Review: Inception

Inception, a Christopher Nolan masterpiece, generated more conversation in its first week of release than most films do in a lifetime. The discussions circle around the ambiguous scenes or those designed for the audience to fill in the blanks. The biggest point of discussion was about whether or not the top in the last scene fell over and stopped spinning, or if it just wobbled and continued spinning for an infinite time period.

S P O I L E R   A L E R T – Stop reading if you haven’t watched the movie.

The top, Cobb’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) touchstone to reality, which supposedly spins without stopping in the dream world and falls flat in the real world, generated numerous moans among the audience at the end of the film from those wanting a clear ending. However, Nolan isn’t known for spoon-feeding all the answers to the audience, but rather for creating art that sparks conversation like in Momento.

According to the storyline, the totem must be made and used by its owner, otherwise it’s ineffective in determining if the person is trapped in limbo or made it back to reality.  When the audience faces the question at the end of the movie the answer hangs on the expectation that his wife’s totem might reveal the truth. Not being able to trust someone else’s totem, the audience must decide for themselves if the entire movie was a dream, Cobb was stuck in limbo, or he made it back to reality.

I won’t attempt to explain what was on Nolan’s mind, but I will suggest that the film has more layers than the average person thinks. In fact, when you consider the age of the character and his comment that he’d been trapped in a dream layer for 50 years, your mind might consider that the entire movie is the dream of a man trapped in limbo, or you might remember that time speeds up in lower dream layers and his 50 years was actually only a few minutes of time in reality. One thing is certain; Nolan gave you enough information to keep your mind spinning like the top.

To simplify the movement between layers within the film, so the audience could follow it more succinctly, Nolan gave each level a distinct look through lighting and colorization. And, taking advantage of his position in being able to make any film he’d like, he took time to create a layer that few besides filmmakers would catch. I’d describe that layer as a story about how filmmakers have the power to alter the audience’s perspective through subtle storytelling.

Some Hollywood critics have noted that DiCaprio and Nolan have a similar physical look and that DiCaprio was selected for the role of Cobb to represent the “director” within the film’s insider plotline. Ellen Page, who plays the designer, works very much like a screenwriter would in determining the power of the antagonist and creating the worlds that the story takes place in. Other roles including transportation wrangler are also represented in the story.

Page’s character plays a dual role in the insider plotline. She acts as the Art Director in designing the city that the team reviews, not unlike a production scouting team on locations before the production begins. Other insider moments included Nolan paying homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey by using its music during his elevator weightlessness scene in keeping with Kubrick’s scene.

Nolan is to be commended for creating a film that has sparked great discussion. He is also to be admired by filmmakers due to his choice of not using very many CGI effects. What is interesting is how many individuals coming out of the theatre attributes much of the film’s success to special effects that barely exist.

Most admire the “special effect” hallway fight scene as the room tumbled in sync with the van on another dream level. I have to give extra kudos to Nolan for faking everyone out as he built an actual hallway inside of a tumble mechanism and turned it with the actors inside – Creating a very realistic look with hair, clothes and bodies always falling in accordance with gravity.

The most important achievement in the release of Inception, is the large box office dollars being generated by a thinking movie. It’s my hope that Hollywood will set a few of their plots written for dummies to the side and go after more stories that make the audience think and participate in determining the films outcome.