'in·cep·tion : an act, process, or instance of beginning'
I’ve been to the cinema a fair few times in the past few months, partly because there have been several good releases and partly because it saves me having to come up with any better or more productive ways to spend my time. Some films have been superb, such as the brutal and hilarious Kick-Ass, some have been touching, such as the well-rated but widely unheard of Crazy Heart and of course the totally-not-tear-inducing Toy Story 3. Some have just been hysterically awful; I’m looking at you Twilight: Eclipse.
My favourite film of the past few months however, possibly of the year (though the pure, unadulterated win that is Kick-Ass makes it a close call), is Inception. It’s one of those films that draws you in, makes you obsess over the fandom, which is growing exponentially, reassuringly spurred on by other likeminded, and often worryingly intense, obsessive fans. It turns you into one of those people you loathe, the type that has to ‘share’ with everyone they know just how ‘AWESOME!1!!!!1!!eleventyone!!’ the film is, recommending (in that frenzied, slightly fanatical, glassy-eyed way) that everyone watches it for themselves and demanding that they love it as much as you do or you might have to stab them for their own good.
Inception follows the character of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ‘Extractor’, paid to break into people’s dreams and steal their secrets. As you would expect, such a line of work is less than legal, though it becomes apparent that Cobb has a more significant reason to stay undetected. All he wants is to be able to return home to his children without fear of arrest, something that seems impossible until he is made an offer by someone with the power to free him from persecution. The offer involves him undertaking one last job which, rather than having him extract an idea, involves him planting one. Cobb alone knows that such a thing is possible, but it’s difficult.
Arthur: Okay, this is me, planting an idea in your mind. I say: don't think about elephants. What are you thinking about?
Saito: Elephants?
Arthur: Right, but it's not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.
Cobb: No, it's not.
For the inception to be successful, Cobb must bring in people with other talents. There is Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), ‘The Point Man’, responsible for the details of the operation, the organisation and meticulous planning. Ariadne (Ellen Page), ‘The Architect’, whose role is to create the dreamscape in enough detail to fool the target. Eames (Tom Hardy) is ‘The Forger’, the man who can change his appearance in the dream, with the ability to convince the unaware dreamer that he is anything from a trusted friend to a blonde at the bar. Fischer (Cillian Murphy) is the target of the inception, Yusuf (Dileep Rao) the man charged with putting them in a stable enough unconscious state to support a dream within a dream within a dream (yes, that’s three dreams) and supplying the ‘kick’ to wake them up again. Saito (Ken Watanabe) is the powerful man who is paying for the job and is there to protect his investment.
Much as many laud or lambast Inception for its over-complicated narrative and plot it really isn’t all that hard to follow. Some of its intricacies are inevitably missed the first time you watch as you focus on following the plot, whose dream you’re in, whose projections it’s filled with, how many layers of dream-within-a-dreams you’ve gone down through, and whether or not it’s even a dream at all; however these less vital components of the film are what make for an even more entertaining second viewing. There are enough dimensions and facets to the characters and their mindsets that they are engaging to watch repeatedly. No Edward Cullens in this film, brooding ‘sexily’ with as many undercurrents of intellect behind their expressions as a dead trout. These are characters you can empathise with, despite their atypical situation, who you would like to know and who you want to succeed, especially given the grave, if slightly implausible, consequences of their failure.
This is one area where Inception possibly lets itself down, or at least opens itself up to criticism; its implausibility. Though this may seem ridiculous when you’re talking about a film where the characters perform James Bond style espionage within multiple layers of dreams, it is a problem. When watching a film like Inception you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief or you might as well not watch it at all. However, within the canon of the film’s universe there has to be some sort of logic, even when it comes to something as notoriously illogical as dreams. Without giving too much of the plot away it is difficult to really explain the point at which the narrative begins to somewhat strain credulity, but whether or not you can overlook this fact depends largely upon how much you have invested in the characters and how much what’s come before in the plot has excited your imagination. For me, the film’s plus points outweigh its flaws by a long way, so I’m more than willing to forgive a little fuzziness in explaining certain aspects of the 'dream-within-a-dream' theory.
Inception has a little bit of everything, it seems. There’s the subtle angst of Cobb who can’t go home to his children, with the tragedy in his past. There’s the little bits of humour (Eames: You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.*fires a huge as fuck gun that looks like something goddamn Wile E. Coyote would buy from Acme*). There’s plenty of action; apparently the subconscious mind doesn’t take too kindly to intruders and once it spots you it’s going to do its damndest to kick you out on your arse, preferably with a bullet in your head. And there’s an open ending that made everyone in my cinema groan out loud at the premature cut to black that leaves you wondering (and which also resulted in an argument in the car on the way home that led to three days of the silent treatment from my sister. Oh yes, it’s serious business)...
