Inception (2010)

Poster Source: joblo.com

Directed by	Christopher Nolan
Starring	Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine
Music by	Hans Zimmer

Short Story:
Christopher Nolan’s Inception is one of those riveting, baffling, breathtaking intellectual mind games that leave the audience in awe and not quite sure about what they’ve just witnessed. It really is hard to sum up the story in a few sentences, but I’ll give it a try anyway.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a highly skilled thief who has taken corporate espionage to an entirely new level. He connects with his marks in their dreams, when the victims are most vulnerable, and steals their secrets. This back and forth between dream and reality causes the death of his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard) and makes him a wanted fugitive, leaving his two children behind.

His chance at redemption comes in the form of Saito (Ken Watanabe), a Japanese billionaire who offers Cobb one last job: instead of stealing a secret from rival young billionaire Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), Cobb has to plant an idea in Fisher’s subconscious – hence the title, Inception. In return, Cobb would have his criminal record erased and he would be able to reunite with his children.

In order to achieve this seemingly impossible task, Cobb enlists the help of a highly specialised team: an Extractor (the person who manipulates the target into revealing his/her secrets), an Architect (the person who builds the reality-like dream in which the Mark - targeted person - and the Extractor meet), a Dreamer (the person whose mind actually hosts the dream) and a Forger (he can not only forge someone’s signature, but in that dream world created by the Architect, the Forger can take up someone else’s appearance, too). Saito joins them in order to make sure that Cobb actually accomplishes his task.

The actual inception involves the characters entering various levels of (sub)consciousness in their dreams, each one deeper than the other. The last level, the Limbo is basically a raw subconscious state from which is almost impossible to return. An interesting characteristic of these dream levels is the passing of time: the deeper the level, the faster the time passes. A few minutes in real time can translate into months, years or even decades in dream time. The movie starts with Cobb and Saito meeting in Limbo: Saito is an old man living in a beautiful Japanese palace on the beach, Cobb is washed ashore with only a gun and a spinning top (the one thing that connects him to reality) on him. Cobb manages to persuade Saito that they are in a shared dream, reminds him of their agreement, they wake up (or so we are made to believe) and they both get their “happy ending”. There is a catch, however: the only way for Cobb to tell if he is dreaming or not is with this spinning top. In a dream world, it spins indefinitely, whereas in reality if will obviously stop after a while. In the last scene of the movie Cobb spins the top, but walks out of the room just when it was about to fall over and goes to be with his children. It seems that whatever the result, Cobb has accepted the current state as his “preferred reality” and stops questioning it.

The audience, however, is left wondering: does Cobb really get a happy ending or is he still locked up in Limbo?

Verdict:
This movie is certainly not for the faint hearted. It challenges you on an intellectual level and at the same time, it dazzles your senses with spectacular visuals. A must see, but observe the PG-13 rating. It really isn’t suitable for impressionable young children. One last thought: we are always told to "dream big", "follow our dreams", etc. and yes, we certainly need to do just that, but every once in a while we also need to stop dreaming, wake up and enjoy our reality.

Favourite quotes:

Saito "Do you want to take a leap of faith or become an old man filled with regret waiting to die alone!"

Cobb: “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there, somewhere.”

Cobb: “When we wound up on the beach of our own subconscious, we lost sight of what was real.“

Robert Fischer Jr.: "I know, Dad. I know you were disappointed I couldn't be you.”
Maurice Fischer "No, no, no... I was disappointed... that you tried."