Matters of the human mind have been a subject of immense interest not in just filmmaking, but in several fields of art and science. Representations of dreams and the sub conscious have been evident in literature and paintings over centuries. Filmmakers with their technological support and reach have taken it to an extent where films themselves, now play a major role in creating visuals and details in our minds and subconscious. Christopher Nolan can be proud to be the creator of an idea that will go a long way in experimenting with the human mind in fiction. One would think, this idea would be sufficient to make good cinema. Unfortunately not.
Before I get to any aspect of the movie, explaining the plot is essential. People who have seen it, you are free to skip this paragraph. Dom Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) heads a team of ‘extractors’ who are people who extract details from a person’s sub conscious, mainly for corporate espionage. This is achieved through manipulation of dreams with the help of a device and a team that consists of an architect who creates the set for the dream (Ellen Page as Ariandne), a client researcher (Joseph G Levitt as Arthur), a forger who is a master of disguise (Tom Hardy as Eames) and a chemist to make sedatives (Dileep Rao as Mombasa). Saito (Ken Watanabe as a business tycoon) offers them a new mission to do the opposite – inception. To create an idea in the mind of the target. Cobb finds the offer too tempting to refuse. The task is to get Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) the heir to a business empire (the sole competitor to Saito) to sell out his father’s companies. The first half consists of the preparation for the mission and the second half the execution. Cobb hiring a new architect, dealing with his broken family and his own devils add to the intensity of the plot. It’s not just the ‘projections’ of the target the team has to deal with, but also Cobb’s dead wife (Marion Cotillard)who keeps appearing in his dreams to ruin their plans.
Christopher Nolan has been a bit disappointing to me lately. After giving us movies like Memento and Prestige, the mindless action in The Dark Knight was unexpected. Of course the movie did instantly put him into the league of some of the most sought after directors in Hollywood . Inception being the biggest this year, I am sure has only strengthened that position. I can’t help but draw a similarity to Indian directors who make beautiful cinema when they start off on short budgets and once given the big money give in to the commercial temptation of making films with popular content. Nolan has displayed unique intelligence and conviction to come up with the idea of manipulating dreams. The rules, the terms, the task, the plot, all these thoroughly justify the 9 years he has worked on it. Only a person whose thought process is deep enough to reach out to the areas of the human mind with imagination and creativity could have achieved this. I wish he had displayed the same intensity in his visuals. What could have been a dark and intense psychological thriller turns out to be a typical Hollywood mass entertainer with shoot outs, flying cars, car chases, crashing glass, matrix style stunts and what not.
With a line up of such experienced set of actors, talking about their performance seems too presumptuous . Leonardo carries the movie on his shoulders with ease of an expert. While the special effects contribute beautifully in the first half to explain the concept, it’s a bit overdone towards the climax. The film and the concept would’ve been taken more seriously had the translation to visuals not been that graphic. The drama in the second half reduces the depth of the plot to a mission accomplishment.
Some concepts that the film puts forth are truly exclusive. The multiple layers in a dream, the role of the people already present in the target's sub-conscious, the purpose of a ‘totem’, the ‘limbo’ when a one is unable to get back from a dream are theories that can be made into individual movies all over again. They are thought provoking and mysterious for any movie fan worth his pop corn. And the fact that being a dream, anything can happen on screen defying laws of science, psychology and truth lends hugely to the excitement of the film.
For a viewer who thrives on hard core Hollywood action, the movie is a visual treat. It is then best to not think too much about the plot or the concept. For someone who likes subtlety and intensity in such movies, get out after the interval and believe that the mission was accomplished. And for the kind who can appreciate both, I suggest you pick u a DVD, watch it with a paper and pencil in hand to get an exact picture of the plots and the sub-plots. For a regular movie goer, the rules and events taking place can be too tedious to contribute to a movie watching experience. And concentrating too much on these might result in missing out on the larger picture. Then again, on a lighter note, we Indians are experts in handling dreams in filmmaking. Think of all the dream songs / sequences we were brought up on!!
