Bloody Brilliant!

Grade: A

Inception

Indian Release Date: 16/07/10
CBFC Classification: U/A
Running Length: 2 Hours 28 Minutes

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cottilard, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Ton Hardy, Michael Caine, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, Pete Postlethwaite
Director: Christopher Nolan
Screenplay: Christopher Nolan
Cinematography: Wally Pfister
Music: Hans Zimmer

“Have you ever had a dream, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” – Morpheus

Do you remember ‘The Matrix’ (1999)? I certainly do, I remember watching it in a theater, I remember being utterly awestruck & when the movie ended all I wanted to do was run back in right away & watch it all over again. More than the groundbreaking special effects or the action sequences, the one thing that stuck in my head like a limpet mine was the idea of redefining the “real world”, which the Wachowski brothers had toyed with. And now after eleven years Christopher Nolan creates a movie with a concept so audacious & ingenious that it quite literally blew my brains all over the theatre. Being confused was never this cool!

The core of the movie’s idea deals with the human psyche & our interpretation of reality. The human mind is capable of conjuring up an entire world without any conscious knowledge of ever having done so, all in our dreams. Feeding on their thoughts, desires, likes or dislikes, memories, etc people can live out entire lives in their dreams. Dreams & the human subconscious are only playing fields in which Christopher Nolan seamlessly weaves in a barrage of concepts in addition to combing at least half a dozen themes. One watch will not suffice, since only on multiple viewings will the layers peel away to give you a complete understanding of the concept & its little nuances spread out through the movie.

The plot is complicated to say the least & with multiple sub-plots, all intrinsically linked to each other, it would be difficult for me to not give away some spoilers, but I’d try to keep that to a minimum.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a thief, not just any thief, but someone who specializes in entering other people’s dreams & stealing their secrets without the victim even realizing what transpired. In order to enter someone else’s subconscious/dreams he & his team need to construct a virtual world (much like an architect would) so that the target would find it difficult to distinguish from his own reality even if it is not his own dream. I know you are already scratching your head as to know the details but I am not going to go into them. You will have to watch & learn them yourself; I’d tell you however that it is fascinating to say the least.

After an unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the subconscious of a high-profile business tycoon, Saito (Ken Watanabe), Dom & his point-man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) go on the run. However impressed by their work, Saito offers them an even more challenging assignment; that to not steal but rather plant an idea in the head of his business rival’s son, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) so that he can willingly dismantle his dying father’s empire. Though reluctant, Dom takes up the assignment simply because Saito promises him a way to return to his children in the U.S. from where he’s been a fugitive for many years now.

As Dom & Arthur discuss, it is nearly impossible to plant an idea in somebody’s head (they call it ‘Inception’, hence the title) because the subject would accept the idea only if the genesis of the idea is something that naturally occurs to him. He’d have to find a valid reason in his own life to accept it & doing that to a person in a limited amount of time isn’t the easiest of things.

Thus Dom first & foremost needs a highly skilled team to complete the task. He hires Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a chemist, Eames (Tom Hardy), a forger who can impersonate multiple people in the dream & Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect to design the dreamscape. Dom himself used to be a gifted architect, but since the death of his wife, Mal (Marion Cottilard), he finds it difficult to do so because she keeps on popping up in his subconscious only to disrupt his best laid plans. After a period of exposition which explains the physics of the “Inception” to the audience primarily through Ariadne (who’s the only greenhorn on the team), the plan kicks off; resulting in a thrilling multi-layered dream-heist that has more to it than I’d ever be able to put down in this review.

I know some of you might think of the 1984, Dennis Quaid starrer ‘Dreamscape’, but no, this is nothing like that movie’s surreal representation of human dreams with Quaid hopping into other people’s dreams. With a concept so unique it takes time for the audience to pick up the trail of what’s going on screen, but even the learning curve is fascinating simply because of the ingenuity of the idea. Entering a dream is not simply entering a surreal world but something that is an extension of what already exists. Sure the world has its own physics & rules but by keeping the world as real as possible, Nolan brilliantly blurs the lines between what is real & what is not. Thus you are always on your toes trying to keep up with the script that is constantly two steps ahead. There is rarely a moment when you’d know what to expect.

Thematically I found the movie to contain so many metaphors that only when I watch it again will I be able to connect the dots more clearly. Certain aspects like the defense mechanisms of the brain, the slowing down of time as they advance deeper into the dream, only certain members of the team advancing ahead into deeper layers based on their roles, Mal’s constant appearance in Dom’s subconscious, a person’s need/want to lock themselves away in a world that seems the most real or comfortable to them, the ‘totem’ (an object to make one distinguish between his reality & a dream); all of these things have a sort of Freudian psychoanalytical & scientific connotation that needs to be read properly between the lines to be fully appreciated & understood. However Nolan really takes the cake with the final closing shot of the movie which is sure to leave you in more than just doubt.

The writing, especially with the conversations does a great job of keeping something like this grounded & understandable for those paying attention. While not all characters are perfectly realized, they are given enough screen time for the audience to know them. The story progresses in a manner that rarely leaves any loopholes in spite of such an outlandish theory though I have to say the movie does tend to drag a bit during the later part of the dream-heist when multiple dream layers run concurrently with each other in different measurements of time almost channeling Einstein’s ‘Theory of Relativity’.

Nolan teams up with cinematographer Wally Pfister yet again & the urban labyrinth like landscape is breathtakingly beautiful. Striking images of cities folding onto themselves, urban decay, and the atmosphere of the rain soaked streets during an extended car chase, all gloriously captured. Hans Zimmer provides an evocative background score that hits just the right notes. The action sequences are competently shot, but the one that stands out is the one in a hotel lobby with the laws of gravity suspended & people walking, jumping & floating on all four axis’s.  

Like nearly all of Christopher Nolan’s protagonists from earlier movies, Dom too is a highly conflicted individual, someone with a past he’d rather forget & yet tries to hold onto parts of it. Of late Leonardo DiCaprio has become the king of conflicted characters & he essays the role to perfection here, though I’d still say, it’s time he tried his hand at something different. His relationship with Mal is hauntingly poignant in parts & works beautifully overall thanks in a good measure to the performances from the two leads. On the other hand Robert Fischer’s subplot with his father doesn’t get enough time to develop convincingly, hence inspite of a good turn from Cillian Murphy, the emotional & dramatic quotient feels half-baked. Tom Hardy gets some of the best lines as the roguish Eames, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page & Ken Watanabe turn in solid but unspectacular supporting performances. Michael Caine is barely on screen for five minutes.

Some movies think bigger than they can achieve & in parts this is the only undoing of ‘Inception’ at times. While I was wowed by the concept & tried to keep up at every step with the movie to soak in the mythos & logic, the execution at times felt dwarfed by the grand scheme of things it was supposed to bring to life. Now after having waxed eloquent about the movie I’m not changing lanes but simply saying that more than anything else in the movie the one thing that you’d take back would be “the idea” & if you do, then Nolan’s been successful at what he set out to do to the audiences, Inception!

Final Verdict: A deep, engaging, nail-biting thriller sure to pull you in & leave you exasperated long after you have watched it. I’d recommend that you watch it atleast two times if not more to put all the pieces of this ambitious & ambiguous puzzle in place.

Grade: A

- Reviewed by Danish Bagdadi

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