Original subtitles

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IN PRAISE OF NOTHING

a whistleblowing documentary parody

not exactly in prose

wherein Nothing

tries to defend its cause.

[One day, Nothing runs away from home, tired of being misunderstood.]

[It crosses 8 mountains and 8 seas…

...and arrives in our lost valley.]

Finally-

our first

date.

Not sure if I came

early

or late.

I've got so much to tell you

but I'm still wondering how.

I don't wanna suck up to you

nor make you bow.

There has never been a less exciting time

to be behind a camera,

on that I agree,

so let's set up this game a little bit differently.

We will skip talking heads and expert analysis,

special effects and cultural paralysis.

No classic twists,

no money shots,

no side characters,

no subplots.

No saving the world,

no noble pretentions,

just portraits of you and me

in everyday situations

And a few lines of comments

to frame the debate,

just to make sure

that you will bite the bait.

[Nothing slides down a blank page and descends among us.]

But who am I to say "I" or "we"?

Am I really Nothing

or just my ego's mercenary?

They say I can only be hinted at and never shown

unlike any other thing currently unknown.

But I am actually there in every shot

If you bother to find me

If you don't,

imagine that what you see

is what I see.

Or just enjoy the scenery

and let your mind roam freely.

And don't worry -

I certainly won't take it personally.

[Nothing adjusts its belt.]

I know I shouldn't start my sentences with "I"

and they warned me not to ask too much "why"

but I think it's nice to be an "I" who asks "why"

so I will try.

I came from God knows where

but I too now want everything quickly.

Can't believe I'm losing my patience

after being used to eternity.

Seems like I've caught a typical local malady -

some strange sense of entitlement has gotten hold of me.

I suddenly feel I deserve more than I deserved previously

and I get bothered so easily,

even my brand new self-image is ashamed of me.

I don't flinch at global misery

but I get disturbed significantly

by a stray bee that invades my privacy.

By a fat person that dares to walk in front of me.

By unsupervised children playing loudly.

By dishes that don't wash themselves instantly.

By a telephone that rings persistently.

By the size of my best friend's salary.

By the slightest awareness of my own hypocrisy...

I don't know how to deal with this,

I hope that it's just temporary.

I almost wish that someone had warned me,

but I guess that would have spoiled

the wisdom

of discovery.

[Nothing admits its knowledge of our world used to be exactly opposite to ours.]

All I knew about love

was from letters that were never sent.

All I knew about faith

was from scavenging leftovers of dissent.

All I knew about you

was from things that you didn't do.

The words you never said.

The books you never read.

The ideas you never picked up.

The possibilities you never knew.

Now I see I have a lot to catch up.

Don't you?

[We don’t - and Nothing starts to feel rather unwelcome.]

I feel stalked.

I feel like a Stalker.

I wanted to help,

but you are boycotting my offer.

Confusion,

depression,

emptiness,

delusion,

obsession,

loneliness...

You are wrong to accuse me for every line in your psychiatric history.

Sorry,

there's no shortcut out of purgatory.

No V.I.P.,

no duty-free,

no return policy,

no money-back guarantee -

Just a few lucky stars

and your own personal gravity.

Cruising altitude is a mirage,

the battle rages on,

whatever the paysage.

So don't blame me

when things get hard,

all I am doing

is letting you play in my backyard.

[Nothing is starting to get judgmental.]

I understand that it is hard to live

either with or without opinions,

alone among billions,

on a tiny star surrounded by trillions.

All your hopes of persisting and transcending

end up in anti-climactic forgetting.

All your efforts to leave a mark

become at best

someone else's spark.

Realizing how small and insignificant you are

cannot be compensated by the size of your car,

a big tab at the bar,

a sexy avatar,

a smashed guitar

or one last cigar.

All I know is that you are afraid,

that your parking is paid,

that you want to get laid,

and that beyond this

your brain is marmalade.

[The truth is that Nothing is just as confused as we are, but it eventually succeeds at grasping human nature.]

Live a balanced depression

Consume your fate

Do what you're told to like

Don't be late

Blend your virtues and sins

Insure your rise and fall

Hang on to your future

and broadcast it all.

[Yet Nothing remains sympathetic to our weaknesses, and even adopts a few on its own.]

I like sweating

I like doubting

I like cabaret

I like tabouleh

I like worn out shoes

I like prison blues

I like rakija

more than wine.

