The dream that wakes an audienc
- Source: Global Times
- [10:31 September 06 2010]
- Comments
Leonardo Di Caprio (left) in a scene from Inception. Photo: IC
By Nick Muzyczka
For those whose brains have been decimated by the spate of fast-food movies on screen in Shanghai cinemas over the summer comes a real workout in the form of Inception, the latest work by Christopher Nolan.
One of the few Hollywood darlings able to produce movies that don't immediately patronize audiences, Nolan has created something that is conceptually rich and has moments of subtlety.
Inception is also an audacious action flick, taking the dream world as its focus. In a highly complex plot (the treat-ment sent by Nolan to Warner Bros was 80 pages long) that features Leonardo Di Caprio as a specialist dream-thief, reality is constantly layered and questioned.
Di Caprio's Cobb lives in a world where dreams can be entered and manipulated. Employed by Saito (Ken Watanabe) to plant information in the mind of a rival businessman (Cillian Murphy), Cobb assembles a team (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy) who delve ever deeper into the subject's dream world.
The dream agents use various chemical and technological apparatus to design dreams with different levels (dreams within dreams) such that the subject (and the audience) often find it difficult to work out what is actually "real."
The action-heavy plot runs through the different levels, creating situations where tasks have to be completed in one dream state to facilitate change in another.
This 148-minute, $160-million movie is refreshing and considered, with strong performances all-round. The camerawork is often striking and the movie exploits the possibilities of the dream world to move around various exotic landscapes. Di Caprio's tormented relationship with his dead wife threatens to becoming frustrating, but doesn't.
Inception doesn't intend to capture dream states in a realistic manner. As a number of critics have pointed out, Nolan's logic is somewhat tight (and narrow) and doesn't factor in the surreal qualities or the nonsensical juxtapositions that often constitute dreams.
A more philosophically inclined and potentially more interesting work would have toned down the explosions and gunfights and looked deeper into the "whys" rather than the "hows" of dreaming.
The director (his previous works have included Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight) doesn't come anywhere close to approximating the intensity of the dream-states in surrealist masterpieces like Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).
That said, the movie's logic (the rules about dreams within dreams, or about methods for exiting differing "layers" of dreams) provides a refreshing (if a little clunky) setting for the action sequences that dominate the flow of the movie.
Nolan's characters, when disentangled from the chaotic web of storyline, range from undeveloped to highly unrealistic, especially Cobb, whose actions are ethically deplorable and slightly mad. There is, however, more than enough visual wizardry and moment of genuine inspiration to keep audiences engaged.
Nolan is proving to be a connoisseur of extravagant cinematic techniques. Awe-inspiring CGI passages such as bending the form of Paris back over itself and zero gravity fighting in a rotating corridor are tremendously slick and fuse well with standard scenes.
