THE CASE OF NEMO NOBODY: A LACANIAN STUDY OF THE TRAUMATIC AND NEUROTIC RELATIONSHIPS OF THE MAN WHO DOESN'T EXIST

Abstract

Jaco Van Dormael’s 2009 film Mr. Nobody introduces us to Nemo Nobody, “the man who doesn’t exist.” Nemo is born with the impossible gift of omniscience and exercises this ability to know several of his possible lives before they occur. His childhood is characterized by ontological questions concerning time, existence, choices, and chance. Nemo’s inability to answer unanswerable questions sources the trauma that stems from the moment his life literally splits in two. Nemo’s parents separate when he is nine, and they leave it up to him to decide if he wants to leave with his mother or stay with his father. To cope with the impossibility of this decision, Nemo creates a fantasy wherein he is a 118-year-old man who remembers every life born out of this pivotal moment. With his father, Nemo spends his life in an obsessional relationship with Elise, who loves another man and is depressed no matter what Nemo does; or Nemo numbingly maintains a perverted relationship with Jean, controlled wholly by choices, until his eventual spiral into psychosis and disassociation from his own identity. On the other hand, if Nemo leaves with his mother, he pursues a passionate, albeit hysteric, romance with Anna, whom he loses over and over due to uncontrollable circumstances. Nemo’s creation of the fantasy and sometimes omnipotent control over his life and the film place him at the level of a god, but his many inevitable deaths remind Nemo he can never know everything and he must make a choice.