I like beauty.

Not necessarily great beauty,

medium is fine.

And I have only one thing to say to History:

The question is not

how can there be poetry after Holocausts,

but how can there be Holocausts

after poetry?!

[Inspired, Nothing tries to adapt, but things don’t go so smoothly.]

I slid into a lake which was perfectly quiet,

but they kicked me out

because all the lakes are now private.

I forged a bicycle path across a new scenery

but I crashed miserably when I tried to do it hands free.

I decided to travel light

but I ran out of clean underwear the very first night.

I endured pain in front of my buddies

but the girl went for the one with more monies.

I reminded friends of things that were free

but they turned each of them into a profitable industry.

I wanted to help people anonymously

but the cops shot at me.

I tried to do everything

and then something

and then

anything

but it's hard to succeed

when you are Nothing.

[Yet Nothing feels too proud to go on welfare.]

I think I am the ideal candidate for this job because...

I feel like a contemporary of all the great minds in history

and a resident of the most photogenic places on earth.

I think good and evil can't exist without each other, and change,

even small change is what keeps our minds and economies squirt.

I have no future, no past, no friends and no money

but I'm paying for your virtues and your attempts to be funny.

I am great at managing time

and I can always jump in when someone forgets their line.

Team work is my specialty -

the greater the challenge, the more you can count on me.

I'm willing to relocate much more than you can anticipate

and I will outdate even your youngest candidate.

I'm persistent, resistant, always available,

malleable, reliable, never failable -

I even know how the world will end and... everything else that you couldn't have planned.

[No replies.]

I stole a tomato from a field in Italy

and it still tasted like shit.

In prison I tamed an ant

but nobody could see it.

I meditated for 62 years

but not a tourist would tip.

I tried not to care about the competition

but ends-of-months made me flip.

I shared all my possessions

until the white men said stop.

I empathized with nature

but birds and bugs ate my crop.

I lived up to what I believed in

until I broke bad.

I spent all my life doing good

then I became mad.

[For reasons not apprehendable to Man, Nothing keeps talking in rhyme, all the time.]

Not to be

or to be?

Why bother in all this banality?

"If"

is a space.

"Why"

is time.

When you are happy or dead

neither is worth a dime.

If pictures create memories,

what does a surplus of pictures create?

The future of shopping will not be to buy

but to eliminate.

When your wife and kids want something more than a full stomach

take away something they already have

then give it back.

The most elegant gesture of the human body

is the act of refraining from action.

The most elegant gesture of the human mind

is avoiding distraction.

What do you mean - I shouldn't talk, shouldn't formalize?

Shouldn't suggest answers, shouldn't verbalize?

Too easy.

Insist on any armimal or tree and get philosophy?

Make any shot too lengthy and get poetry?!

Fit your screenplay on a napkin and claim humility?!

Film simple people uncritically and redeem modernity??

Fuck that, baby.

We're beyond that.

Maybe.

OK, I agree.

Maybe it's just me.

Maybe I'm just a sarcastic old fuck

and life is as sweet as you would like it to be.

[Soon after, of course, Nothing falls in love.]

Throw me a glove,

cry me a dove,

earthly love

is impossible love.

Particles and anti-particles keep cancelling each other.

Why would then men & women bother?

Can't live with each other,

can't do without,

cool off

or burn out.

Your children will sell you for a faster telephone

Your parents, for the right to be alone.

Your partner, for a new hormone.

You like strawberry,

she likes quantumberry.

She wants to marry,

you want Tom & Jerry.

Faithful or not,

always an idiot.

The casting

rarely matches the plot.

[Nothing’s promiscuity draws international attention. Americans spend a fortune trying to buy Nothing:]

"Listen,

we know you're right

but we can't let you win.

Come work for us

and become the ultimate sin.

Our policy is simple:

Decide & conquer.

We don't even hide it,

we are raw power.

Your job will be to generate fear

so that demand always beats supply at the end of the year.

In the meantime,

we'll bullet-proof the boutique,

assimilate all critique,

spread freedom with our armed forces,

trade entertainment for natural resources

and blackmail the world with paper value

until the last patch of our lies becomes true."

To this I replied with the following defence:

Thank you, dear friends,

you are my favorite clients.

But in your Disneyland of the free,

allow me to disagree -

You are too fat to fit my glass menagerie.

What you are imposing on your subjects is a wrong therapy -

charging them for the placebo that is - money.

