“EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE”

AN EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY TO THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE

With 11 Oscar nominations for the 95th Academy Awards, Everything Everywhere At the Same Time is among the prominent nominees of the Academy Awards. An extraordinary and impressive production of the American absurd-comedy and drama genre film. This science fiction film tells the story of a Chinese-American immigrant who discovers that he must connect with parallel universe versions of herself in order to prevent a powerful being from destroying the multiverse, crossing genres from animation to martial arts, addressing philosophical questions about the meaning of life and the nature of being. Directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the film is a production that examines the concepts of Existence and Nihilism, by enabling the audience to establish a relationship between the real world and the meta world. For example, the bagel at the head of the character Joy Wang, on the one hand, reflects the character’s nihilistic worldview, on the other hand, it serves as a symbol meaning zero, that is nothingness.

SYMBOLISM IN ART

We see that Symbolism in Art is also a factor. For example, when Evelyn Wang gains access to all alternate universe selves, these alternate selves; It circulates through a multitude of views such as tree, dog, zombie, grape and easter egg, bringing different images to the screen and revealing symbolic meanings. In this sense, we see that Friedrich Nietzsche‘s Eternal Recurrence and Romanian philosopher and historian Mircea Eliade‘s “The Eternal Return” myth are mentioned in the subtext of the film, which presents a Postmodern narrative. On the basis of the story, the nature of the universe and life, as well as the origin of life, focuses on Ontology, the Philosophy of Being. One of the most important works about man, including the modern concepts of self and universe, is the cult work Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata. Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, one of the greatest rationalists of 17th century philosophy, has been recognized as one of the most important thinkers of Western philosophy thanks to his masterpiece Ethics. Spinoza; “Every single thing strives to remain in its own existence as long as it exists.” With these words, which form the basis of his metaphysics, the philosopher states that everything that exists is in a certain balance within itself and that there is nothing to destroy it in this state.

TOPIC OF THE FILM

Evelyn Wang immigrated from China to America with her husband years ago and started a new life. She is dragged into a crazy adventure where she alone can save existence by exploring other universes connected with alternative lives.

Stars; Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., Biff Wiff and Jamie Lee Curtis.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

The shooting of the movie, which took 38 days in total, took place in California, USA. Producer Jonathan Wang revealed in an interview with the SBIFF Cinema Association that the entire movie was shot on a budget of just $14.3 million. The film, which was nominated for the 76th BAFTA Awards in 10 categories, is an extraordinary production not to be missed.

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References

Spinoza: Taze Bir Nefes (Spinoza: A Breath of Fresh), Cogito: Üç Aylık Düşünce Dergisi Sayı: 99 (Cogito: Quarterly Journal of Thought Number: 99), Yapı Kredi Yayınları press, 2020