NOI :hero who failed

NOI is a film by Dagur Kari.

Provided Synopsis (author anonymous) :

"Seventeen-year-old Noi drifts through life on a remote fjord in the north of Iceland .In winter,the fjord is cut off from the outside world,surrounded by ominous mountains and buried under a shroud of snow.Noi dreams of escaping from this white-walled prison with Iris ,a city girl who works in a local gas station.But his clumsy attempt at escape spiral out of control and end in complete failure.Only a natural disaster will shatter Noi's universe and offer him better world..."


Noi is not the typical hero undergoing a typical hero's journey.In fact he is one of the bravest,unusual characters undergoing the most life changing events.He is not against a form of evil ,or for the preservation of peace,he is against his way of living,and against his own boredom making him a rebel in the desolate village.To put the character in context,he is still a hero .He is constantly reminded of his desperation by the everyday chores he does .He is questioned at his small school about his lack of attendance and completed schoolwork.He is engulfed by loneliness,anger and helplessness.He is caged by the scape outside his window.Everyday life could often be the worst of challenges .Noi ,bored out of his mind ,is set on leaving the never changing place and people and escaping his event-less life.Noi gets his future predicted by the fortune teller of the village. When the man reads his coffee cup,he looks at Noi and says "there is nothing ,but death in this cup."The fortune teller is a reminder for Noi that things that are meant to happen will happen.Noi is similar to Oedipus,as both get unfavorable fortunes.The only difference is that Oedipus tries to reverse the fortune while Noi wants nothing more than to escape.

When Noi finds Iris,he sets out to complete his plan of escape,and he wants Iris to come with him.But the closeness of his relationships with the limited village dwellers forbid him to even rob the cashier at the restaurant!not only that,Iris herself to go with him when he randomly runs in and tells her to come with him.He makes a quick decision to leave by himself leads him to speed away in his car and become stuck in the abundant snow.The village security vehicles get to him before he has chance to leave the city limits!He can't run.He failed in to fulfill his only dream,and on top of that a large scale avalanche leaves his trapped in the basement of his house.His rescue is his chance at a life once more,except now he has no home to go to ,and his father,grandmother and Iris have all died.

Having the wisdom and determination of a typical hero,makes Noi a protagonist,but his realistic depiction in the movie and his visions despite the failure really puts the viewer on his side. Failure results in strength,knowledge and appreciation.So, maybe failure is not something that lessens the hero-like qualities of a human being.he was fighting for something much less than what most fight for and he was against no one but his own self and the people and life around him.Is life one hero adventure after the other? Does this make us our own heroes in our daily struggles to fulfill our desires despite their lack of importance and our failure?

Noi is an introverted,self-searching and a rebellious teenager:a failed hero:a broken boy put back together. The film is one worth watching .It brings up an interesting point about boredom and restlessness.Schopenhauer a philosopher wrote(from http://www.philosophos.com/knowledge_base/archives_22/philosophy_questions_2259.html):

"boredom is a direct proof that existence is itself valueless, for boredom
is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence" ('On The Vanity of Existence').
Elsewhere he argues that boredom is at the foundation of human society, this is because "The
striving after existence is what occupies all living things and keeps them in motion. When existence is
assured to them they do not know what to do with it. Therefore the (second) thing that sets them in
motion is the effort to get rid of the burden of existence, to make it no longer felt, 'to kill time' in other
words to escape from boredom...it causes beings who love one another as little as men do, to seek
one another so much, and this becomes the source of sociality" (The World as Will and
Representation vol 1, sec 57).

So many problems arise due to the lack of ideas about how to waste time. Noi proved this in the the tragically beautiful film.Could we now justify the existence of all mythology? Did the ancient Greeks have anything better to do with their time?:)