INCEPTION

Review by Lucia Santiago Dantes

INCEPTION

One of my top ten movies of 2010, so far.  Directed by Christopher Nolan better known for directing “The Dark Knight(2008)”, “Insomnia(2002)” and “Memento(2000)”. With all these movies under his belt, it would be extremely rare that “Inception” (opening this Friday) wouldn’t be an interesting movie to watch.

What I liked the most about Inception is how the film explores the possibilities of inserting ideas into people’s minds. This is one of those movies where all those CGI special effects actually help to tell a story to the point they’re all justified and even better, you don’t seem to mind because you’re completely absorbed in the story.

So, what’s the story about? In a world where technology allows it, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is some sort of thief who specializes on stealing ideas from other people’s minds while sleeping. This procedure requires a special machine where you’re plugged in and several people can share the same dream.  Cobb has other coworkers Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and Earnes (Tom Hardy). The story starts with a failed operation where the target is Saito (Ken Watanabe) who was aware about Cobbs intentions to steal information from his dreams.  Saito was in fact auditioning the team for a more sophisticated job, instead of stealing an idea, he wants to insert an idea into someone. Cobbs hasn’t done that yet, but gets very interested when offered the possibility of returning to the US after leaving the country under suspicions of a crime.  Saito’s target is Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) the son of his industrial competitor; to whom he wants to insert the idea of dismantling his father’s emporium. Cobbs agrees to take the job in exchange of erasing all his charges in the U.S. and gets and new member for his team: Ariadne (Ellen Page) a young Architect who discover some issues in Cobbs’ mind regarding his deceased wife.

Inception is a very sophisticated movie that will make you question about the concept of reality. There are a very few movies that will actually achieve this concept but none so detailed as Inception. Several points that kept my mind wondering were: the subjective mind, surrealism and dreams, the questioning of reality… what is reality? What if we live in a dream? Concept suggested many years Ago by Pedro Calderon de la Barca on his play “Life is a Dream” where the protagonist, Segismundo, a prince who lived in captivity and made believe part of what he lived was a dream questions reality  claiming:

“What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? A fiction,
A shadow, an illusion,
And the greatest profit is small;
For all of life is a dream,
And dreams, are nothing but dreams.

What puzzled me the most during INCEPTION is not only the concept of how ideas are created, stole or erased. Is the concept of how you can navigate under the subconscious of a person’s mind through dreams and dreams inside your dreams.  Just a few times in my life I’ve had dreams inside my dreams, but for sure it is possible As well as to be aware that you’re dreaming while in a dream. Also it is remarkable how Christopher Nolan plays with the power of manipulate and create buildings and objects at caprice in dreams to help you manipulate the subconscious mind but also to guide you inside your dream and be aware that you’re actually dreaming.

After so many jobs while dreaming you might think it is also possible to lose contact with reality and that’s when Nolan offers us another interesting solution: a totem, an object that helps you realize if you’re inside a dream or not.

There are so many interesting ideas on Inception, that probably you’ll have to watch it several times and each time you will come up with more ideas to think about.

It also made me think of other movies that brilliantly plays with the concept of manipulating dreams, memories and the human mind: The Matrix trilogy directed by the Wachoski brothers and Michael Gondri’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”.