[SPOILER WARNING]
I got a chance to see Inception in IMAX on saturday. It was superbly crafted, highly intelligent and in true sense a modern masterpiece. As per me it comes in the same ranks of Blade Runner and Matrix as a science fiction film.
Broadly there are two kinds of film audience:
1. One who watches films
2. Others who understand films (typically critics or anybody remotely interested in the specifics of cinema)
Thankfully the movie will appeal to everyone. There is more than enough food for thought for everyone.
This is Christopher Nolan's first original story after Following. Christopher Nolan has proven time and again how deft he is in handling complex characters and plot-lines.
On the surface Inception is an action packed science fiction film but where it separates from the pack is it's multi-layered narrative. Christopher Nolan experimented with multiple genres in this film -- it is a heist film in a science fiction type setting but under the hood is really a love story. This is Christopher Nolan's third stab at experimenting with the perception of reality. I was listening to his interview with Elvis Mitchell on KCRW before the release of Inception and he mentioned his inspiration goes all the way back to Akira Kurosawa.
Without talking too much about the setting I want to delve deeper in the web of narrative style.
Story De-construction
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb who is a masterful thief of human consciousness. How they do it is not really the crux of the film. On the surface it seems an ensemble cast with excellent performance from every actor. However what drives the story forward is really the need of Dom Cobb (DiCaprio). One theme which on an on resonates in the story is "to go home". This strong desire to go home is what drives him to plan the big heist. The film had lot of international settings and clearly reflects Nolan's fascination for the magnanimity of Bond films.
Usually in the heist films all the characters seem very similar as style takes over the substance. As Nolan puts it "heist films are typically emotionless".
The film questions the very basic fabric of reality - what's real and what's not? It is not surprising that the inspiration also comes from the films from the late 1990s namely Dark City and The Matrix and to an extent Memento.
Without giving away too much I want to say that the film is way different then anything you might have seen before. It is deep in terms of emotionality and narrative structure. I am sure film students in future will have hard time deciphering the meaning conveyed in the story.
Editing Style
Nolan is a big fan of Nicholas Roeg (director of Don't Look Now, Walkabout and many more). His editing style is apparent here and the third act itself is best example of cross-cutting ever practiced in cinema. This whole sequence is the highest point of film and perfected with cross cutting. The tension never dips and keeps on mounting until the final catharsis.
Cinematography
The film deals with subconsciousness and vastness of mind and Wally Pfister's cinematography effectively captures the limitlessness of the world without calling attention to itself. The film wasn't shot on the IMAX cameras so even if you don't watch it there you are not going to miss anything. It is still equally great in terms of storytelling.
Sigmund Freud said, "Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy." In Inception every world is governed by its own laws of Physics. What is impossible here is a reality in other. The only thing that limits the laws of the world is our ability to imagine.
The film is intelligent, smart and for most part something very original. I am sure that film theorist will deconstruct the story in the years to come. It's a film which you watch for the first time for fun and subsequent times to understand. I cannot wait to watch this film again sometime next week once the fever settles down.
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