If you really need convincing that this is a film worth seeing, it might interest you to know that Inception has that Hollywood classic, what I’ve dubbed ‘The Peter Griffin Moment’; that instant when one of the characters says the name of the film. It’s that moment of self-indulgence, the clue that this is a movie with enough self-assurance that it can afford a little narcissism, because it doesn’t have to try to win your love and enthusiasm. It already has them and it knows it. Egotistical mastermind, that Christopher Nolan.
My favourite film of the past few months however, possibly of the year (though the pure, unadulterated win that is Kick-Ass makes it a close call), is Inception. It’s one of those films that draws you in, makes you obsess over the fandom, which is growing exponentially, reassuringly spurred on by other likeminded, and often worryingly intense, obsessive fans. It turns you into one of those people you loathe, the type that has to ‘share’ with everyone they know just how ‘AWESOME!1!!!!1!!eleventyone!!’ the film is, recommending (in that frenzied, slightly fanatical, glassy-eyed way) that everyone watches it for themselves and demanding that they love it as much as you do or you might have to stab them for their own good.
Inception follows the character of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ‘Extractor’, paid to break into people’s dreams and steal their secrets. As you would expect, such a line of work is less than legal, though it becomes apparent that Cobb has a more significant reason to stay undetected. All he wants is to be able to return home to his children without fear of arrest, something that seems impossible until he is made an offer by someone with the power to free him from persecution. The offer involves him undertaking one last job which, rather than having him extract an idea, involves him planting one. Cobb alone knows that such a thing is possible, but it’s difficult.
Arthur: Okay, this is me, planting an idea in your mind. I say: don't think about elephants. What are you thinking about?
Saito: Elephants?
Arthur: Right, but it's not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.
Cobb: No, it's not.
For the inception to be successful, Cobb must bring in people with other talents. There is Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), ‘The Point Man’, responsible for the details of the operation, the organisation and meticulous planning. Ariadne (Ellen Page), ‘The Architect’, whose role is to create the dreamscape in enough detail to fool the target. Eames (Tom Hardy) is ‘The Forger’, the man who can change his appearance in the dream, with the ability to convince the unaware dreamer that he is anything from a trusted friend to a blonde at the bar. Fischer (Cillian Murphy) is the target of the inception, Yusuf (Dileep Rao) the man charged with putting them in a stable enough unconscious state to support a dream within a dream within a dream (yes, that’s three dreams) and supplying the ‘kick’ to wake them up again. Saito (Ken Watanabe) is the powerful man who is paying for the job and is there to protect his investment.
Much as many laud or lambast Inception for its over-complicated narrative and plot it really isn’t all that hard to follow. Some of its intricacies are inevitably missed the first time you watch as you focus on following the plot, whose dream you’re in, whose projections it’s filled with, how many layers of dream-within-a-dreams you’ve gone down through, and whether or not it’s even a dream at all; however these less vital components of the film are what make for an even more entertaining second viewing. There are enough dimensions and facets to the characters and their mindsets that they are engaging to watch repeatedly. No Edward Cullens in this film, brooding ‘sexily’ with as many undercurrents of intellect behind their expressions as a dead trout. These are characters you can empathise with, despite their atypical situation, who you would like to know and who you want to succeed, especially given the grave, if slightly implausible, consequences of their failure.
This is one area where Inception possibly lets itself down, or at least opens itself up to criticism; its implausibility. Though this may seem ridiculous when you’re talking about a film where the characters perform James Bond style espionage within multiple layers of dreams, it is a problem. When watching a film like Inception you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief or you might as well not watch it at all. However, within the canon of the film’s universe there has to be some sort of logic, even when it comes to something as notoriously illogical as dreams. Without giving too much of the plot away it is difficult to really explain the point at which the narrative begins to somewhat strain credulity, but whether or not you can overlook this fact depends largely upon how much you have invested in the characters and how much what’s come before in the plot has excited your imagination. For me, the film’s plus points outweigh its flaws by a long way, so I’m more than willing to forgive a little fuzziness in explaining certain aspects of the 'dream-within-a-dream' theory.
Inception has a little bit of everything, it seems. There’s the subtle angst of Cobb who can’t go home to his children, with the tragedy in his past. There’s the little bits of humour (Eames: You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.*fires a huge as fuck gun that looks like something goddamn Wile E. Coyote would buy from Acme*). There’s plenty of action; apparently the subconscious mind doesn’t take too kindly to intruders and once it spots you it’s going to do its damndest to kick you out on your arse, preferably with a bullet in your head. And there’s an open ending that made everyone in my cinema groan out loud at the premature cut to black that leaves you wondering (and which also resulted in an argument in the car on the way home that led to three days of the silent treatment from my sister. Oh yes, it’s serious business)...
If you really need convincing that this is a film worth seeing, it might interest you to know that Inception has that Hollywood classic, what I’ve dubbed ‘The Peter Griffin Moment’; that instant when one of the characters says the name of the film. It’s that moment of self-indulgence, the clue that this is a movie with enough self-assurance that it can afford a little narcissism, because it doesn’t have to try to win your love and enthusiasm. It already has them and it knows it. Egotistical mastermind, that Christopher Nolan.