All the world's a stage for Truman Burbank

Imagine your life was recorded and broadcast to a billion people, whatever you ate, wherever you went, whoever you met, at all times! What would happen if you suddenly started noticing weird stuff around you and questioning the essence of your intricately fabricated life? Appalling, right? Well, this is precisely the premise of the movie

“The Truman Show.”.

Directed by Peter Weir and starring the versatile Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, the movie revolves around the life of a man who is as vanilla as one can be. Truman Burbank, an ordinary insurance agent who lives in a normal household with his wife, is oblivious to the fact that his life is telecasted 24/7 to people around the world.

He's always been a curious person who is eager to explore the world; however, his curiosity is subdued and discouraged every time by feeding his mind things like “there's nothing left to explore” and instilling a deep fear of seas and water bodies in him, rendering him thalassophobic. Truman starts noticing weird things and how the whole world revolves around him when he grows up. He starts questioning his so-called reality and becomes frantic.

The film showcases his puzzlement and how he tries to discover the “truth”. The whole concept of this movie in itself is very thought-provoking. Everything seems to spark a connection with “reality” or at least what we refer to as our reality. When questioned in an interview about something we all wondered, why Truman has yet to discover the true nature of his world, Cristof, the TV show's director, says,

"We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented."

When we contemplate, these words are relevant even to our own lives. Don't we unquestionably accept most things as they are? Although we've all asked ourselves questions like, "Who am I?" What is life? What is the purpose of our existence? etcetera, at the end of the day, nobody has the answers, so we accept all of it to be true and just carry on.

We live how we’re expected to, all the while trying to please an invisible audience that does not give a single damn about us. We endeavour to perfect ourselves till we fit into the ideal "mould." An insignificant mould. A mould that labels our originality as flaws and chips it away. The film beautifully conveys this idea. Truman lived a script for an audience who couldn't care less about him. “What else is on?” said the two guards who have been avid followers of The Truman Show for ages, the minute the show ends and Truman leaves forever. How beautifully the scene encapsulates the banality of everything.

No matter how much the world may seem to care about or be interested in your life and well-being, it’s only you who exists. No matter how much the world might say it knows what is best for you, has "seen" you for who you truly are and understands you inside and out- it does not. Nobody, but you, can understand yourself, as the world can never install a camera in your head.

You can live doing things the “correct” way, trying to suppress what you truly wanted, thinking it’ll pass or you’ll eventually drift away from it, but as Truman says, “You can’t get any further away before you start coming back”.

Overall, I was absorbed in the film's world-building due to it hitting so close to home. As a kid, like most of you, I too wondered a lot about the purpose of life and what we are here for. The film rekindled those thoughts and questions, giving me the same old weird feeling in my stomach. I hope you all found this as mind-boggling as I did, if not more. If at all you haven’t watched this, please do. There are so many themes like privacy, life's ultimate truth and tragedy, and oversharing in post-modern society explored in this film in an eerily beautiful way. I hope you get to experience these emotions as well. And lastly-

In case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!