Dreams, Reality and Utopia

The mind is omnipotent. The mind is the scene of the crime. The mind is the lodestar of existence. The mind governs. The mind is the labyrinth of creation, of transcendence. The mind is all that there can be.

Or so believes Christopher Nolan, the man who’s seemingly coming off an incredible brainstorm. We often find ourselves strewn with conflict over picking ‘better’ films over the rest. So how do you define ‘better’?  If holistic brilliance makes your cut to the parameters of judgment, consider yourself a luftmensch if Inception isn’t on your planner for the weekend. Nolan’s Inception is a delicious melange of technical excellence, unparalleled imagination and sheer cinematic achievement. To confine its prowess to a genre would be doing it unpardonable disgrace. Inception is a film like none you have seen, or will ever see.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a specialist in ‘subconscious security’. An intense job that deals with infiltrating people’s minds and stealing thoughts which aren’t otherwise accessible. And Cobb is as good an expert as any you will find. Real challenge comes, of course, when he’s asked to do exactly the opposite of what the nature of his job deals with; when he’s summoned by Japanese businessman Saito (played by Ken Watanabe) and given the task of a lifetime – to plant an idea instead of stealing one. It’s a job that Cobb connects to on an emotional front too, as it would guarantee him access to return to his home in America and see his kids once more, besides the dropping of all pending charges against him in the case of his wife’s death. Braving all initial misgivings, Cobb signs up for the job, inducting into his coterie Arthur (his long time associate, played by Joseph Gordon Levitt), Eames (the forger within the dreams, played by Tom Hardy), Yusuf (the Chemist with an anesthesia for all situations, played by Dileep Rao) and prodigiously gifted young architect Ariadne (played by the gorgeous Ellen Page. Am I the only one musing over a similar Greek inspiration for the name?) Together, the team sets out to implant the required idea into the mind of their subject, billionaire businessman Robert Fischer – an idea that would bring about a paradigm shift in his business empire. It is a process that involves intricate psychological insight, pinpoint precision and an unparalleled outlook toward the convoluted nature and machinations of the human mind. Besides of course, the prospect of keeping away with rifles and automatics the antibody-equivalent security personnel of Fischer in his dream state. By the sheer nature of its plot, Inception makes itself impervious to spoilers. Knowing the ending is not all. It is unlikely that the ‘ending’ as such will bewilder you either. But it is the process of getting there that counts; that mesmerizes.

Let me bust a few myths about the film that are going around the web as swiftly as the countless encomiums. This Plot Is Not Rocket Science. Contrary to what you may have read about this film, the plot does not require your IQ card to read 180 to decipher the tale. Nolan assumes his viewers’ intelligence, and makes a very good film with that assumption. The tale ain’t undecipherable balderdash, it’s an ingeniously crafted masterpiece. And if initial box office readings are anything to go by, cine-goers across the world are at much ease with the assumption. The very fact that it’s managed, in India, to beat the moolah of the 3 Bollywood films that rolled out this week, is by itself an emphatic indicator of the response this film has unanimously generated. A lesson there for every Bollywood film maker : You don’t necessarily have to be mainstream to score big with the Indian audience.

Technically, Inception is a marvel. The screenplay oozes sheer aesthetic delectability, never for once getting superfluous or garish. Take for instance that breathtaking dream sequence where Paris folds on itself like paper, or those breathless rainy car-chases in the heart of their dream-envisioned-city, or even the incredibly snowy battlefields of the place where Fischer’s secret lies. Spellbinding. The screenplay is inventive, original, admirably imaginative and succinct, not for once betraying its promise of a roller coaster ride. Even at an unusual length of two-and-a-half-hours, the film maintains its pace and stays hooked to your mind. Hans Zimmer delivers an edgy background score yet again, though I did get the feeling it dominated the dialogues to a fair extent in a few crucial sequences. There ain’t much reliance on the cast in a plotline like this one, but Nolan’s ensemble put in a fairly good act, Ken Watanabe and Joseph Gordon Levitt leaving lasting impressions. As the perennially dazed, super-erudite protagonist, DiCaprio is top notch. It’s more or less a given now that DiCaprio simply cannot falter. Like in Shutter Island, he faces the deterrent of haunting memories and dreams of his late wife (played by Marion Cotillard, who I think by sheer virtue of her preternatural exquisiteness, should not be allowed to appear before camera) here too. DiCaprio does very well, infusing every frame with the desperate emotion that is required of the character. But the real hero of Inception is Christopher Nolan, the fugleman behind the marvel. 10 years in the making and an exceptional result on screen, this film is entirely Nolan’s genius in sparkling form. For Nolan, indeed, the mind is omnipotent.

The reason Inception works is primarily because of the success it achieves in not getting carried away by the technological repertoire it so abundantly possesses up its sleeve. Inception chooses not to awe, but to connect. And therein lies its greatest strength. At the core of the film’s plot is an emotional cornerstone that makes it more of a plausible endeavour than sheer hardcore abstract logistics. Unlike many other sci-fi films in the past which invariably lose their way and objective amid logistical detailing, Inception instead awes you with its ability to connect on an emotional front, despite its multi-layered script.

So here we finally have a film that strikes more than a cord with the average wolf-whistling, hooting, pop-corn-fun crazy cine-goer, gets usually stoic lips of staid critics to curl in palpable wonder, and set box office collections reeling under the reverberation of unprecedented utopia.  That’s what you’d call, a blockbuster.   

Rating : ***** (One Of A Kind)