After taking a few condensed film classes over my college career, I’m pretty familiar with surrealism and dream logic in films, and to this day, it has to be one of the most captivating and mentally stimulating approaches to commenting on the human condition.
There are few directors who can continue to capture this dream logic in a seriously artistic, striking and nostalgic way. Among the greats like Ridley Scott, Maya Deren and Charlie Kaufman, is Christopher Nolan. While there is still some debate in my mind who wins the Nolan versus Darren Aronofsky film nerd debate, Nolan’s Inception may have served to tip the odds in his favor.
While the trailer was ridiculously ambiguous, I still started to get movie theater butterflies in my gut, partly because I was pumped to see what new concept Nolan was about to execute for me, and partly because I was relieved that it wasn’t in 3-D — of course it didn’t hurt that my Leonardo DiCaprio was the lead.
Cobb (DiCaprio) is involved in big-money mental espionage, in an age where tapping into ones subconscious by sedating yourself and then plugging yourself into your own dream or the dreams of others (this may seem very Matrix-like but I promise you it’s not) is a reality. He’s a troubled man with a dark past, but he’s top notch at penetrating into the other’s psyche for various reasons, most of them being the gain of corporate bucks.
The purpose of dream breaking and entering is to extract certain valuable information, but never to plant information, or more monumental, plant the seed of an idea — this, my friends, is called inception.
Cobb’s last job before he claims he can return to his family (he has two very cute kids and a dead wife), involves trying to manipulate a young businessman (Cillian Murphy) and son of corporate superstar (Pete Postlethwaite) to segment and dissolve his father’s company he’s about to inherit. But let me assure, you, this movie does not revolve around corporate tales of wealth and suits, it’s merely the only concrete foundation that all the craziness builds upon.
Before the job commences, the team of charismatic brilliant dream-hackers: Dileep Rao, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (love) and Ellen Page (she’s a lucky girl), must strategize, flirt and analyze each other.
Page’s character, the architect, manages to get the closest to Cobb, quickly bringing his personal issues to surface level and recognizing that they could carry fatal consequences. I hadn’t decided before this movie if she annoyed me or not, but I really think she was perfect for this role. Not too girly, but just girly enough, not too talkative, but brilliant, fearless and tactful.
Add in the coolest anti-gravity action scenes that could make any male drool, visuals of the dream world, perplexing ideas, loose ends, complex characters, Freudian platforms and a luscious Edith Piaf "La Vie en rose" looped soundtrack, and I think it’s safe to say Nolan is officially a visionary. Or even if he isn’t, at least he’s the only one trying and able to produce a film that means something more than the plethora of senseless romantic comedies and slapstick humor flicks that have comfortably splattered the box office for the past three years. It isn’t the question of if you coined the concept or had a purely original thought, but it speaks of a highly aware director who can discern what is really important and vital to an enlightened existence and foster that event artistically, and enjoyably, with film.
What’s important to take from this is, one, go see it, definitely. Two, little kids and those who can’t keep up with anything but When In Rome will not be able to follow this movie, sorry. Three, don’t over-analyze it after viewing. Talk about it for a while, but there is really no sense to be made or any conclusions to arrive at, but rather ideas that Nolan has planted in our brains, an inception so to speak — that we’ll ponder for years to come.
July 26th 2010 - 10:59AM