My Name is Nobody (2018) – Review

At the start of this documentary an Italian restaurant waitress shows the viewer the many pictures plastering the walls. She explains which celebrities are shown, who have all visited the place in the past. During that moment you realise that that knowledge about those people in the pictures, once she is gone, will be lost forever. The people on the pictures were famous during the height of their careers, but they also, unless they played a very important role in history, will be forgotten within decades. And with that the pictures lose their meaning as well.

Director Denise Janzée tries to do the reverse here, based on a picture. It is a world famous photo of a class showing two little boys, who will later turn out to be icons of Italian cinema: Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in America) and composer Ennio Morricone, who wrote a lot of iconic movie scores. Between the two little boys there is a third. There is a name written on the picture in pen, but besides that nothing is known about him. Is it possible to find out more about his life based on that name and the picture?

Over here we have a program on TV where adpoted children request the host to find their parents and this documentary could be compared to this. They visit his old neighbourhood and randomly talk to people, hoping to find out more and use that to investigate further. But My is Nobody does more, as it also shows that being famous can be temporary. A cab driver dreams about being in the spotlight, while a former actor who was in various moment never really made it. It also shows how people try to share fame just by knowing famous people. You see that when the nuns in the school where Morricone and Leone met show the crew around, full of pride. And although Janzée might not get all the answers she is looking for, you do get an idea about that unkown boy in the picture and makes you think what fame means.

[score7]