A Movie About Dreams

For anyone who has not seen INCEPTION, I will be mentioning SPOILERS so watch the movie before you read what I have written. Above is the trailer and following is the brilliant soundtrack by composer Hans Zimmer who played it with orchestration at the premiere.

I purposely wanted to know what the world felt about this movie because the global perception is important to me to find out if people really cared about their dreams. The high majority of the people loved the film because it made them THINK. Not a popcorn muncher but a film that bewilders, befuddles and messes with your mind. It has been called a spy flick, a heist flick, an action flick, a sci fi flick, a riddle that is wrapped inside an enigma.

Christopher Nolan is notorious for thought provoking flims, i.e. Memento -where the protagonist suffers short term memory but then the film begins to fragment and is shown in reverse chronological order going from black to white and back to color. By the end of the film, some say, the protag doesn't know who to trust nor does the viewer. I saw that film many years back. Nolan also did Dark Knight ( Heath Ledgers last film noir)but I did not care to indulge. He also directed Batman Begins which drew my attention. More recently, The Prestige, which was a period piece involving magicians. I very much liked that movie. However, one common denominator of his films that is critiqued by many says: "they have no heart." The idea for the film was actually once presented in a 1969 James Bond flick called On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Nolan pitched his initial idea some ten years ago.

There are plenty of films that mess with your mind. I can think of Blade Runner
(1981) directed by Ridley Scott ( Terminator, Aliens)based on a book called DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? with Harrison Ford who we all love. He played a detective set in the future, who hunts down and retires advanced androids called replicants. A big question was asked of all who saw it. What does it really mean to be human? Was Harrison Ford a robot or not? The films ending, by the way, was changed and even seven versions of the film have been shown. People say you have to see it at least five times to assimilate all the information.

Lets not forget, The Game, with Michael Douglas. That blew me away.

Inception with a budget of $160 million and filmed in six countries has everyone racing to see it because of its technical CGI wonder and dream perceptions. I have come to believe that most people innately want to know more of that whether they remember dreams or not. It presents the veil that seems impenetrable.

Synopsis:
The Thief of dreams Dom Cobb ( Leonardo Di Caprio) is hired by the powerful Japanese mogul Saito ( Ken Watanabe) to hack into the mind, using chemical biotechnology of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the heir to a rival business, to implant an idea. The idea is to convince Fischer that he should dissolve his dying fathers empire.

Mal, who was Cobbs dead wife, the femme fatale(Marion Cotillard) becomes the constant phantom haunting of Cobb's subconscious and unconscious mind and she appears, it seems, when Cobb is most distressed. We note she is not always there on screen and not in everyone's dreams such as when the van is attacked or the hotel fight with Arthur. She is evidently only in Cobbs mind.

Cobb assembles his team for the dreamscape: a female student called Ariadne ( Ellen Page) who his father Miles ( Michael Caine) suggests. Ariadne's job is to design the dream operations of the journey. She is young, granted, maybe too young for this film but the contrast is refreshing. She is the supergenius. Some film critics say she was miscasted but I am not too sure about that. She has this stoic, non-emotional voice and look about her that is really her personality. You see it even in her interviews off screen. And remember, 'no heart movie' from Nolan. No elicited emotion. At one point, the viewer sees Cobb and Ariadne wandering about in their dream while Paris is folding in on itself and giant mirrors opens in the middle of busy streets. My impression was perhaps the Director was a trying to make a point that architecture is whatever you want it to be and that there are no rules in a dream?

During the film, Ariadne questions Cobb as to his intentions, his fears, his covertness, his psychology of behavior. She even shows herself to be the voice of reason.

Cobbs point man, Arthur ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt) does the background checks. The Chemist ( Dileep Rao) concocts sleepytime potions that are basically illegal pulling the dreamer down 4 notches. Then we have the danger of limbo and never getting back issue. The Forger Eames (Tom Hardy) impersonates other people inside Robert Fischers dreams. You gotta be on your toes for that guy. Interesting slant. Strong actors like Michael Caine and Tom Berenger had bit parts that seemed plastic in contrast to the storyline. I would have wished for more engagement from them.

Christopher Nolan not only directed but wrote the screenplay. One critic said Inception islike a matryoshka, a Russian nested doll in its layers of perception and dreams. (I will have to research that metaphor)

Viewers of the film wanted to know why the top of the mountain scene with the white snow suits because both bad guys and good guys wore the same suits. To confuse us? Or was it some hidden metaphorical symbol? Many critics felt this scene was pointless with alot of nonsense machine gun fire. I had heard that Leo Di Caprio said it was a very difficult scene as they were breathless at the high altitude with long takes.

Piece de resistance: the scene with Arthur in the hotel floating and the walls slanting was a technological wonder. I read that two cameras and two screens had to be used in a massive Cardington soundstage in England. A 100 foot hallway that could rotate like a log up to eight times per minute; and a duplicate hallway standing vertically on its end so that Arthur could hang down inside it to appear weightless was implemented. Also they took a hotel room and rotated that at 360 degrees. As far as the one scene where Arthur stacks up his co-stars in zero gravity and floats them into an elevator, well I have nothing to say about that because the Cinematographer said that trick is secret.

What the film ultimately says is that dreams can be overtaken by others and in turn our subconscious brains can be trained to defend against outside dream attacks. This is worth exploring. How true or not? Do we have an innate defense system in place to protect us in our dream state?