A Mind Bending Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (7 December 2014)

Christopher Nolan's Inception is one of the slickest, most complex, and quite possibly the smartest thriller ever made. This movie not only provides excitement, suspense, and expertly staged action sequences, it plumbs the meaning of reality and the nature of human relationships. In making Inception, Nolan has done something nigh impossible; he has created a follow-up to The Dark Night that is even better.
I could spend this entire review explaining the plot, and still there would be no true understanding without seeing it. Suffice it to say that in the near future, technology has been created that allows you to enter other people's dreams- or rather dreams that you have created for them- in order to steal information directly from their minds. This process is called extraction, and Cobb (Leonardo Decaprio) is the best extractor there is. Because of his past, both personal and work-related, he is constantly on the run. He cannot set foot in the United States. He cannot see his two young children. Now, he has been presented with a way to return home safely. But this will require him to do something no-one else has successfully done before, planting an idea: Inception.
Let me say right off the bat that Inception will forever change the way we look at dream sequences. Dreams have played a key role in countless films, but never like this. Just like in the dreams that you or I have, what happens in the waking world effects the world inside the dream. If you're on a flight that experiences turbulence, everything in the dream will tilt and shake. If you went to sleep in damp clothes or you had too much to drink, it will be pouring rain. Also like a real dream, time passes much faster within the dream than in the real world. And when there are multiple levels to a dream, the effect is compounded, so that a few hours in the real world can translate to days, weeks, even years.
And the actual process of designing the dreams is amazing. There is practically no limit to what the designer, or architect, can do. It is possible to create things that would never work in the real world; endless staircases out of an M.C Escher painting, exits that take you right back where you entered from. And the architect can make changes while they're in the dream. Flat landscapes fold to create walls and ceilings, bridges materialize from no-where, arched lampposts can become the basis for a bridge with help from some mirrors. But making too many changes can make the dream unstable, and spending too much time within shared dreams can rob you of your ability to tell the dream from reality.
This is what's happened to Cobb. His life and memories have begun to intrude into his dreams to the point that he can no longer design them. As the movie digs deeper into his past and his mind, it paints a picture of a brilliant, tragic figure plagued by guilt. This guilt, personified in the person who meant more to him than anyone else, hounds him, demanding his attention and seeking to harm him any way it can. And the saddest thing of all is that his problems, both with the law and within his mind, stem not from misdeeds on his part, but from his genius and his love for his late wife.
Another strong point is how the movie examines the relationship between their subject, the heir to a massive energy company, and his emotionally distant, recently departed father. His father has made him a high ranking executive in the company, he's left the whole empire to him. But he rarely showed his son real love. There was no tenderness between them, few shared moments that were prized years later. His dying word too his son was "Disappointed." But in order to plant the idea in his head, Cobb and his team will redefine this relationship for the better. His empire will be dissolved, but he will remember his father in a new light.
Of course, this isn't a Bergman film, this is by the maker of thrillers like Memento and Batman Begins, so you're expecting action. Inception does not disappoint. There are chases, shootouts, and fistfights aplenty, all beautifully photographed, flawlessly executed, and relevant to the plot. And because of the dream's multi-leveled nature, several story lines can run parallel to each other, with what happens on one level affecting the next level down. Thus, in a true masterpiece of storytelling, Cobb can engage his subconscious in a tense discussion about what is real, during a James Bond-esqe ski battle, simultaneous with a gravity defying fight scene, while the van holding all the characters plummets off a bridge. Wow.
The amazing thing is that Nolen didn't just direct Inception, he wrote it- in 2000. He decided then that he didn't have the experience needed to make it, so he directed other big-budget thrillers until he felt ready. Seeing this, I think it's safe to say he had the right idea.
When you get down to it, there simply aren't words to describe his accomplishment here. Inception begins with the most original, mind bending concept since The Matrix, uses it to create an incredibly complex yet fully coherent storyline, populates it with a host of knowable, sympathetic characters, and wraps it into a package containing all the thrills of a Spielberg blockbuster and all the depth and insight a serious relationship movie. Expect this movie to make a strong showing at the Oscars. It is undoubtedly one of the year's best films.