Getting lost as if in a dream

Film review: Inception

MANILA, Philippines - Inception is a film that encourages a lot of wondering. So I ask. Does a writer or director set out to make an intelligent film or do they realize it is intelligent after they have seen the finished product?

Did writer and director Christopher Nolan set out to make an intelligent film with Inception or is that just what happened because of the way he is? Intelligent. Well, he did turn Batman around with The Dark Knight.

Is a film intelligent because we get lost following what is going on in the screen? A good example of this is the TV series Lost where the more surprising and the more illogical the plot is, the more people think it is intelligent. I do not like getting lost. Give me NCIS anytime.

I might have questions about the intelligence but I have nothing at all about Inception’s originality. Man has long desired to penetrate other people’s dreams but I do not think this has been tackled this way in a book or movie or even in one of those old Twilight Zone episodes.

Dom Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is an extractor. He is a man who has the gift of being able to enter the dreams of other people and steal their thoughts. He is offered a large sum of money to plant an idea in the dream of another. Since this cannot be accomplished through surgery or hypnotic suggestion, he will have to enter the mind through a dream. And because that dream has to seem like a real dream to the dreamer, Cobb puts together a team to build the dream. This is the sort of Mission Impossible or The A Team part of the story. But can anybody build dreams?

Well, Inception is sci-fi. Pretty much anything goes. As in dreams. And I am starting to get lost writing this, which must have been Nolan’s purpose. But whatever it was that drove him to write Inception, he deserves loud and very appreciative applause. At a time when almost all that one can look forward to at the movies are remakes, sequels, one more flick from a franchise title or 3-D versions of oldies, Nolan has given us something so unlike anything done before.

There is also no question about how much effort he put into plotting the tale. How he worked on how the slightest movement or a single word uttered should resonate in another situation many scenes removed. The strange thing is that although he puts up a detailed exposition, he still manages to leave a lot unanswered, prepping movie-goers for discussions, discussions and more discussions. Inception is a lot of good things but never relaxing.

How much of Cobb’s reality is affected by the dreams he robs? What about his subjects? It is frightening to find out that their dreams, the most private part of their thoughts have been invaded. What about us? How much of our perception of the story is affected by the knowledge that we are watching dreams. And a movie is really just a dream.

I am getting lost again. Still it was so clever of Nolan to put most of the action inside dreams. This opened the story to endless possibilities. A dream has no restrictions. A dream is not limited by time or space. You can be anywhere at anytime. One can do anything. It is infinity personified.

 Another question. Could our dreams have been invaded when we wake up from sleep with an idea or the answer to a nagging question? I still believe you do get answers in your dreams, You have a problem? Sleep on it. You will get an answer tomorrow. As in an answered prayer. It is said that an angel puts the answer in your mind through your dream.

Come to think of it, there must be demons if you have angels and the devil who is always up to his tricks could have intercepted the prayer and provided his own kind of answer. I do not know how you will look at him but the “angel” or the “devil” in Inception is Cobb. No wonder he is a hunted man.

I am so glad that unlike Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, DiCaprio has not fallen into the pretty boy rut. He never seems to be conscious about his looks. Think of having that lock of hair fall just so across his forehead or beaming with a plastered smile. And never do his serious films scream Oscar, Oscar.

Cobb is a character out of the unknown. I am sure you have never heard of anybody like him. But DiCaprio steps sure-footedly into his role, with Cobb’s human emotions as both anchor and driver. Once he got this right, his whole portrayal easily fell into place. He may be a very advanced psychic but Cobb is just a guy who loves and misses his children and a departed wife who haunts his dreams.

Nolan keeps Inception going at a fevered pitch. An adept filmmaker, he offers up breathtaking visuals, walls and floors that twist and turn and suspenseful chases through Morocco, Paris, the Alps. Excellent side dishes. His meat is the questions and answers about entering dreams.

I am getting a lot of scary thoughts. Nolan is beyond intelligent. Just think of the idea he has planted in the minds of geniuses, good and evil, all over the world through this film. Rob dreams, rob dreams, rob dreams. And to think that we had always gone to the movies for dreams!