OK, the pills and thrills and frills

but life shouldn't be printed on fake dollar bills.

People would love to try your dream

but only at their own steam.

Work to live,

not live to work.

Press pause,

smell the cork.

There's nothing scary on a blank wall

nor in living life without a lucrative goal.

And talking about fear -

you're the ones who should play the main role.

At the rate at which you suck everything in,

you are this planet's black hole.

[Asians try to clone Nothing:]

"Listen,

you're one of us

and you've always been.

We were the first to treat you

as our next of kin.

Numbers always work out to our advantage,

nevermind our limited sleeping mileage.

We make up one half of the planet,

just wait 'til we all discover the internet.

We have 99 ideograms for Nothing and 69 holograms for vagina,

even the Emperor's new clothes are now made in China.

Let us mass-produce you with our 12D printers,

with special pricing for early-bird hipsters.

Too late now to erase the ego -

now it must be pleased or face vertigo."

To this I replied with the following defence:

Thank you numerous friends,

I owe you my licence.

I understand my position is central to your being

but you know that on an absolute level I neither oppose nor support anything.

I appreciate the elegance of your calligraphy,

the spirituality of your tea ceremony,

the negative space in your painting,

your meditations on the verge of fainting,

your practical tips about breathing,

your casual flirting with non-being...

But with all due respect to your might,

just because you can do everything

doesn't mean that you are right.

What you need, I think,

is to practice Kama Sutra

in a version that's a bit more platonic.

Unite with the cosmos

in any single pixel

but sustain your lust

against every daily tickle.

Learn to let go off your omnipotence.

Take seriously your vow of balance.

And if other powers want to make you sway,

dont worry.

Bruce Lee is alive

and he's on his way.

[Arabs try to re-tame Nothing:]

"Listen,

you know that we are right,

no need to wait for the thousand and first night.

We invented coffee, clean shave and algebra

and even what would later become your camera.

We also saved the classical knowledge of Antiquity

and gave prominent importance to the notion of virginity.

We've been both cursed and blessed by nature,

this always results in an unpredictable mixture.

There's no money now that we cannot spend.

Our goal is to create life

out of sand.

Welcome to our big traditional family.

You'll be treated as our newest common luxury."

To this I replied with the following defence:

Thank you honorable friends,

I admire your persistence.

Conjure me from a lamp,

anytime you need my stamp.

History has not treated you gently

but you are also stretching time vigorously.

You gained my sympathy by surviving in harsh conditions

but kinda disappointed me with your current positions.

I don't think you should impose your point of view,

neither upon the desert nor upon the likes of you.

Feel free to advertise your alchemy

but don't take anyone else's for blasphemy.

People won't accept fasting unless you call it detox -

promises of heaven are already clogging up their mailbox.

I wish you happy existential battles

in your sand and gold castles.

For anything else,

God have mercy,

but the final bill

is on me.

[Europeans are still discussing what to do with Nothing:]

"Listen,

let's first agree that we need to set up a special committee.

Such a critical development deserves outmost consideration -

it requires the consent of our entire dysfunctional confederation.

We must establish a proper explanatory framework for this question,

otherwise our policy will remain just a vain suggestion.

Our goal is that everyone feels they have gained something

but that we, of course, remain on top of everything."

To this I replied with the following defence:

Thank you old friends,

cheers to your eloquence.

You speak most fluently

but your verbal masturbation fails me.

Dozens of alleged winners and no proclaimed losers,

seems like you're jumping into very tight trousers.

I didn't really get your proposal

but I see your frustrations.

Futility should be the subject of your next strikes and demonstrations.

Condemned to be free

but fearing the freedom of others.

Imitating obnoxiously

your enemies and mothers...

Your noble arrogance doesn't do it for me -

only tourists can be fooled by your complex of superiority.

Each nation can be proud of fragments of its history

but none of its entirety.

And even fewer should claim

any monopoly on morality.

Your reluctance to assimilate me

is in fact a key syndrome of your drudgery.

Adopt me

or become your own failed colony.

[The rest of world believes Nothing can help them:]

"Listen,

we have nothing to offer you,

we just do what we are told to.

Paper-wall democracy and profits for the few -

they convince you grindingly that it's good for you.

Sometimes, if we are particularly good,

they clean our files and gentrify our mood.

