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- First reviewJuly 16, 2010
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Nolan Creates Dreams of Kubrickian Levels
PostedJuly 16, 2010
PillowBananaCat
from Montgomery, AL
Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is such a brilliant and meticulous work of screenwriting, that I think it's going to be impossible to fully explain what I experienced viewing this new revelation in cinema storytelling. It's as if Nolan used his first film "Memento", as an experiment, testing if "Inception" would even work. Because in Memento we follow a character and story backwards, with the revelations of the story told in the beginning, with us working our ways to find out how it came to that point. "Inception", however, doesn't just work in one reality, it works in many different layers of reality.
This is a movie that, not only do I think is impossible to fully explain, but I also think that no matter what story points I explain, it won't change the film experience. Firstly, lets explain what Inception is. Inception is the process of venturing into anothers dream, to plant an item or idea there, that could change everything about the person themselves. It can make them question objects or events, or even make them question reality itself. It has been said that Inception is an impossible act to accomplish, because you have to go through layers and layers of dreams, that serve as the dreamers perception of reality. As one character says, "Dreams are so real to us, that it's only when we wake up, that we realize something was strange."
To make things even more difficult when attempting Inception, you working against three different forces as well. Your working against actual enemies and adversaries, which work as mental antibodies for minds that have been trained to fight off outsiders trying to infiltrate a said mind. Your working against time itself, because hours in a dream, can last minutes in the actual reality. And your also working against yourself, because too much time in a dream, leaves the dreamers perception of reality and the dream, in-differential.
Cobb ( Leonardo DiCaprio ), is such a man to venture in anothers dream to accomplish Inception. He is trained in dreams and others dreams, and understands the dangers of such tasks. His own perception of reality, even in the real reality, is so mixed that he never fully understands where and when reality is. He only knows reality, because it feels a certain way, that dreams don't. Most that are in a dream, could never differentiate a dream over reality. But Cobb can, as he has lived too many lives through dreams. As well as actually accomplished Inception before. He is the only known one that has.
Saito ( Ken Watanabe ), captures Cobb, and offers him a deal. Infiltrate the mind of a business opponent of his, and plant the idea or object that will change his mind about the future of the opponent's inherited business empire. If he can accomplish this, then Cobb will be rewarded with a trip back to America, where he can finally see his family, after years of being exiled. But he has to do it well, because an idea in a rival's mind will not be just taken as a new idea. You have to be good and quick, and thorough. So the rival mind, will actually think it's a new idea and not a planted seed.
Cobb can't do Inception alone, and is allowed to assemble his own team, to help him in the process of Inception. Arthur, his longtime assistant ( Jason Gordon-Levitt ), a deception expert named Eames ( Tom Hardy ), A chemist named Yusuf ( Dileep Rao ), and a young prodigy at creating dreams Ariadne ( Ellen Paige ), is the newest recruit to the team.
Everyone has there place in the process of Inception, however, the one that was the most interesting to me, was Ariadne's position as the dream creator. If you are in a dream, you can create the dream at your own will, or at least in some ways as the film explains. So, if that's true, then why do you need another to create the dream for you? Well, because dreams have a way of shifting and the architecture of the dream changes. When infiltrating the mind of the other, the Inceptor has to be clear minded and be new to the world, just as much as the rival mind does, as well as their perceptions. So Ariadne needs to create a dream, that is like a maze, unknown to the inceptor and the dreamer. So new ideas can be planted, without the dreamer thinking it's been planted, in a building process called deception.
Cobb tutors his new recruit in dreams, how to create them, how to shift them, how they mold at there own will, and how to differentiate reality from the dream. Nolan uses this as Dreams101, teaching the viewer about all the different threads that will take place in the endgame. Nolan, acts as the creator of our dream, with us as the ones that must find our ways around the screenplay that shifts and molds like the dream we witness on-screen. At times we get confused, and even after viewing the movie, I only have a trusting nature in Nolan, that he lead me out right. The film has a bizarre ability to shift in any convention of storytelling or even direction. Whether it be just moments of exposition or moments of conflict, the film spirals around us, and compounds on us, either leaving us gasping for air or amazingly, dumbfoundingly, and entertainingly perplexed.
Remember earlier when I said that the film works on many different layers of reality? Well, that serves the case throughout the film, but even more so in the ending. As most endgames in movies work on a level of just chases and gunshots, Inception, uses these elements as thwarting the characters motions and goals, but not as the center piece of driving force of the action or problems. The one thing that keeps our attention is just how the film keeps changing itself up, and in the endgame we are treated to three different layers of reality that interchange and ripple throughout the different planes of dreams. One small change or shift doesn't just change things slightly for one plane, it changes them majorly for all levels. Making the maze, not only harder to get out of, but make the right change at the right moment, and it will be impossible to leave. You die in the dream, you wake up in real life. You die in many different layers of dreams, your mind can't differentiate which new reality, or new layer of the dream it's in, is reality or sudo-reality.
The many different layers of reality conspire in guns, chases, and espionage, and never does it get too over the top or far fetched for the world that Nolan has created. And even in a world of such rich ideas, he makes us believe in such rudimentary elements of films today. Why or how does he do this? Because he creates characters we believe in, trust, and grow to love, and we follow there journey because we care about there destinies. Even when studying such events, we learn that Nolan is teaching us a thing or two as well, even there. As his ideas of when and where, change up how the game is played every time. Trust me, these aren't just your normal movie conflicts.
The dialog is also smart, and intellectually driven, but it doesn't try to leave us in the dust with neo-science or cyber-punk tendencies, that most films of such try to do these days. Because it has faith in its own world and has faith in the viewer, that they are smart enough to keep up. I think Nolan realized what he was creating and how complex it was, that he wasn't going to try and dumb it down. He has faith in his own abilities to tell a story and isn't going to stoop to such levels to lead the viewers along. He gives us the tools to make it out of the maze, and like Cobb and the rest of the group, it's up to us to make it out with our minds intact. I do think some won't make it out, I know I just barely did.
Most films with new scapes, new spaces, new worlds, and new ideas lend themselves to be replicated by Hollywood in some form or another. Nolan's world, which is wholly original, and wholly new to film-making in general, will never be replicated in another movie. I can say that will sear confidence, because most movies, no matter how daring they are, go by a blue-print. Inception, like the dreams that encumber and take hold on it, has no blue print, and is a constantly changing beast that will, only after many viewings, be understood, but never mastered. It's the kind of creation that can only be created buy it's original creator. I think Nolan knew what he was doing and spiraled the story around us for the experience, he did it to other filmmakers, so they will get lost in the dust of how to spin it there own way.
In most movies you have a centerpiece, or star of the movie. An actor's performance, or a director's direction for instance, here the star of the film is the screenplay. Nolan, who recreated the superhero film with his rendition of Batman in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, shows that he has now moved to recreating film, not only as an art form, but as a science. It has been said that Nolan worked on this screenplay for nearly ten years, with it's origins begining during the early stages of pre-production of Memento. After seeingInception, I believe this story would had to have been rewritten at nausea to fully play out every piece of the puzzle. Inception is Nolan's masterpiece. He was nominated for an Oscar for Memento's screenplay, I think Inception will bring him his first win. It's not just Nolan though, everyone here from the actors to the crew that brought Inception to life does there job with diligence, respect, and of the utmost brilliance that we aren't so accustomed to seeing in movies these days. They did it because they believed in the words on the page.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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