Inception

Posted by on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 6:51 pm.

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Last night, I dreamt that I went to see Inception, but I fell asleep in the cinema because it was utter gubbins. Before long, I was having a dream within a dream, where I went to the cinema to see Inception, but after an hour or so, I fell asleep because it was utter gubbins. At that point, I started to have a dream within a dream within a dream, where I went to see Inception, but after forty minutes or so, I fell asleep again because it was utter gubbins. At this point, three stages deep, I was too far under to even have the option of killing myself. Then Christopher Nolan turned up, on a horse.

Inception is a very silly film—not that you’d know from the serious way in which it carries itself. It’s yet another Christopher Nolan movie that has garnered rave reviews, and yes, it has its spectacular moments (even if, as I overheard one woman saying on the way out; “All the good bits were in the trailer.”). I’m actually completely unconvinced by Nolan’s stuff; his best film is easily The Dark Knight but, to be quite honest, that went on a bit. I also find his non-linear storytelling to be especially annoying, and fairly gratuitous. It’s like sentences in order constructing the wrong, can you because just, not reason good a have because to you.

Inception is fiendishly complicated, and you really have to concentrate quite hard if you’re going to follow it. This is as much as I bothered to understand: DiCaprio plays Cobb, who uses a funny little briefcase to infiltrate people’s dreams. Some Japanese bloke (Ken Watanabe) wants to get into Cillian Murphy’s head, to get him to convince his dad to sell a business. He’s got some colleagues who help him out and they all seem quite nice. Ellen Page is particularly good. Her lines include: “Whose subconscious are we going into exactly?”; “What is she talking about?” Good questions, Ellen, good questions.

In fact, for the entire duration (2 and a half hours!) all anyone talks about is dreams or DiCaprio’s dead wife (he also had a dead wife in Shutter Island, so it hasn’t been a good year to be betrothed to Leo). Apart from that, there’s zero character development, and the sole point of the script seems to be to provide context for some trippy, floaty fight/chase scenes, but by the time they rocked up, I was honestly past caring.

I like dreams. I had a dream the other day that I managed to convince a rat, after an hour of chatting to it, to leave my bedroom. I’ve had a dream before where I got up, went into the bathroom, had a shower, got dressed, had some breakfast, cleaned my teeth, went to the station, got on a train, got off the train, walked to work, got in the elevator, went up to my classroom, did my photocopying, wrote some words on the blackboard and waited for my students to turn up. Then I woke up, and had to do all of that again. There’s no room for Inception to recognise dreams’ daftness (“right, I had this dream right, and we were on a mountain, but then the mountain turned into a strawberry, and Princess Di was there”). It’s po-faced, convoluted and hyped beyond belief. Watch Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street instead; it’s a far more fun, and more involving.

Anyway. And then I woke up.

  • http://monkeyfallsofftower.blogspot.com filmnut99

    I spent the whole film waiting for Pete Postlethwaite, and then all he did is die.

  • http://www.kinolondon.com Jamie

    I haven’t seent Inception but I saw Shrek 3D and thought it was amazing. Then I read Peter Bradshaw and thought he was being unfair.

  • The Duke of Wessex

    The Dark Knight is rubbish.

    Wessex

  • The Duke of York

    Wessex,

    Fancy seeing you here. Carter didn’t much like the Dark Knight either, but she doesn’t seem to like anything much these days. A very, very difficult lady to impress, unless you get her good and drunk, as ever.

    York.

  • http://www.kinolondon.com Samuel

    I thought the hype that this film is complicated and hard to follow, that you have perpetuated here, is quite misleading.

    The film’s story is about as complicated, as, let’s say, Mission: Impossible. It is just a little bit more ambiguous.

    Some of the themes going on are a bit more complicated. The film was not about the power of dreams really at all except on a surface level, the film seemed to be going on and on about filmmaking and the power of cinema to me.

    I also can’t agree with referring to characters by the actor’s name.

  • andrew

    This is not for publication in The London Times, hence my facetious use of actors’ names (which reflected my lack of interest in the plot).

    As for adding to the hype; I don’t want the film to fail, so I’m quite happy to write about it, if only to offset all the positive write-ups. It is a bit rubbish though.

    Mission Impossible was also ridiculously complicated for what it was.
    As for inception, did you even care at all if diCaprio was really home at the end? Why?

  • http://www.kinolondon.com Samuel

    I didn’t mean the hype for people to see the film itself, I meant the hype that portraying it as entirely complicated. It is bothering me that so many articles on Guardian and various other places is going on about how complicated this film is, when it really isn’t. I don’t think you do have to concentrate that hard. And I’m getting fed up with how that is mentioned on every piece written about the film so I decided to let the frustration out here and on my Facebook status.

    It is quite easy to follow if you happy to abide to the rules the world of the film sets out for itself.

    I assumed that it wasn’t for publication in The London Times, mostly due to how little much of the piece is spent discussing the film itself.

