INCERPTION
Aug. 1st, 2010 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puddlesofunFirstly, I must say that during Joseph Gordon-Levitt's variable gravity punch-up in the hotel corridor, I couldn't help but be reminded of this and its sequel:
Anyway, Inception: It's a heist movie, in dreams. I would be worried about spoiling that for you, but for the fact that it is explained in the trailer. It is also shown to be such fairly early in the film, then also carefully and methodically explained to Ariadne (Page) by Cobb (Decaprio), then also by some of the other characters. WHAT I AM TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO YOU HERE IS THAT THERE IS A LOT OF EXPLAINING GOING ON IN THIS FILM AND I DO NOT FEEL THAT IT IS ALL NECESSARY.
All the explanation is indicative of the film’s major strength: despite being set mostly in people’s dreams, Nolan doesn’t assume that he can get away with anything. As most of the film is set in people's subconscious, it would be be easy for drama and tension to be undermined by too much trippy shit (see: The Cell), but everything that happens in the dreams here is tied to events outside or to a system. The systems in question are based on explanations whose logics fall to pieces if you poke them with a stick (more on that later), but they are internally consistent, which is an important achievement. The problem with dream-stories is too often that actions don’t have foreseeable consequences, and to Nolan’s credit, not once did I feel any such doubt in this film. He uses his careful set of rules to great effect in the film’s finale, which sees 3 action sequences going on inside each other.
But Nolan’s need for a predictable, rule-driven world is also the movie’s first weakness. It means very few surprises. Nolan is scared to actually have the dreamscapes be too weird, so they end up being too normal. Why does this new architect, supposedly agog and buzzing at the awesome possibilities of dream design, come up with such normal looking places? A city? A hotel? Really? Of the three babushka doll action scenes in the finale, only Arthur(Gordon-Levitt)’s acrobatic act (which is totes awesome, BTW) is something you wouldn’t see in another action movie. The rest is standard stuff: car chases, gun fights, etc.
The film’s other weakness is that the characters aren’t really there. Played to the hilt by top-notch actors? Yes. Really very 3 dimensional? No. It’s a decent sized ensemble for an action movie, so I didn’t expect too much in this regard. Eames is a classic hardman, so you wouldn’t expect much to be revealed of him (although you would expect a hardman to have all sorts of repressed memories that would be at least as dangerous as Cobb’s. Maybe Eames is only a hard man in dreams?). Arthur is likewise self-contained, so no need for any emotional explication there beyond the occasional taciturn man-face. Plus, look at him:
Yummy.
The somewhat cringe-makingly named Ariadne, on the other hand, would be a prime candidate for some actual depth. As audience stand in (she is the character who gets subjected to most of the afore-mentioned explaining) and guide/chorus (it’s her job to poke around in Cobb’s subconscious and find out he has certain emotional issues that the film ends up being all about), she has an in. She clearly forms some sort of emotional bond with Cobb, and even makes questionable decisions based on that. It would be nice to have a little insight into her reasons. Her mind is responsible for most of the landscapes that the multi-tiered finale takes place in (and why was it, Chris- I mean Ariadne, you decided to make the 3rd level an ice fortress straight out of a Bond film?).
But no. She is there for expository purposes only.
And what of Fischer, the rich heir and target of their job? Do we care about him and his issues? Do they have anything to do with anything? I realise that he is something of a red herring to the real themes of the piece (Cobb’s problems), but he could at least have been interesting. His subconscious makes up most of the danger in the film, but the action-film mooks it spits out don’t tell any interesting stories about him, other than maybe he has watched a lot of Bond films.
In fact, Cobb is the only character who is at all fleshed out. And the real story, the one I won’t spoil, is about him. But ah! you say, this is simply part of Nolan’s ingenious gambit! Don’t you see how clever he is? Oh, I know what it is you are referring to. Nolan spends the whole movie playing on our expectations. The twist that you picked in the trailer, before you had even gone to see the film. The obvious one, the one that made you think no, Christopher Nolan would never do that. You know what I'm talking about:
It was all a dream.
But he wouldn't, would he? A seasoned storyteller such as himself would never pull a rip-off like that, surely? He'd play with it, sure: the cut-out characters, Cobb being chased through a maze of streets only minutes after giving his lecture on the maze-like properties of a well-constructed dreamscape, even the suggestion by his own unconscious projection that his action-movie life is a little unbelievable. But Nolan would never actually go there, would he?
Oh no Christopher, no.
It Was All A Dream will almost always feel cheap, especially as a conclusion, because it implies that most of what you cared about in a story didn’t matter at all. And the closer you get to realising this as the truth of your film’s plot, the closer you get to total suck. As the movie left off strongly suggesting it, I’m afraid I’m going to have to call it at a solid 50% suck.
Wait, make that 51%. There was a scene in which Arthur is doing a totally wicked cool thing involving stairs that had been (unnecessarily) foreshadowed in one of the laborious explaining scenes, but then he stopped halfway through to say “paradox” to no one in particular for no reason at all other than to remind any of us dumb mooks who had forgotten of the earlier scene where this cool thing was unnecessarily explained. WICKED COOL THINGS AREN’T AS COOL IF YOU STOP AND STEP OUT OF CHARACTER TO POINT THEM OUT. ONE PERCENT DEDUCTION FOR YOU.
Inception is a potentially clever film that treats its audience like morons.
Top night out, though.
Anyway, Inception: It's a heist movie, in dreams. I would be worried about spoiling that for you, but for the fact that it is explained in the trailer. It is also shown to be such fairly early in the film, then also carefully and methodically explained to Ariadne (Page) by Cobb (Decaprio), then also by some of the other characters. WHAT I AM TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO YOU HERE IS THAT THERE IS A LOT OF EXPLAINING GOING ON IN THIS FILM AND I DO NOT FEEL THAT IT IS ALL NECESSARY.
