极度的惊恐中，他们忽然听见屋外的噪音消除，四周一片白光。从这里开始，算是切题的展开了，除了他们生活的这幢房子，整个世界都消失了。任何地方有的只是“nothing”。
戴维和安德鲁逐渐发现是自己的憎恨令不愉快地东西消失。开始他们很高兴，利用恨意消灭了账单和时间，还有饥饿感。不过渐渐的，副作用产生了，戴维发现安德鲁失去了很多从前的记忆。原来是安德鲁讨厌从前自己很多窝囊的作为，令那些不愉快都消失了。除掉了不愉快的记忆，安德鲁变得自信，很多事情都无师自通，甚至连音乐都玩得比戴维好。戴维很妒忌，这也引起安德鲁的不悦。安德鲁开始思考戴维的真诚，问他如果没被女友甩掉，还会回来么？两个朋友的口角从此展开，从共同憎恨一个世界开始彼此憎恨。他们开始对战，先消灭对方的物品，房间，接着消灭对方的躯体，直到都只剩下一个头，才开始反思。
故事取材是荒诞的，是个寓言，或者都市神话。它比任何同类探讨友谊或生存的电影都更直白地谈论着这个问题。起初的安德鲁对戴维有着不假思索的信任，而戴维却总在安德鲁眼皮底下耍小心眼。不过他们生活很和谐，人与人的相处之道就是强弱的结合。一个或几个人生活在一起，必定有一个主导的，其余人只是附和。一旦主导地位的人多起来，就像后来的安德鲁也变强了，战争也就开始了。当最后两人都衰弱的只剩下头的时候，意识里又产生了彼此依靠的需要，于是他们和解了，开始和平相处。进化论说生物生存是相争的，经过残酷的竞争，适者生存。虽然这一理论被广泛推举，不过我还是认同李宗吾所言，生物生存是相争相让并存的。比如大树的枝干，必定互相穿插间隙，尽量不去触犯它枝的区域，但枝叶太多，氧气、阳光、水分太少时，衰弱的或者存在位置不良的枝叶就会被淘汰，这是一定的。如果都竞争着生存，片刻不停，那大树怕只有单一的根茎，上面长出的也只有独一的叶脉了。
安德鲁和戴维在影片开始只是代表生活中众多失败的小人物，他们可以被随意的人欺负，甚至那样弱小的女童军。那么他们就是常言所谓的善人么？自古以来人们遵从教义苦心积善，为的就是成为好人，将来能生天。饱受生活凄苦的安德鲁和戴维似乎都具备了上天堂的条件，也许正是这样，上帝给了他们一次特殊的权利。不过一旦权在手，他二人变成什么样子？比开头讹诈他们的“恶人”有过之而无不及，甚至他们是在朋友间彼此作恶，相互报复，相互诅咒。于是没有什么是永恒的，正如片头所讲。我想当世界消失的时候，消失的并不单纯是我们肉眼所见的物质。故事其余的关于所谓友情的诞生和复活，都和电影表面表达的一样，任何看电影的人都能明白，我这里就不再废话。
User Comments:
12 out of 17 people found the following comment useful:-
Nothing less than extraordinary, 7 November 2003
Author: Lennie Pedersen from Århus, Denmark
The premise of this movie has been tickling my imagination for quite some time now. We've all heard or read about it in some kind of con-text. What would you do if you were all alone in the world? What would you do if the entire world suddenly disappeared in front of your eyes? In fact, the last part is actually what happens to Dave and Andrew, two room-mates living in a run-down house in the middle of a freeway system. Andrew is a nervous wreck to say the least and Dave is considered being one of the biggest losers of society. That alone is the main reason to why these two guys get so well along, because they simply only have each other to turn to when comforting is needed. Just until...
Straight from the beginning of the film lots and lots of problems happen to them. Both of them get involved with crime, Andrew suffers from paranoia and simply doesn't dare going out of the house. Dave is unsuccessful at his job and his colleagues don't treat him very well and with the respect he deserves. The amount of problems they face keeps increasing until that one day where they may have to face the inevitable and deal with it. This is just too much for them and they wish that everything would just go away... And of course that is exactly what happens.
