Dickian dreams

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2014)

Say what you want of Nolan, the new populist demigod of Hollywood: that his movies are overplotted, his themes overstated, his structure wonky. However, you have to give it to Chris: he is generous. Other writers/directors live and die by a single gimmick, but he keeps throwing more and more ambitious stuff at the screen - he reminds me of Philip K. Dick, another artist who casually poured in a few pages more ideas than many of his colleagues used in a half-dozen books.
Nolan has the same high-concept vitality: amnesiac protagonist tries to avenge his wife guided by tattoos on his body and Polaroid pictures (still his best, by far); a feud between illusionists in early 20th century London gets increasingly nasty.
In Inception, con men use a special technology to navigate through people's dreams and steal their secrets. From the tone-perfect James Bond prologue to the climactic hurricane of set pieces, the movie transcends its limits - its clunky rules and the fact the dream world mechanics are not exploited as creatively as they could have - and succeeds thanks to its juicy premise and jaw-dropping cast, with Di Caprio in another of his "tormented young man" turns he has been perfecting since The Departed, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy.
Then we have gorgeous Marion Cotillard in Inception's most poignant idea - the protagonist, obsessed by his dead wife, tries to recreate her, but she ends up as a distorted, menacing memory haunting his fragile dream world.
8/10