NOBODY

Dir. Shawn Linden | CANADA | 88 min. | 2007 | Thriller

Shawn Linden’s beautifully-scripted directorial debut is part mystery, part gangster film, part time-travel paradox, and part extraordinarily ambitious supernatural thriller. Think Angel Heart crossed with a dash of Goodfellas and a good helping of Twelve Monkeys. It feels like a fascinating, newly discovered episode of The Twilight Zone, but with a very modern twist.

Its plot is almost indescribable without giving away its secrets. Set in the 1950s on a cold winter night that never seems to end, Nobody concerns a black-faced assassin named Mortemain (Costas Mandylor) who’s been hired to commit a murder at the behest of a mob boss.

The film opens with Mortemain having already committed the murder and now preparing to collect payment. But the paranoid mobster refuses to accept Mortemain’s word that the hit was a success. No, he instead wants the victim’s decapitated head as proof that the job was done right. Soon, Mortemain is fleeing into the chilly night, a mysterious brown package under his arm, being pursued by a shadowy assailant who seems to anticipate his every move.

And bit by little bit, Nobody brilliantly reverses on itself; sometimes showing us the same scene from a different perspective, adding new insights about what’s truly happening (or about to happen), and further causing the terrified hitman to suspect that whomever is now following him…is not human.

Radical in concept, risk-taking in execution, and almost obsessively challenging in its quest for originality, Director Shawn Linden creates a nerve-wrecking, audaciously entertaining suspense film for grown-ups. Nobody is a devilish changeling that warrants repeat viewings.

(Nevermore Film Festival)

“If you love weird tales, film noir, and time paradoxes, then NOBODY is just the kind of film for you.”  Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films 2008

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