They insist we're not screwed

when they hybridize our food

and dismiss our proud beliefs

as a mere historical interlude.

Deep inside we know we're nat so autistic

but our reply to this is either agnostic

or fatalistic.

We feel that we know you and that we can trust you -

please advise us, what should we do?"

To this I replied with the following stance:

Well, global friends,

it is time to make amends.

Never mind the size of your shoes -

if you want to win, you must not lose.

If you don't sacrifice yourself no one will,

kicking history between the legs requires no special skill.

We're all intelligent in different ways,

there are infinite possibilities to get out of this maze.

Defend your territory,

both mental and physical,

all it takes is a few authentic, non-CIA heroes

to set the example.

If that's not exactly you,

here's what else you could do:

Don't give them what they want to hear -

just ignore them when they come near.

Don't even bother to challenge their prejudice,

even acknowledging it would make you their accomplice.

Over time they will choose weaker nuts to crack -

resist radically

and never turn back.

[A Russian poet then came to the edge of the world and spat at Nothing.]

That was actually...

nice!

Thanks twice.

Now I see the power of your brand

and that it is actually possible to make a stand.

Skip auditions -

dodge tuitions -

discard permissions -

shortcut ignitions -

ignore definitions -

praise intuitions -

invoke contradictions -

embrace oppositions -

and do keep your receipts -

One day I will really wash

all this scum off the streets.

From now on,

every thought must be tight.

It will be 20 tautologies

and 30 euphemisms every night.

Myth-busting for the shy & quiet -

an instant new post-ideological diet.

A smart cold digital heart.

Empathy -

only a la carte.

You're talking to me?

[Once again, Nothing’s noble threats get very little attention.]

Is it me you're talking to?!

Time is shrinking,

the angels are drinking,

the Gods stopped playing punishment & crime.

Tom Waits is retiring,

deadlines are expiring,

for no one the bells chime.

No matter how you feel touche,

all I say will one day be cliche.

No matter how sleazy,

we will always look up to the bourgeoisie.

And the wind of the north,

freezes my snort.

And the wind from the south,

blows sand in my mouth.

And the wind from the west,

failed the drug test.

And the wind from the east,

I caught

but I missed.

[Desperate, Nothing starts a blog on tactical pauses during sexual intercourse.]

These were actually just notes from my diary

but someone took them very explicitly.

Curved geometry remains a mystery

unless you study the matter a bit more deeply.

The intensity of the celebration

is directly proportional

to the period of abstinence and stimulation.

The pauses between the notes

is what earned me the most votes.

Your preferences they are like mine,

I heard it through the grapevine.

Me.

You.

Library.

Now?

Wow!

Wow!

Wow!

Wow!

[But all it took for Nothing's popularity to explode was one explicit selfie.]

[Success, though, comes at a price.]

Being famous and bitter

is worse than becoming revolutionary litter.

I got trapped in my own curse -

I kept bullshitting, but it filled my purse.

Vomiting my rhymes as the agents advised -

Enough now?

We got prized.

Starring in docu-soaps about fallen prophets,

baptizing galaxies, comets and rockets,

Giving silent motivational speeches,

bleaching sand on polluted beaches.

Claiming copyright on creativity in general,

on zero and infinity and all things ephemeral.

Getting filthy rich on apparitions of Nothing -

coining notoriously:

"Why something

instead of...

anything?"

[Despising itself more and more, Nothing tries at least to be useful.]

Ha!

Indulgence is very cheap these days

but I have always preferred my own ways:

Recycling the energy of fallen enthusiasts -

Licking the wounds of broken iconoclasts -

Granting sinners essential silence -

Fine-tuning your work-and-family balance -

Extending, then shortening waiting times -

Teaching people tricks for queuing in lines -

Making them lose what they would later find -

helping them see before they go blind -

Discouraging kids from surplus toys -

Abolishing logos and violent joys -

Insuring talents against jury decisions -

Macheting the jungle to clear space for their visions -

Turning philosophical when people ask for direction -

Crisis-managing death to near-perfaction.

Pointing inside your playboy gaze -

Enamoring you, without the self-praise -

Making you check twice before you click SEND -

Stopping movies 10 minutes before they end -

Mixing up price tags of riches and

[Too late. The industry has got Nothing by the balls.]

"Mr. Nothing! Mr. Nothing!"

"Can you describe a perfectly empty room?"

"Is old too old?"

"Do you have a personal opinion on top of the corporate one?"

