Film: Inception
Cast: Leonardo Di Caprio, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Lewitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Leonardo Di Caprio, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Lewitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy
Director: Christopher Nolan
Words are the cornerstones of human communication. Words define feelings, release emotions and convey thoughts. Words can sometimes be the definition of human intelligence. The history of words can very well be the history of the civilisation that begat them. Most words in languages we speak were created aeons ago. But there are also words that are coined everyday. We will discuss one of them.
A dear friend of mine saw a movie and declared that she had been satisfactorily mind-fucked. Smart-ass that I am, there was an immediate masochist retort. But then, I hadn’t seen Inception yet.
Inception is an idea. An idea that germinated in Christopher Nolan. One so personal he didn’t want his brother and regular co-writer, Jonathan, to share it. An idea so outrageous that you just cannot believe it. But one that’s compulsively addictive.
Within two minutes of the curtain raising, the main character has already declared that he can interfere with people’s dreams. Before that even sinks in you are dragged into a maze that never seems like unravelling. Like a video game with its many levels Inception takes you to dreams within dreams and then some more. And to keep track is not exactly the simplest thing in the world.
Which takes us back to our word. Inception is a total mindfuck. It messes with our dull minds. Dulled by years of manufactured movies, confected according to a formula that may have worked one time, served cold and bland like a Chicken Ham sandwich. It forces you to invest your 148 minutes in the Bank of Nolan and delivers a payday that dwarves the national lottery. It makes you think about the movie, while watching it and even afterwards. What a crime against popular cinema!
Do not look for deep messages and subtle nuances. Inception is entertainment. Period. Sure, it transcends what has been put out as entertainment. But to give it more credit is to take away credit away from the intentions of Christopher Nolan, who is a regular man of the masses. He just believes the masses have brains. And has been proving himself right, repeatedly.
The argument about what Inception is all about will rage for a while. I believe it is an elaborate con. Inception, in the movie, refers to placing an idea deep within someone’s subconscious in a way that it seems like an original thought for that person. Nolan is doing that with us. The first poster for the movie had the line: "the dream is real". I was not taken it. But did that lessen my enjoyment of the movie? Not a bit.
Placing the idea of the movie inside us, during the movie; making us agonise over it, while trying to keep pace; drawing us into a maze, after declaring it is a maze. Imagine the conceit of the man. Imagine the confidence of the man. Imagine his bloody grin when he sees we fell for it. And yet, we are grateful to him. That is the achievement called Inception.
It’s hard to believe that Leonardo Di Caprio was once a heartthrob. His roles show he wanted to sink that with Titanic. He may not possess Johnny Depp’s gift for the quirky, but he has enough ability to acquit himself quite creditably in whatever he chooses to do. But, unlike Depp, Leo makes you watch the movie, and not the histrionics. He inhabits the tortured soul that is Dom Cobb and makes you believe that even you would have made the choices Cobb makes, however wrong they may be. It is a powerful leading performance that never once feels so.
The supporting cast is a dream. (Sorry!) Marion Cotillard, arguably the most beautiful actress working in Hollywood now, simply excels. Hers is the role that, you will come out of the theatre saying, could be done by none other. Fanboy favourite Joseph Gordon-Lewitt abandons his indie cred to immerse himself in this massive studio undertaking. He makes himself at home. Plus he looks fabulous. Tom Hardy does not run away with the movie, as many expected. His is the steady, but not showy, performance. The lovely Ellen Page pretends to be the only ordinary person among the sea of stars. She succeeds.
We have an Indian presence that is not perfunctory. Dileep Rao has a meaty role and there’s nothing vegetarian about him. Where have you been all this while, my friend? Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine hold up their ends with poise and confidence.
Inception is a visual extravaganza. It assaults your senses with such calculated precision that you see the extraordinary vision of a master aided by the best in the technical fields. Wally Pfister’s cinematography conveys grandeur in every frame. Hans Zimmer’s score is epic-sounding, but not very memorable to untrained ears. It serves the purpose but goes no further. The visual effects are many and varied. Believe me, once you see Paris in this movie, you never want to see it any other way.
As an action film Inception excels. The snow-bound fortress sequence is pure Bond, while the zero-gravity fight scene betters The Matrix. But these sequences never feel like set pieces. They are fluid and serve the larger purpose of all-round entertainment.
The million-dollar question is how the film will fare against The Dark Knight. I have a definite answer. It trumps the earlier film in every way. One was an exploration of how much one could do in a genre that does not lend itself to serious filmmaking; the other is a master-class in transcending genres. Inception harks back to a time when movies were created, not assembly-lined. It takes entertainment to levels that are beyond the video game. Entertainment meant stoking the superficial senses. Inception fucks with your mind.
I dedicate this review to my friend. Here’s to the hope that we get our minds fucked again. Paraphrasing husbands everywhere, "We don’t get it often enough".
