Inception

Inception (Christopher Nolan, USA/UK, 2010)

Inception, simply as its idea, is what dreams are made of. Nolan's undeniably masterful mind triumphs once again and reaches the high expectations and even beyond. It's his most complicated and arguably best work to date. Maybe many people would find this dream theme very uninteresting, but looking back at the film history, many brilliant classics are all tightly related to dreams.

Cobb is a brilliant criminal in dreams. But in his subconscious, there's always a woman who is his biggest weakness that gets in his tasks. Even his closest partner Arthur doesn't know this secret which no one knows. Until one day, this huge client Saito came to them and offered him a reward beyond any price, he finally had to face his deepest fear in his subconscious gradually. Ariadne, a genius dream architect, is the one who turned on this turning point. But Cobb has to complete an extremely difficult mission. This time it's not extortion. It's inception.

During seeing the film, many films which might inspired it or similar to it popped up in my mind. Talking about dreams, David Lynch is best known for being the master of the territory, I believe anyone who has seen "Mulholland Drive" may find the dream sequence in the first half is simply unforgettable. Alejandro Amenábar's "Open Your Eyes" has the same idea. Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" has got the same excitement of entering and taking over someone else's mind. The plot of peeping into the private world of a tycoon seems to be a homage to Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane." But what didn't occur to me was the unknown woman who made the leading role fall for in Hitchcock's "Vertigo." There're also parts with strong Hitchcock atmosphere in the yet another great score Hans Zimmer handed out. Instead, the Wachowski Brothers's (or should be called brother and sister now) "The Matrix" which may remind many people of only has a similar style on the surface.

The unstable and haunting essence of memories has shown in Nolan's "Memento," "Insomnia," "Batman Begins," and "The Prestige." This time he took a further step and made his character confront the memories he can't face but can neither get rid of through the plot setting. This is what makes the film so haunting and has a heart that touches the audience besides of being a well-deserved entertaining summer blockbuster. This has always been Nolan's advantage and gift as both a British and an American.

In fact, there are three actors who were not Nolan's first candidates. Arthur, who was played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, favored James Franco. Ariadne, who was played by Ellen Page, favored Evan Rachel Wood. And Mal, who was played by Marion Cotillard, had Aishwarya Rai in Nolan's mind. But this final ensemble is even more outshining, especially the unstoppably brilliant Cotillard who wasn't limited by the limited role at all.

Just like the fairy tales we knew in childhood such as "Rip van Winkle," "Urashima Tarō," and the unmissable "Alice in Wonderland," Nolan continued our longings for dream that have never stopped. The tangled mystery of truth and fiction, its reflection of the reality, and its magic of curing minds. This was why the maestros, such as Fellini, Antonioni, Buñuel and Resnais etc., always had favored it. Nolan inherited the will of these great filmmakers and took dreams to another different level through films.