Nirvana (DVD)

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Italian writer-director Garbriele Salvatores is not your ordinary cheapjack moviemaker, as earlier films like "Mediterraneo" (1991) and "I'm Not Scared" (2003) testify. He is not as willing as some other directors are to go after easy thrills but is more concerned about human nature, emotions, and interactions. Which may explain why his 1997 sci-fi cyberpunk film "Nirvana" was never released theatrically in the United States and is only now making its première on DVD. The movie never lives up to the expectations most sci-fi fans have of their subject.

You see, Salvatores' penchant for psychological subtlety does not necessarily make for either an entertaining or an enlightening movie experience, and "Nirvana" may for a lot of viewers just sit there on the TV screen as it did for me, going nowhere and taking its time about it. In this regard the movie reminded me a lot of Steven Soderbergh's "Solaris," a film with higher ambitions than its lifeless script could deliver.

"Nirvana" was not based on yet another story by Philip K. Dick, but it could easily have been and, indeed, it seems probable it was inspired by the author whose fount of such material never seemed to run dry. Think of "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," "Screamers," "Imposter," "Minority Report," "Paycheck," and other such Dick-inspired films, and you'll have a pretty good idea what "Nirvana" is all about, with the big exception that this one isn't as interesting as the others mentioned.

Like most such future-noir stories, the setting is supposed to be some indefinite time to come, though clearly not too long from now. In fact, the automobiles, computer hardware, and electronics in the film look positively ancient by today's standards, so the actual date is hard to determine. Anyway, the movie stars Christopher Lambert as a computer programmer named Jimi Dina, who has just created an action-shooter game called, you guessed it, "Nirvana." The only trouble is, he discovers that one of the characters in his game, Solo (Diego Abatantuono), has developed a personality of his own and is aware of it. In other words, the computer character is thinking for himself.

Jimi begins to feel sorry for Solo, trapped in a computer game where he has to be shot dead every two minutes and then start all over again, so Jimi decides to cancel the game altogether before it can be duplicated a million times over and poor Solo has to suffer eternally. (Presumably, Jimi is also a little troubled about his Godlike ability to create a sentient being, but that detail is hardly pursued at all in the film.) Jimi's problem is that the game is already the property of the big computer conglomerate he works for, and in order to do delete the program, he has to hack into his company's mainframe, find it, and destroy it. The only person he knows who can accomplish the job is a fellow named Joystick (Sergio Rubini), who hangs out in the roughest, toughest, most-dangerous part of town, Marrakech, with a fellow programmer, the beautiful Naima (Stefania Rocca). And, just coincidentally, Jimi's old girlfriend, Lisa (Emmanuelle Siegner), was also last heard of residing in Marrakech.

So Jimi begins his odyssey, heading out on an adventure to Marrakech to locate Joystick, delete his game, and find his long-lost love. But this is no ordinary adventure, as I indicated at the beginning. The movie aspires to more than that. "Nirvana" may be the name of a game Jimi is trying to find and delete, but it's also the state of consciousness he's trying to achieve. It appears he is seeking to free himself from the pains and worry of this world and find true peace of mind as well.

We can see early on that the "Nirvana" game becomes a metaphor for life, a fascinating premise that, unfortunately, isn't taken anywhere. Which "reality" is the real world, Jimi's or Solo's? Both characters feel like what's going on around them is "real." Then there are the names in Jimi's own world that sound like computer-game words--places like Marrakech, Bombay City, Shanghai Town, and the Gunga Hotel, with swamis and yogis running around--which should be clues as to where all of this is heading. Which character is really trapped in a make-believe universe? The ending is ambiguous at best, so not even writer-director Salvatores probably had any serious answers to the dilemma. And I'm certain he wanted it that way--to leave it up to his viewers to decide what was real for themselves. Yet it's frustrating when the viewer is never given enough to work with but obscure hints.