Inception: Dream A Little Dream…

A differently dreamy scene

Quiz time: Do you remember the beginning of your dreams? Have you ever wondered if the life you are living right now like reading this film review for example is actually happening or part of a created reality and, one day, you may just wake up?
Inception by Christopher Nolan will confuse you, consume you and never once make you want to walk out of the theatre. I have to admit, I was surprised that Nolan’s film had met with such a huge success in the USA. Until he directed The Dark Knight (Batman), no one paid much attention to his previous work which includes the fantastic Memento.

But thanks to the success of Batman, Christopher Nolan was able to raise 160 million dollars for the budget of Inception. This science fiction epic has been shot in six different countries, with mind blowing special effects and a cast led by Leonardo Di Caprio, who just seems to be getting better and better as he matures as an actor.

Di Caprio plays Dom Cobb, a professional thief whose specialty is to extract information from people after they have been sedated and are dreaming. This is a form or super advanced corporate espionage which he manages with the help of team consisting of Arthur, Ariadne, Eames and Yusuf.

One day, a Japanese business man Saito played by the charismatic Ken Watanabe offers Cobb a challenge he cannot ignore. Instead of stealing ideas, Saito wants Cobb and his team to “plant” an idea, in other words to practice an inception in the mind of his business rival Robert Fisher Jr  and to encourage the latter to breakup his family empire which is damaging Saito’s profits.

But the biggest incentive for Cobb to accept this offer is that Saito assures him that he will make it possible for Cobb to go back to America and be re-united with his two children. We learn fairly quickly into the film that Cobb’s late wife Mallorie, played by the stunningly beautiful and talented French actress Marion Cotillard is a malevolent presence who keeps haunting Cobb like a negative projection in his dreams. Unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality, Mal has committed suicide resulting in Cobb forever  feeling guilty of her death and worse she leaves incriminating proof that he is responsible for her suicide hence his decision to flee the US and leave his small children to be cared for by his parents.

The special effects in the film are mind blowing. In one scene , Cobb and Ariadne are seated at a Café in Paris and Di Caprio asks the young woman if she remembers how she reached this place? Of course, she has no idea and neither do we because once again, Christopher Nolan’s brilliant directing makes us, his baffled audience, just accept that we can go from a scene taking place in a loft to a café in the space of a few minutes with no questions about continuity! The inception mission is of course very complicated and risky as dreams will take place at several levels while a designated member of the team will be assigned at each level to protect his teammates. If death were to occur in the dream, the victim would go into “limbo” and enter an unconstructed dream space for an undefined amount of time. In addition to this Mallorie/Mal continues to haunt her heartbroken husband with the sole aim of taking him with her into limbo.

Inception is practically a philosophical exercise questioning mortality, materiality, who we are, where we are, the immortality of the soul….. And though mind control which is what the story is about, is fundamentally wrong, it is also a tempting tool if used in a moral way. Who can honestly say that they never wished they were able to change the minds of people they knew? It may not be to the extent of corporate espionage, but the control is tempting.

Like most of Christopher Nolan’s films, Inception should be watched twice because it is so filled with details and a complicated narrative.
The film owes a lot of its success to its supporting cast. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the charming Arthur who faithfully follows Dom, because he so obviously enjoys the adventure! Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao, Michael Caine and Tom Berenger are sometimes on screen for less than 10 minutes, but thanks to the tight script, we have a clear idea of their personalities and exactly what role they play in the film.

Watch Inception twice, it gets better each time… 

Courtesy - The Sunday Leader - By Sumaya Samarasinghe