Why is the title called 'Eldorado'?

It is a Chevy Eldorado.

That, too.

I don't know anything about cars, so the fact that he was driving an Eldorado was lost on me. If that's true then it's another little nice touch to the overall metaphoric meaning of the title.

As someone already mentioned, EL DORADO is the legendary and mythical "lost city of gold" that explorers have searched for and never found. Its name has become a metaphor to represent, as Wikipedia states, "an ultimate prize or "Holy Grail" that one might spend one's life seeking. It could represent true love, heaven, happiness, or success. It is used sometimes as a figure of speech to represent something much sought after that may not even exist, or, at least, may not ever be found." In the case of this film, its metaphoric use is existential and what the characters are searching for is what we all subconsciously search for in everything we do but never truly find; which is to say lasting happiness, contentment, peace, direction, truth and meaning. The closest we come is in the company, solace and solidarity of others that we meet along the way.

The whole film is really a microcosmic metaphor for the journey or road trip of life. We find ourself in this strange reality and travel along towards death encountering strange experiences and people along the way, never knowing what to ultimately make of any of it or where we are ultimately headed. We just try to stay distracted, giving ourselves goals and fabricated direction to justify meaning and purpose to keep moving along forward towards the future, which will only ultimately prove finite and fleeting and end with the great unknown for all of us. We can't always stay distracted very well though and sometimes feel that ambiguous and eternal feeling of restlessness and discontentment much stronger that at other times. This becomes most evident when we actually do reach a goal or destination only to still feel like "what now?". The characters in the film set out on a journey that gives them a temporary goal, direction and purpose, but once they arrive they still feel the same and have to ask each other and themselves; "what now?". There is nothing to do but to turn around and go back, only to arrive back where they started still feeling unsatisfied and directionless.

It's the people that we meet along the way and the relationships and connections that we develop with them that give us a taste and the closest connection to what we are after. Ultimately though, even our closest loved ones and friends can't fill in completely that missing piece and give us total fulfilling and eternally lasting peace and happiness. We still get depressed and aimless and ride up and down, because they are dealing with the same existential conditions that we are, and on some level we all have to suffer and die alone inside our own minds. This is why people turn towards God and an eternal and hopeful worldview.

Even kings, queens, rock stars, actors, writers, scientists, politicians and ect who have reached the penultimate top of superficial and vain worldly success of fame and fortune still have to stay goal-driven and distracted to stay happy. They are subject to depression and restlessness maybe even more so that the average person, because they have actually reached the ultimate worldly goal of all people, wealth and reputation, and still feel unsatisfied. They either turn to family and friends and religion like the rest of us, or more and more vanity with more and more fame/spotlight/success and more and more money, or try and distract themselves in the excess of vain, superficial and temporary worldly pleasures of sex and drugs. Anyways.......

All road movies are derived from this universal, existential and eternally searching aspect of the human condition, but this movie gives an honest and truthful depiction of the eternal restlessness and directionless dissatisfaction that continues even after the goal or destination is reached. It's easy for characters in a movie to have a goal or purpose and to reach that goal by the end of the movie, which is what Hollywood screenwriters are actually taught, but reality is not like that and life continues on beyond our goals and destinations. We just keep setting new ones in hopes of finally finding contentment and satisfaction in one of them one day. You'd think we'd learn from all of human history, but we keep doing it over and over again and are baffled as to why we are not ultimately continent and happy.

[deleted]

[deleted]