"You claim you came into being like everyone else -

by love or misunderstanding.

What did you mean by 'love'?"

"You refuse to answer where you are coming from and whether you exist at all.

Can we call you an 'ontological nationalist'?"

"What do you think of the phrase:

'We will sleep together one day, but not tonight?'"

"We're making a festival of silence -

will you come?"

"Could you confirm that there's Nothing after death?"

"Is cheap humor the biggest threat to humanity?"

"Do you have a tattoo?"

[At the height of its popularity, Nothing decides to step down.]

Ho, ho, ho!

So, so, so!

It's hunting season on the albatross -

Time for me to toss my cross.

A big day today,

mathematics are finally swinging my way.

I have proven to myself that my opposite is possible

and that the two are actually compatible.

Everything and Nothing converge in a vanishing point

which is itself another starting point.

How's that for a borderline checkpoint?!

Philosophers,

priests,

scientists,

astronauts,

I challenge you to a duel

down in the footnotes.

You "saved" the world so mary times it has grown immune,

restoring it right

is costing me a fortune.

If this will make your lives more bearable,

I can officially proclaim that

quality,

passion,

curiosity,

consciousness,

and chocolate crises

are NOT sustainable,

I will also stop subsidizing

forgetting,

lying,

crying,

betting,

petting,

fleeing,

and any other 'necessary being'.

I further renounce on the idea of my own contingency

and on the contingency of reality itself.

If you don't know what that means,

lucky you,

you're one happy little self.

[Nothing gives a farewell speech.]

Thank you for your hospitality, ladies and gentlemen,

I have to go now, though I have no other plan.

I have learned so much from you over this weekend

that I couldn't have hoped for more.

Please excuse me now,

I have other worlds to explore.

More than anything, I will miss

my first piss

and our last kiss.

That's it now.

Nothing phone home.

I'm leaving you as I came,

without a big splash,

taking with me a single thing

- unstained -

and that is...

and that is...

my moustache.

[But Nothing finds no home to go back to, so it pretends to have a few more things to say.]

Did I just dream that I am you

or did you imagine that you are me?

Was this my or your biography?

I wish I could forget again what you know

and re-learn what you don't

but the fog of experience has blurred that battlefront.

A perfect man is inefficient -

A faulty Nothing

is insufficient.

I see now that I don't fit neither here nor there,

nor for that matter - anywhere.

A baroque minimalist -

a cynical optimist -

a gentle sadist -

an approximate perfectionist -

Pick any contradiction from the list...

If I have tried to run away from myself,

I have failed.

If I came to pose on your cross,

I never got nailed.

But I have no regrets whatsoever

and no further plan

for I have been both Nothing

and for a while,

a Man.

I tried manhood,

now you try nothingness.

Embrace it daily

like a trendy new fitness.

[The takeaway, if any.]

Actually, there's no real conclusion to what I had to say.

It's more about what went through your mind along the way.

I give you back now the mystery of life.

I'll be fine with the angel's share

and my next wife.

And falling asleep in cinemas,

on books and under trees,

hypnotizing traffic cops

into waiving your fees.

Helping bicycle passengers

keep that smile on their face;

making kids accelerate

the last few steps to your embrace.

Adding echoes and reverbs

to your inner gospel choirs,

Feeling nostalgic of Buenos Aires

even in Buenos Aires.

And provoking life

in detail and in full;

Hiding in your pocket,

like s Swiss-army tool.

Discarding warnings that principles are irresponsible;

speaking in verse just to prove that it's possible.

Indulging in art

without trying to be smart.

Rhyming, for example,

"fart"

and "fresh start".

Understanding, finally,

my epitaph and legacy:

STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF NOTHING

AND EVERYTHING THAT COULD BE

I'm not sure if there's a Japanese word for this.

There probably must be.

filmed by

filmed in

music by

additional music by

guest musicians additional sound mix

sound editing re-recording mixer

color grading

online brainstorming platform poster art

co-producers production assistants

assistant director

written, edited, directed and produced by

narrated by

special thanks

[Nothing gets so carried away that it doesn’t notice

the majestic monument in its honor that we never built,

with a caption that we never wrote:]

[TO NOTHING, THE HUMAN RACE IN GRATITUDE.]

a production by

in association with

with the participation of

commissioning editors

with support from

co-financed by

presented at

technical facilities

music edition

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