Nemo

This is a real extra-ordinary movie in the full meaning of the word. I enjoyed every second of it. The way I found it , should be told to interested film-lovers; there is a new release of the movie on DVD under the name "DREAM ONE" by INDIES Home Entertainment (together with another movie "The Far Pavilions") and since may 2003 to be found in all the decent DVD-shops of Belgium and the Netherlands, or you can order it there. Sure a new release not to miss for such an old but special movie. And NO, I can not tell you what it is about, it's too strange and certainly an experience you have to go through without any prejudice. Open your eyes and mind and go for it.

I saw glimpses of this film when I was about 10, but my young brain couldn't handle it for more than a minute at a time, so I only saw a total of five. It gave me Stendahl Syndrome. Recently, with the DVD release ( a pretty dull, full-screen effort with burnt-in Dutch subtitles, but its the best we can hope for from such an obscure film) I was able to satisfy my curiosity. You will either love it or hate it, I was close to tears by how beautiful it was by the end (which is as obscure as the rest of the film). What is it about? You tell me. Certainly the impossibly beautiful Matilda May is worth the price of admission alone, but along the way we have the best representation of The Nautilus ever committed to film and production design unlike anything you've seen before. There's no logic, and possibly the makers simply filmed the writer's childhood dream, but its a precious, indispensable gem and if your none the wiser after reading this review, that's what you'll feel like by the end of the film. It doesn't make sense, it just feels right.

Its taken several goes to get all the way through this film, but after two or three years I've finally done it. Granted the pace is slow, but this thing is so odd it hard to watch.

The device that gets things moving is that Nemo,, his parents having gone off to the opera, asks his butler to tell him a story with all a great many unrelated characters. Before the story is told, Nemo, dressed like Winsor McKay's creation, wanders into to the story. The plot has Nemo, take an elevator to a beach somewhere. There the Nautilus (Captain Nemo) has been beached, a teen boy runs about with a white gorilla (his toy). Alice (from Wonderland) washes ashore and Zorro shows up. Aliens land. Nemo grows into Jason Connery so he can woo Alice...And I'm forgetting a ton of stuff.

The sets and effects are cheap and the performances uneven, but where else do you get to see Harvey Keitel as Zorro?

I have no idea how to describe, never mind rate this film. Its slow and dull at times, but its so off the wall and dream like in its plotting that you continue to watch. Some of it is profound, some of it is stupid.

If you like cinema obscurities search this bad boy out since its never played in the US to the best of knowledge, and other than the bootleg market it probably never will.

5 out of 10, although you'll really be on your own.

First this is a totally biased rating of 10/10, simply because I saw this film at such a young age and it stayed with long after I forgot the title. In fact if my father had not come into the room and remarked, 'That's Sean Connery's son," I probably would have never found it again.

The film starts with a boy being told a bedtime story and later that night having a nightmare about his parents dying in a car crash, which jolts him into action.

He runs into an elevator and there he descends into his own Oz. A dream world that looks like a pantomime set and that is populated with several different children's stories archetypes.

The film is a romance more than anything, but one for children and it operates on its own child-like logic. Some things happen just because they do and everything is exaggerated. The heart of it still lingers with me today and that ending, a dream you never want to end.

Probably not for everyone but I love it.

Fans of Little Nemo might be disappointed - the film has only vague references to McKay's extraordinary dreamworld. But it is an intriguing piece of cinema in it's own right. I couldn't really figure out what kind of film it wanted to be - for kids, science fantasy, or what. Suffice it to say I saw it 16 years ago and the memory lingers.