Movie: Inception

*All of my reviews contain spoilers.

Once, long ago when I was much younger, I was a passenger on a plane experiencing some rough turbulence. It was an incident unlike anything I’ve ever really had since, a very public and shared nightmare, and at the time I was terrified. Every few moments the plane would tumble and drop, then lurch violently and right itself. And every time, without fail, a number of passengers would give a nervous laugh. Sometimes, during the initial stages of a plunge, someone would scream. The laughter would occasionally sound more forced, but it always came. I can remember thinking everyone on that plane would gladly laugh themselves to their death. I was upset; this was not a situation to make light of.

So when Nolan cut to the credits with the result of the spinning top unseen and the audience laughed, I had a more understanding reaction to that then the people I saw the movie with. Sometimes, that’s all you have.

First, let’s get this out of the way: it isn’t important whether or not the entire movie is Cobb’s dream. Or to put it more aptly (and less controversially), it’s not a question that’s meant to be answered. Often I find people want to “figure out” something that’s purposefully been left ambiguous; I myself am guilty of this from time to time. I feel that this is an immature reaction to art posed in this nature. This isn’t a situation where there’s an answer that needs to be had, that things must be one or another. This movie is Schrödinger’s cat: it can simultaneously be both entirely a dream and mostly a reality and is all the more beautiful for it.

In a lot of ways it reminds me of something Neil Gaiman played with in his Sandman series. There’s an idea in play constantly through the comics that dreams are real. Yes, we are told after a nightmare by our parents that it wasn’t real, that it’s over now and things are back to normal. But dreams are as real as thoughts, observations, revelations, catharsis. A dream is as real as anything else you may experience in this life because that’s exactly what it is: an experience. That it isn’t the straight-edge normal way we as humans experience something may make it disingenuous, but are we really ready to jump to that conclusion?

Dualities of this nature can be seen all over the movie. For example, smarter men than me have made the claim that the film itself is a metaphor for how Nolan sees the nature of his creative method. A 10-year magnum opus is bound to get a little autobiographical (unless you’re James Cameron I suppose), but I feel this movie does tend to go beyond that to the point where it exists as a fairly plain interpretation of the process. But, as I said, that’s only one aspect, and also like I said, this is a movie that can exist on multiple levels and be multiple things at one time. While the characters plunge into dreams within dreams, the differing ideas and subjects spin in careful balance. Nolan even tries hard to make it a thrilling and groundbreaking action flick while maintaining his other, more complicated themes (Arthur can sometimes seem like a character who exists only to be consistently exhilarating).

Leonardo DiCaprio continues to impress me, but I have a wife and as long as he plays characters with dying wives I’ll continue to be impressed I suppose. The man can simulate heartbreaking agony. But the real talent of the cast in my opinion is Marion Cotillard, who plays Mal. She’s convincingly a tricky femme fatale, a creative and inspiring wife, distant and depressed mother, confused suicide, and figment of your imagination. Somehow Cotillard manages to convince me at every turn that she’s all of these things as the need to fill those roles come up. In a way she mirrors the multi-faceted nature of the movie itself, and I still haven’t entirely figured her out. What does it mean when she reveals Cobb has stopped believing in one true reality? I’d have to see it again to get the wording perfect.

Inception is the best movie I’ve seen in years. I can’t wait to see it again.

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For other opinions on Inception, check out Devin Faraci and Evan McCoy‘s reviews, check here for a fascinating look at Zimmer’s method for the music of the film, and for some random semi-related art, see HazeyJane’s deviantART gallery.