    Couldn’t agree more that it is a bit rubbish. Great parts that just don’t add up to a great whole film.

    Okay, well it is about as complicated as, um, The Terminator.

  • andrew

    Explain then, in fewer than, say 75 words why we needed to go into the “third stage”.

    I can:

    “So, Nolan could put some snowy bits in it.”

    The plot only unravelled in the way it did for such reasons, and, therefore, it wasn’t worth bothering with. Or arguing about. But since we are…

    The argument about the Terminator is silly, and ever-so-slightly insulting.

    Here’s the plot of Terminator.

    A cyborg (Arnie), who represents “the Machines”, travels from the future to kill John Connor’s mother (Linda Hamilton) because in the future, Connor is leading a war against cyborgs on behalf of humans. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent to stop the cyborg (Arnie). After some chasing, Arnie gets crushed.

    I doubt a similar five line summary of Inception could be written, but there you go.

  • andrew

    3 line, sorry

  • http://www.kinolondon.com Samuel

    that description fails to explain why the machines and the humans are fighting, who sent arnie and who sent kyle, blah blah blah.

    Here is a similar simple description of Inception (spoiler alert)

    Cobbs is usually hired to steal ideas from other people’s dreams, this time he is hired to implant an idea that will dissolve a powerful energy company for the competitors. Cobbs tries his hardest but first must overcome how he betrayed his wife in a dream world before. Cobbs does and sees his children again as a result or does he?

    The fact that you suggested Nolan only had the 3rd level to have snowy bits seems to indicate that you didn’t think it was that complicated at all. If the film is so complicated why is that Nolan just wanted some snowy bits?

  • http://www.kinolondon.com Samuel

    also please note that I’m not arguing for the merits of the film, i dont think it was particularly great, it just wasnt that complicated

  • Samuel

    and since were getting into it

    in the terminator, why doesnt arnie just go back and kill baby sarah connor? it would be a hell of lot easier and even if kyle reese did still come back he couldnt teach sarah all that military shit she needs to pass onto John so he can become a fearless leader?

    um, because james cameron wanted adults to fight

    in the terminator, why cant clothes and um futuristic weapons?

    because cameron wanted arnie to strip off and get all naked

    and even if clothes can, they could still send back big fuck off guns since we know metal can go back, just wrap those guns in living flesh if you have to, why fuck does it have to be living flesh anyway?

  • Samuel

    the snow complex might have been included because, well, Ellen Page’s character needs to create new things, nothing from memory. Assumedly she had never been to a military complex in the snow.

  • andrew

    I can only assume that this is all a dream

  • Seth

    In reality Cobb had been at the pub and had a few too many beers, crackers and blue cheese. He had a bit of a vivid dream where he is some extractor. When in reality he’s a postal worker that just got off the late shift in the real world :-)

    SPOILER

    The film is complex because the audience is suppose to get lost in the layers of reality. This is because Leonardo himself is lost in the layers himself therefore placing the audience in the same state of false sense of reality just as Leo is. The whole film is set in a dream layer from the beginning. Mal (ex wife) is the only consistent character throughout the whole film and is the true inceptor as she is the one that keep coming in to all dream layers (therefore not a projection of the current dreamer) and trying to get Leo to kill himself (and wake up).

    The ending is pretty concrete that he is dreaming as the kids are wearing the exact same cloths in all the memories and don’t seem to age (when we quite clearly have been led to believe that time has passed in the ‘real’ world).

    Finally I believe Nolan uses the outrageous far fetched snow layer as an obvious dream layer to juxtapose the ‘real’ world which in itself is a dream layer. If you look at each layer the further down you go the more far fetched they got:

    1) The ‘real’ world (Where Leonardo is apparently awake and some super dooper extractor)
    2) Inception Layer #1 – With the bad guys shooting (ok looks a bit like a bad LA gang movie but not that crazy a scene).
    3) Inception Layer #2 – The Hotel (Some floaty weightlessness)
    4) Inception Layer #3 – Snow Layer (Far fetched location and strange safe like hospital ward)
    5) Pre Limbo World – Cobb/Mal created with floating houses and strange building and very far fetched scenery.

    Therefore making each layer above it relatively more realistic (as being the ‘real’ world.)

    And that’s why … In reality Cobb had been at the pub and had a few too many beers, crackers and blue cheese. He had a bit of a vivid dream where he is some extractor. When in reality he’s a postal worker that just got off the late shift in the real world :-)

  • http://www.kinolondon.com Andrew

    woah.

  • http://www.kinolondon.com Samuel

    Actually the kids are wearing different clothes the last time we see them, we are never told how long Cobb has been outside of the USA so it is hard to know how much older they should have aged, and we see their faces in the yard, something Cobb has no memory of.

    Mal, the ex-wife, is only able to show up in the dreams when in a location that Cobb can associate with his wife, or when Cobb knows the layout of the dream landscape and is able then to project and place Mal in that landscape.