Review: Inception

  Messing With Minds
Dir. Chris Nolan,  2010

Dreams may well be the final frontier of storytelling. Though our cinema keeps our attention with impeccably timed conflicts leading to a choreographed climax, we are nightly enraptured by self-generated, nonsensical narratives that play unbidden in our heads. Dreams are a paradoxical element of the human experience, universal yet profoundly personal. It is nearly impossible to convey one’s experience of a dream to another person. Still, dream sequences remain a film staple, used to handily illustrate a plot point or character issue, but rarely reflecting the slippery experience of a true dream. So the question remains: can a mainstream film harness the strange appeal of these nightly, personal stories in a way that will captivate waking audiences? Christopher Nolan answers the question with “Inception,” a cinematic wonder that packs a fascinating abstract concept into a taut, sure-footed narrative structure. Technically dazzling, the film hopes to leave jaws gaping; however, its most inspired moments are the ones that venture out of the set piece and into the mess of the human heart.

The first thing to know is that “Inception” never sets out to be a Kaufman-esque brain trip. Don’t come in expecting melting clocks, fluid storytelling, or tripped-out dance sequences. Nolan is out to blow your mind, not tweak with it; no need to check your reality at the door. Because “Inception” is not an art house film: it’s a heist movie. It just happens to take place in your mind. The cinematography and score are there to remind you that this is, indeed, a textbook popcorn thriller. Set in cool tones, the camera pans around corners at suspenseful moments and shakes with handheld panic during chase scenes, a la Bourne. The soundtrack, loud and percussion-heavy, has no memorable theme and no significant deviance from that of “The Dark Knight.” You could walk in on the film for a few minutes and mistake it for a standard summer action flick.

But how wrong you would be. The scope and stakes of “Inception” are wider and higher than the typical save-the-world yawner (and the world isn’t even at stake here). That’s because “Inception” takes us inside the expansive, incredible world inside a human mind, and puts it in tangible jeopardy. It gives new meaning to the term “psychological thriller”: it’s a thriller inside someone’s psychology. It’s amazing that no one’s done it before, at least not this literally. And the genius of this premise is that Nolan ties up his philosophical questions so closely with the action that the two become one and the same. His chase scene is not just visceral, they’re ideological. This has always been a fixture of Nolan’s filmmaking, from the mind games of “Memento” to the ethical dilemmas of “The Dark Knight.” But never before has the connection been this strong and intuitive.

The plot is something that is best to experience in the theater, but here are the bones: Leonardo DiCaprio is Cobb, a neurotic genius who directs operations to steal ideas from dreams. His team includes a second-in-command (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an architect (Ellen Page), a “forger,” a chemist, and a patron. Together, they embark on their most ambitious mission yet, but encounter psychological hangups that do more damage to their plans than any hit man could. The plot, though complex, is not difficult to follow. Nolan gives us the information when we need it, occasionally spoon-feeding exposition to help us along.

Visually, the film is chock full of set pieces and stunner moments, which have supplied the film with its major marketing push. We get gorgeous slow motion shots with water, cityscapes unfolding before our eyes, anti-gravity choreography, an Escher drawing come to life. I found myself with my jaw open more than once. The film has moments of explosive creativity, especially when illustrating the effects of outside stimuli on a dreamer (you’ll see what I mean). Aside from the set pieces, the overall visual mood is slick, calculated, and pitch-perfect. There is the sense of hot and cold imagery; slow, artistic vistas of dreamers placed alongside breathless fights and chases.

With regard to the sci-fi environment, “Inception” innovates within the lines. Undeniably, the film owes a great debt to “The Matrix,” both thematically and stylistically. Put some “agents” in an alternate reality, tell them the rules, and then watch the stakes elevate and apply to “real life.” The ideas of time travel, awakening, and alternate realities are becoming less and less shocking to us, and “Inception” shows its influences: The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, The Truman Show, even Harry Potter. “Inception” is not a movie you would call wildly imaginative. But imaginative it is, and there were many times I found myself nodding and grinning as I saw its world unfold. The ideas of time bending connected with dreams were fascinating and well executed, especially in the finale. We do hear the rules of the game quite often, perhaps the way Nolan explained them to himself in a Word Document while developing the plot. Throughout the film, the setup and plot development continued to prove themselves clever, if not shocking. The multi-layered planning and plot structure at work here certainly make strides in the genre, enough to make “The Matrix” look too big and obvious.

A movie like “Inception” seems like it would be made for the wow-factor, but the thing that distinguishes the film from other smart thrillers is the surprisingly soulful backbone of human nature that holds it together. The film is philosophical from the get-go, and invokes all kinds of questions about the nature of ideas and creativity. As the team goes in to plant an idea in a man’s mind, they have to ask themselves questions about what makes us believe: what it takes for an idea to get its hooks in us. And the film’s answer is surprisingly un-cerebral: at our core, we are full of feelings, intuitions, longings. It’s the viscera that hook us, not facts or reason.

This idea would be merely an interesting aside were it not for DiCaprio’s Cobb, a neurotic, driven mess of a man who happens to be both the greatest asset and the greatest danger to the expedition. Despite his intimate knowledge of the depths of the human mind, he can’t get a handle on his own regrets and wishes. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that the greatest stakes are not invested in the enterprise itself but rather in Cobb’s tangled heart. As we delve further into Cobb, we delve further into ourselves: what are our greatest doubts? What do we really hold to be true at our core? What villains do we harbor and feed inside our own minds? Do our memories and dreams become confused?

As a thriller, “Inception” delivers, keeping audiences tense and gape-jawed. As a cerebral drama, “Inception” offers enough to keep you tossing and turning at night. But what truly makes the movie memorable is how it delves into issues on a personal and unexpectedly touching level. The film’s crisis is personal, but the stakes are literal. It puts faces to our doubts and beliefs, presents our thoughts and dreams in a form we can follow with bated breath. In the end, its weight is just as much emotional as it is cerebral. “Inception” understands that our dreams get at what we are really about, and makes a real effort to offer its thesis on the matter. This movie is certainly Big Hollywood. But if a summer popcorn flick can make you gasp, cry, and stay too long in the lobby arguing with your friends about the ending, I don’t know what more you would want at the multiplex.

Myth:
Escaping to another world
Awakening

Moral:
The things we hold closest can be the things to hurt us
Feelings have a huge sway over humans

Zeitgeist Factor:
In a world where we live so much in public with presence in social networking, it seems at times that the last safe place we have is our own mind. “Inception” messes with that by saying that even that refuge might not be so stable. Similarly, “Inception” shows us a familiar postmodern principle in that the way we thought the world operated is not necessarily true, and we must open our minds to alternate realities or ways of seeing.