Shenanigans & Tomfoolery

It was the posters that did it.

With Dark Knight standing alone in the list of Christopher Nolan films I like, I effortlessly waded through months and months of anticipation and speculation over his next film prior to release. If the internet is anything to go by, the guy clearly has a huge following but I did no more than skip on to the next headline whenever his name showed up alongside anything that wasn’t “Batman 3″ or “Dark Knight sequel” on blogs and news sites. All it took was for me to see one of the Inception posters and it was done, I went from “zero interest” to “must see” overnight. Talk about the power of good marketing. Naturally, the largely positive word of mouth and critical reception helped also.

Perhaps the most interesting thing the film has spawned are the countless articles pertaining to the various interpretations of the film. These can be very interesting at times but I’m quietly going to sidestep all of that. This is a straight up review of what I liked and didn’t like about Inception.

Inception could be called a heist film due to its structure though there are a few key differences. The similarities lie in how the story centers around one man (Cobb played by DiCaprio) and his putting everything on the outcome of one impossible gig and also the way the film is split into two distinct segments, with the first half being the assemblage of the team that will carry out the operation and the second the operation itself. Unlike a heist film though, Inception is not about stealing something but rather about placing something. To be more specific, it’s about plancing an idea in a person’s head via his dreams or, as the film calls it, “inception.”

The idea of jumping and travelling through dreams is undoubtedly the film’s most attractive concept and Nolan spends a great amount of time establishing the rules and limits of how this aspect of the film works. Dream time is slower than real world time, physical space can be bent and warped in a dream, dying in a dream causes you to wake up, etc. Most of this exposition is handled via Ellen Page’s character, Ariadne, who, like the film’s audience, is new to this world of dream theft. She acts as the audience’s anchor and is perhaps the most relatable character in the film. She is also, intentionally or not, the heist team’s only female member. Aside from Cobb (who spends most of the film wrestling with his own personal demons) and Ariadne, the rest of the team members do little more than provide some variety and fulfill their assigned duties during the operation.

And it’s precisely there, in the titular “inception,” where the film truly shines. It’s a multiple layered operation of dreams within dreams which seems needlessly complicated at first glance but, to Christopher Nolan’s credit, is deftly handled, never overwhelming and always giving enough information for the viewer to keep track of all the different moving pieces therein. The stakes of what was already a difficult procedure are raised almost astronomically early on and the constant tension that this provides is kept almost all the way through to the film’s end which is quite an accomplishment in itself. Also worth mentioning is Nolan’s use of slow motion for actual storytelling purposes as opposed to a “let’s make this look cool” button as most directors seem to be doing nowadays.

There are two things I didn’t like about the film, one of which I’m willing to dismiss, the other not so much. The first is the fact that the machine that enables travel through dreams seemingly exists just to allow the movie to take place. Where did it come from? How does it work? What ramifications has it wrought upon all the non-theft related aspects of the world? It’s an underdeveloped aspect of the film but, as I said, I’m willing to dismiss it for two reasons: a) science fiction mumbo jumbo is not the focus of this film and b) one of the film’s readings is able to succinctly and convincingly explain why this isn’t explored further. So yeah, it irks me a bit but I can let it slide.

The second issue I have a problem with is somewhat of a contrivance and it requires a bit of explanation regarding some of the film’s dream rules I mentioned earlier. It’s established that our dreams have a sort of defense mechanism to ward off unwanted guests, so to speak. These take the form of “projections,” i.e. imaginary dream people, who can become aggressive when something in the dreamer’s dreamspace is disturbed. That much I didn’t have a problem with. As it turns out though, the person upon which inception is to happen has some sort of dream theft defense which really just translates to nameless grunts with guns that shoot on sight. This is one of the elements that helps raise the stakes but it’s, at the same time, a contrived way to create danger that ends up feeling hollow and just seems like an excuse to have meaningless fist- and gunfights in the film.

But those are two small complaints in what is a largely successful film. I think what amazes me most about Inception is not the exploration of dreams and dreaming (I’ve read Sandman after all and I think Gaiman’s handling of the subject is more provocative) but the rate at which information is given and how it is all effortlessly processed. That’s just good storytelling. And people are going wild discussing the meaning of the film and interpreting it with very thought provoking results but I was more than satisfied with Inception at face value, without worrying about any underlying messages the film might have. That’s the definition of a film that works on multiple levels and it’s something that’s arguably harder to accomplish than a run of the mill artsy film that tries too hard to look smart.

Needless to say, there are now two Christopher Nolan films that I can recommend without hesitation. Inception didn’t turn me into a rabid fan of his but I won’t be so quick to skip past future articles bearing his name in the blogosphere.