All the explanation is indicative of the film’s major strength: despite being set mostly in people’s dreams, Nolan doesn’t assume that he can get away with anything. As most of the film is set in people's subconscious, it would be be easy for drama and tension to be undermined by too much trippy shit (see: The Cell), but everything that happens in the dreams here is tied to events outside or to a system. The systems in question are based on explanations whose logics fall to pieces if you poke them with a stick (more on that later), but they are internally consistent, which is an important achievement. The problem with dream-stories is too often that actions don’t have foreseeable consequences, and to Nolan’s credit, not once did I feel any such doubt in this film. He uses his careful set of rules to great effect in the film’s finale, which sees 3 action sequences going on inside each other.
But Nolan’s need for a predictable, rule-driven world is also the movie’s first weakness. It means very few surprises. Nolan is scared to actually have the dreamscapes be too weird, so they end up being too normal. Why does this new architect, supposedly agog and buzzing at the awesome possibilities of dream design, come up with such normal looking places? A city? A hotel? Really? Of the three babushka doll action scenes in the finale, only Arthur(Gordon-Levitt)’s acrobatic act (which is totes awesome, BTW) is something you wouldn’t see in another action movie. The rest is standard stuff: car chases, gun fights, etc.
The film’s other weakness is that the characters aren’t really there. Played to the hilt by top-notch actors? Yes. Really very 3 dimensional? No. It’s a decent sized ensemble for an action movie, so I didn’t expect too much in this regard. Eames is a classic hardman, so you wouldn’t expect much to be revealed of him (although you would expect a hardman to have all sorts of repressed memories that would be at least as dangerous as Cobb’s. Maybe Eames is only a hard man in dreams?). Arthur is likewise self-contained, so no need for any emotional explication there beyond the occasional taciturn man-face. Plus, look at him:
Yummy.
The somewhat cringe-makingly named Ariadne, on the other hand, would be a prime candidate for some actual depth. As audience stand in (she is the character who gets subjected to most of the afore-mentioned explaining) and guide/chorus (it’s her job to poke around in Cobb’s subconscious and find out he has certain emotional issues that the film ends up being all about), she has an in. She clearly forms some sort of emotional bond with Cobb, and even makes questionable decisions based on that. It would be nice to have a little insight into her reasons. Her mind is responsible for most of the landscapes that the multi-tiered finale takes place in (and why was it, Chris- I mean Ariadne, you decided to make the 3rd level an ice fortress straight out of a Bond film?).
But no. She is there for expository purposes only.
And what of Fischer, the rich heir and target of their job? Do we care about him and his issues? Do they have anything to do with anything? I realise that he is something of a red herring to the real themes of the piece (Cobb’s problems), but he could at least have been interesting. His subconscious makes up most of the danger in the film, but the action-film mooks it spits out don’t tell any interesting stories about him, other than maybe he has watched a lot of Bond films.
In fact, Cobb is the only character who is at all fleshed out. And the real story, the one I won’t spoil, is about him. But ah! you say, this is simply part of Nolan’s ingenious gambit! Don’t you see how clever he is? Oh, I know what it is you are referring to. Nolan spends the whole movie playing on our expectations. The twist that you picked in the trailer, before you had even gone to see the film. The obvious one, the one that made you think no, Christopher Nolan would never do that. You know what I'm talking about:
It was all a dream.
But he wouldn't, would he? A seasoned storyteller such as himself would never pull a rip-off like that, surely? He'd play with it, sure: the cut-out characters, Cobb being chased through a maze of streets only minutes after giving his lecture on the maze-like properties of a well-constructed dreamscape, even the suggestion by his own unconscious projection that his action-movie life is a little unbelievable. But Nolan would never actually go there, would he?
Oh no Christopher, no.
It Was All A Dream will almost always feel cheap, especially as a conclusion, because it implies that most of what you cared about in a story didn’t matter at all. And the closer you get to realising this as the truth of your film’s plot, the closer you get to total suck. As the movie left off strongly suggesting it, I’m afraid I’m going to have to call it at a solid 50% suck.
Wait, make that 51%. There was a scene in which Arthur is doing a totally wicked cool thing involving stairs that had been (unnecessarily) foreshadowed in one of the laborious explaining scenes, but then he stopped halfway through to say “paradox” to no one in particular for no reason at all other than to remind any of us dumb mooks who had forgotten of the earlier scene where this cool thing was unnecessarily explained. WICKED COOL THINGS AREN’T AS COOL IF YOU STOP AND STEP OUT OF CHARACTER TO POINT THEM OUT. ONE PERCENT DEDUCTION FOR YOU.
Inception is a potentially clever film that treats its audience like morons.
Top night out, though.
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 06:52 am (UTC)I wasn't much of a Gordon-Levitt fan before now, but in his preppy, dandyish clothes, with his nasty sarcastic attitude - dayyyymn, the boy was fine. I'd spend some zero-gravity time with him any day of the year.
Also, my sister showed me this today: soundtrack geekery makes me go all warm and sparkly on the inside (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 06:53 am (UTC)Good thing none of the characters were particularly 3D, meaning you didn't care about them.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 12:49 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed Inception, but it all tied up a little too neatly... and reminded me of lots and lots of other movies/books: Memento (duh), The alternative reality parts of the Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, pretty much anything by Philip K Dick, The Lathe of Heaven by Le Guin, Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress (that's not necessarily a bad thing, though... I feel rewarded for my reading and ultra superior for being able to make the connections!)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 01:22 pm (UTC)I recommend the next film that the director of The Cell made, The Fall which was about telling stories.