I didn’t know much about Inception going in, except for its young (and quite pretty) cast, its risk-taking director, and the previews that showed buildings being turned on their heads. Which happens the perfect metaphor for this turbocharged mind-labyrinth of a movie.
Inception is part action, part thriller, part sci-fi, yet it’s none of these things. It’s an upside down romance, a time-traveling trip that takes you to the one place that’s never been explored–the human dream. Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio) and his small team are big-time thieves, stealing secrets locked deep in the minds of the powerful. Cobb’s operation is not only illegal, somehow, it’s kept him on the run and away from his children– and one last job offer could make all his problems go away and let him go home.
The difference is, this job is something different–inception, or, the planting of an idea in a subject’s mind during his dream state. This is the opposite of what Cobb is trained to do, but in theory, it works pretty much the same. I understand the concept of wanting to extract secret information from someone’s brain–it sure beats torture– but I’m not sold on inception. Whatever happened to good old manipulation? Are the people in Christopher Nolan’s (The Dark Knight) world immune to persuasion, bribery, and threats?
Cobb assembles himself a team– his right hand man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon Leavitt), an newbie architect Ariadne (Ellen Page), who constructs the physical dream world, a forger named Eames (Tom Hardy) who can imitate anyone from the dreamer’s real life, and a chemist, who designs the sedative that will send them into the subject’s dream–as well as the “kick” that will wake them up.
The plot is simple enough — they create a dream world, then go deep into the subject’s subconscious to plant an idea– and idea that on the surface seems minute, but when realized, could change the course of his entire life. But the mechanics are complex. Creating one elaborate dream world, and then another, with all the details perfectly in place; getting the timing just right; and fighting off “projections”, or people and objects created by the subject’s mind that can “sense” any outsider in the dream, like the dream’s immune system fighting off an infection.
The action is fast, but the plot is faster. Watch carefully or you’ll miss a step from one plot point to the next. But the movie is filled to every corner with visual diversity : delicately imagined scenes of a road that goes up instead of straight, glass shattering into a million pieces, bridges forming out of nowhere, snow-capped mountains that go on for miles. And when the dream collapses– that’s the most brilliant destruction happens. Inception is stunning both in its art direction and in its storytelling, with each independent scene folding seamlessly into the next, Each segment of the film is a uniquely created piece of a patchwork quilt; each designed with different shapes and colors and fabrics, but every one is necessary to complete the whole.
As the multiple layers of dreams unfold, so does the personal dream-demons of team leader Cobb. The scenes between Page and Dicaprio are effortless, and they alone bring emotional depth to what would otherwise have been a pretty, fun, twisty flick. Inception isn’t afraid to explore complexity of its main character, and goes so many places that movies today are afraid to venture. Like its mishmash of characters that plunges blindly deep into the subconscious, Inception asks its audience to take a leap of faith too, and to accept a film with as many layers as a dream.