“Inception” – an existential heist

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Make no mistake, “Inception” is superior summer entertainment. Nolan’s existential heist movie deals with, “intense sadness, separation and loss,” all the elements, according to Professor Don Kuiken that link existential dreams to bereavement.

The bereaved in this case is Cobb; a highly skilled extractor, a dream thief employed to steal corporate secrets from heavily sedated victims. In order to so Cobb and his team must create a plausible dream world in which to con their mark out of their clandestine memories.

Cobb’s problem is his wife Mal. After her mysterious disappearance many years earlier, she haunts his subconscious and consequently threatens to corrupt any dream his architects have meticulously constructed. What exactly is Cobb hiding and can he really bury it deep inside his mind when he shares himself with so many others?

Mal’s appearances are reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s “Solaris.” In that film, Kelvin’s dead wife Hari manifests herself as a result of his attempt to communicate with extra-terrestrials, but she really comes because of his grief at her suicide. In “Inception,” Mal is conjured through similar circumstances but her apparitions are drawn from Cobb’s attempts to internalise his own sense of loss. As “Solaris” tells us, “We don’t need worlds, we need mirrors.”

Nolan’s expertise in incorporating this subplot is so deftly executed that the audience is left to ponder the real reason behind Cobb’s latest contract, the planting of an idea in the mind of energy magnate Robert Fischer Jr. This inception will hopefully cause Fischer to disband his father’s monolithic empire and hand parity to Saito, Fischer’s chief rival.

“What is the most resilient parasite?” asks Cobb, “An idea. A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules” These lofty aspirations could be Nolan’s own cinematic credo, his quest to transform the rules governing blockbusters. “It’s a chance to build cathedrals and cities, things that couldn’t exist in the real world” Cobb later eulogises to his young protégé, Ariadne.

Whether that last statement is a declaration of Nolan’s love for his medium or a hymn to his own megalomania, one thing is certain, Nolan dreams big. The sight of Paris gradually folding in on itself is breathtaking, a flawless effect that snaps shut like a citywide mantrap. Later, hotels rotate, slide and tilt like a Five Star Rubik’s Cube as combatants fight each other on every available surface.

Daniel Frampton in his excellent book, “Filmosophy”, refers to this film-world as a “Cousin of reality,” a phrase that would seem to fit perfectly well with “Inception’s” grandiose designs. Frampton goes on to explain that, “the multiplicity of moving-image media in the twenty-first century means that this film-world has become the one we live in. A second world that feeds and shapes our perception and understanding of reality.”

From the very trailer then and its teeth shattering electronic siren we are being warned (or brainwashed) that “Inception” is superior to say “The A-Team” or “Predators” and other more traditional summer fare. That “Inception” will be more cerebral than the average bear and by living in this world we will somehow be all the more intelligent for it.

Yet Nolan has designed his thriller along the lines of a computer game, with levels, rules and certain logic. “Inception” is complex, but not complicated. Your twelve-year-old already exists as several characters in a multitude of worlds online, and will engage with “Inception’s” labyrinth narrative with considerable ease.

The idea Nolan and his publicists have planted in the public of “Inception” being a cut above the rest is absolutely true. Any film that reunites the audience with its brains is always welcome, but with the bar havingbeen set so low in the past, any film with a modicum of intelligence will be praised as Hollywood’s answer to Albert Einstein.

Where “Inception” does falter slightly is in its action set pieces. As stunning as the settings are, the gunfights seem to have been imported from 90s Bond films, functional but not fantastic. In the mountain top finale, Nolan seems to be making the case for Tom Hardy as the next 007 (no bad thing by the way) rather than have him dazzle the audience with something out of leftfield as befitting the rest of “Inception’s undoubted quality.

Hardy steals the show from a superb cast, but is run close by Ellen Page as Ariadne and the fast maturing Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobb’s point man Arthur. His “2001” style rescue of the rest of the team in zero gravity is worthy of Kubrick’s film and a further scene confirms Nolan’s homage to the master.

Anchoring Nolan’s vision as Cobb is the ever-dependable Leonardo DiCaprio. His portrayal of Cobb as a man simultaneously tormented and tantalised by his obsession with dreams is quietly masterful, guiding both the audience and new members of his team through Nolan’s rules and regulations, all the while withstanding the dreaded curse of boring the audience with too much exposition.

Just whose dream we are sitting through will no doubt be the subject of continued debate and speculation for years to come. What is interesting is how Nolan himself permeates his own movie, not just as Auteur, but also as part of the films subconscious. How can we separate him from his own creations and their choices in “Inception’s” dream narrative?

As Professor Kuiken points out, “ Nightmares and existential dreams include visual discontinuities (e.g. sudden scene shifts, looking closely at dream objects), suggesting the activation of alerting systems that respond to unexpected stimuli (i.e., startle, orienting); both involve intense feelings, especially at the moment of awakening; and the imagery of both dream types seems “real” even after awakening.”

Kuiken could be describing the cinema itself. So how was “Inception” for you? A dream or a nightmare? Or just superior summer entertainment?