Dreamers’ Absurd Time Travel! Check Out the Movie ‘Nirvana the Band’

In 2008 Toronto, two young men are busy planning a performance. Their goal? To hit the stage at the legendary Club Rivoli. Matt (played by Matt Johnson) is confident he’ll captivate the audience from the start, while Jay (played by Jay McCarrel) looks thrilled as he plays the piano.

Fast forward 17 years, and Matt and Jay are still planning in Toronto. Matt confidently claims this time it’s for real, but Jay remains skeptical. Their goal is still the same: to perform at Club Rivoli.

The movie ‘Nirvana the Band’ (which, for the record, has nothing to do with the legendary band Nirvana) follows the duo Matt and Jay. It tells the story of their struggle to perform at the Rivoli stage, including a wild plan to build a time machine and travel back 17 years to when they first met.

Their plans to get on stage are just as eccentric as their 17-year obsession. Instead of contacting the venue or releasing music, they try skydiving to get attention or pretend to be people from the future. The movie’s charm lies in the laughter and tension arising from these reckless attempts. The absurdity peaks when Matt and Jay, hovering somewhere between dreams and delusions, unexpectedly take a time machine for a real journey through time.

The absurdity is amplified by a realistic directing style that feels like a documentary. The use of handheld cameras and an observational perspective makes the scenes feel like they are happening in real time. This allows the audience to view the characters more objectively, adding more laughs and vitality to the film.

The film was co-created by Canadian leads Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrel. Matt Johnson is the director of the 2023 film ‘BlackBerry’, and Jay McCarrel is a comedian, writer, and musician. The movie is the result of a project spanning nearly 20 years, starting from the 2007 web series ‘Nirvana the Band the Show’, moving to a TV series, and finally becoming a feature film. It was filmed spontaneously in the city of Toronto, even featuring reactions from real citizens.

The film also garnered attention as it was the first work imported by the comedy crew BDNS, led by Moon Sang-hoon. The BDNS team decided to import the movie after seeing it at the Cannes Film Market last year. The translation was handled by singer Tablo.

The original title is ‘Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie’. In the translated version, a long synopsis was inserted into the title, which ends abruptly before the sentence is even finished.

Actor and creator Moon Sang-hoon explained, “I thought if we wrote a long synopsis in the title, people might be more interested. I felt that a long title would catch the eye, and if the content cuts off like a conversation that stops mid-sentence, people would be curious to find out the rest.”

Opening on the 20th. Runtime: 100 minutes. Rated 12+.