This is a review of a movie titled: The Bothersome Man. The movie begins with the main character, Andreas,waiting for a subway at a subway station with another couple, a woman and man are aggressively kissing, like get a room type of kissing, but it was passionless it was like they were just going through the motions for their eyes are open and they looked like their minds are elsewhere, Andreas commits suicide by jumping in front of a subway and some time later wakes up with a beard oblivious to where he is on a bus where he meets a man, the greeter, who was waiting at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. The man drives him to a city tells him he'll "get use to it", he is told he has a job as an accountant downtown and would begin to work the next day. He goes to work, is lost and confused, he meets his boss, starts his job and meet his coworkers. After he gets acclimated to his new job and apartment he goes out to a night club. While at a night club goes to the men restroom, finds a man who appears drunk on the floor beside a urinal with vomit on his shirt, he asks the guy if he's okay and then he hear this complaint of nothing has taste from the drinks to pussy from another guy in a toilet stalls in which he only see his shoes, he follows the guy and finds that he lives in an underground apartment, where he hear the most elegant music. He goes back to the drop off spot in the middle of nowhere, waits for the bus to drop off its next passenger, follows the bus whose track end in the middle of nowhere, it disappears, he eventually meets a woman name Anne Britt they start a relationship, move in together but something is missing there is no passion; everyone and everything are banal and bland from the food to even sex. He goes back to the city and starts an office affair with a coworker which he finds she too is banal for he is not her only suitor she casually mentions that she is in multiple relationships and is indifferent and not serious about theirs too for he had earlier told Ann Brit he was leaving her for someone else and Ann too was indifferent to him leaving her. He tries to commit suicide again it is the exact same scene that occurs at the beginning of the movie (same subway, couple kissing, etc.) but he cannot die, he is run over multiple times by the subway and is physically torn-up, he gets up and go back to his girlfriend's Ann home, he is all bloodied and injured and she looks at him indifferent and ask if he wants to go go-cart racing like nothing happened. He finally go to the stranger's apartment and force the stranger, Hugo, to open his door and show him where the music was coming from, Hugo shows him a little hole in the wall. He goes to work and ask his boss did he think this world was strange for where are the children? He goes back to Hugo's apartment with digging equipment starts digging, go back to work fine out he has been replaced by a guy who almost look identical to him, he's told by his boss that maybe he would be "happier" if he opened his own business He find his digging equipment was inadequate so gets a jackhammer because he's now obsessed to getting to where he hears this elegant music and begin to smell fresh pastries. For the first time in the movie you see the elderly they live in Hugo's apartment building, they begin to come to Hugo's apartment because they too smell the fresh pastries, then people on the street start stopping by Hugo's window, they hear the jackhammer, smell the pastries. Just as Andreas is about to breakthrough to the other side the enforcers grabs Andreas but not before he grabs some pastries and tastes them. He and Hugo are taken to the authorities they let Hugo go, but tell Andreas who is still sitting in the enforcers car that everyone is more or less happy then the authorities quickly meet and have the enforcers and the greeter take Andreas back to the gas station in the middle of nowhere, the enforcers throw him in the luggage or baggage area on the bus and it show the world goes on while he ends up in a frozen isolated place,but is this where he was prior to waking up in the beginning, is this frozen isolation where he grew the beard? Is this a Nietzschean reoccurrence of what he was oblivious to when he arrived at the gas station? Throughout the movie he tries to escape the absurd through suicide instead of facing it through confrontation, he tries to escape the banal world but in the end the world he is trying to escape goes on without him for there are scenes showing his love interest with other men, Hugo sweeping the street and his boss playing badminton. Is this movie a depiction of the afterlife? Andreas feels pain so it seems (he cut off his finger, which grew back, but he cries out in pain, he feels emotions (he cries at a movie, whereas others don't, is this something everyone feels when they first arrive but goes away after they "gets use to it"? What is the world on the other side of the wall? Is this an Absurd movie? I don't think so for the main character is trying to escape this world, he is not like Sisyphus who accepts his choices and takes responsibility for his choices including his punishment of pushing a rock for eternity. Should Andreas accepted his fate and became happy too? Or should he continue to try and escape his fate? Think about it.
John D. Socrates a.k.a The African Sisyphus