The rest of the story places Dave and Andrew in this world of nothingness. At first they are surprised and have problems understanding and dealing with the features of this crazy environment, but later on they find out that they can do just about everything they want because it seems as if they are the only ones still left.
Nothing features an incredibly small cast - in fact, besides the first couple of shots from the film, we only see Dave (David Hewlett) and Andrew (Andrew Miller) in the entire film. It is clear that in order to pull this off, the cast has to be more than up for the task, because in a world where nothing exists there is nothing that can distract the viewer in any way. Vincenzo has decided to use a reasonable amount of close-up head shots to make it more interesting and it actually works quite well. Director of Photography, Derek Rogers, also has a nice way of teasing the audience by withholding visual information, especially at times where a character sees something and reacts to it, but we don't see it right away.
Obviously, this can't be an event driven film and it's not. Much of the action happens outside their house when they move around in the void. And that's where some of the most hilarious scenes take place, especially in the case of when Andrew discovers a candy bar.
Now, one could be thinking: "How does nothing look like?" Well, it looks like nothing indeed. The entire world of nothing is white... white no matter in what direction you look. This is the weakness of this film... After an hour or less it's getting extremely boring to look at and there has to be events to make sure it's more interesting to look at. Thank God, there are some. For example at times when the two lads, due to the properties of nothing, are able to jump really high as if nothing is made out of... tofu (as Andrew claims). It's fun to see how they are instantly able to use nothing to become gods of their own little society.
One of the best parts of the film is the set... Production designer Jasna Stefanovic has done a beautiful job in this film, the house in which these two guys live is so unnaturally fun to look at, still it seems right for these two to be living in a place like this. All in all, the production design is with no doubt one of the most powerful aspects of this film at it really makes the film worth watching...
However, the very best part of the film is the acting. Both David Hewlett and Andrew Miller really look like the professional actors they both are. The camera is on them for every second of the film and as previously said, there are just about no props in the film, they are really on a bare stage. With plenty of character development and some decent one-liners, clever dialogue (at times hilariously stupid), it all works to that end - and this really moves the movie away from the low-budget area to well-crafted handwork.
Let's talk a little about the visual effects, because they are definitely worth mentioning. Nothing features digital visual effects and prosthetics that equals any modern horror film. There's a rather horrifying dream sequence in the film, and although The Drews have milked that scene completely it's still fun to watch. One of the best visual effects in the film is at the end where Andrew and Dave suddenly discover their powers in this environment - they have the abilities to wish everything away, so what if they can do it the other way around and make things appear?
"Nothing" is a bright and well-lit movie, it really helps promoting the idea of them probably being dead (this is in fact one of their theories), but "Nothing" is a comedy and it slowly destroys its own theory. We don't know where they are or what has happened to them. We don't know if they will ever get out, because the movie ends before we see anything like that. The ending, by the way, is not as good as it could've been. It's rather easy to predict what is going to happen, still the writers have thought up a few incidents that help make it a little more interesting and in the end, it's a reasonably satisfactory one.
Take "Hollow Man", "Kill Bill", "Cube", "Epoch" and lots of other films and you have "Nothing". It really is an amalgam of different styles, still there is no other film (at least that I know of) Nothing is really like. For the people remembering the original Cube Production Commentary on its DVD may remember that Vincenzo Natali talked about how he came up with the story of Cube. He talks about him and André Bijelic having been room-mates at a time and they both were in this extremely dull room with no hope of getting out, "Nothing" could very well be the screened version of the origin of the Cube story, and to that end, it's almost like one of the Cube prequels.
What can I say? I enjoyed "Nothing", it is a great movie and the different parts of the movie are extremely well-made with tons of intelligent ideas, still I feel the movie is missing something and I have problems finding out precisely what it is... Maybe if we have a "Nothing 2" I can answer that question. "Nothing" is a great film, but not as good as I expected it to be.
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