Inception
Dreams within a dream.
Reality with dreams.
Dreams without reality.
Inception – the movie my good friend has been talking about it since the beginning of the year.
Really, so what is so extraordinary and special about this movie?
Inception is definitely one mind-blowing masterpiece movie. It is a thriller action cum fantasy cum science fiction and a tragic love story all weaved and blended into an amazing movie that will take your breath away.
I have always been amazed by the movie Batman: The Dark Knight (other Batman movies can’t be compared to this epic Batman movie) by director Christopher Nolan, and although I have never watch his previous works, I somehow knew this would be a great movie, but never thought it would have exceeded 10 times my expectations.
The plot revolves around Dom Cobb (played by the brilliant Leonardo Dicaprio), an “extractor” who enters the dreams of others to steal valuable information that is inaccessible in the waking state. A new client, Saito (Ken Watanabe) which he was supposed to steal from, makes a deal with him, and wants him to plant an idea into the subconscious mind/dream of a rich businessman’s son – a process called “inception” which is difficult and complicated.
Cobb then assembles a team comprising of the Point Man – Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the Architect – Ariadne (Ellen Page), the Forger – Eames (Tom Hardy), the Chemist – Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and the Tourist – Saito. And their target or The Mark is Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy).
Now, the planning begins as they need to study the target’s waking life, gather every bit of information about him in order to maneuver their way into the subconscious mind – creating a place, a memory and people – for the ultimate plan. Not only creating just one dream, but 3 dreams! YES, 3 layer of dreams! Dreams within a dream, tunneling deeper and deeper into the person’s mind.
When they successfully infiltrated Fischer’s mind/dreams – that is where all the excitement starts. Throughout the whole movie, you just can’t afford to let your mind wander away because it just brings you deeper and deeper until you’re not sure what is what anymore. Or put simply, you just do not want to miss out all the action. You would be definitely sitting at the edge of your sit, watching intensely as the twisted plots and dreams unfold and all you could feel is how brilliant this movie is. This is a movie that requires you to open your mind and think out of the box, being creative and imaginative.
the totem that every dream extractor carries. it would spin indefinitely in a dream. every person carries a different one.
The concept of Inception is regarding our subconscious mind or the unconscious mind. It suggests that everything that defines us like ideas, memories, secrets, originate in the murky depths of our minds. Anything is possible in a dream. We are more real, and exposed in our dreams – therefore we are more prone to exposing our secrets in dreams. You can create or recreate any place/building/person/situation any way you want to – you can even defy gravity. Like a dream, nothing is real here, and everything can change in a blink of an eye. You can be in a dream forever – till you become old in the dream (called the limbo state) – like how the character Cobb and his wife, Mal experienced it, escaping reality and living in a world they created.
But is this really enough? Living in a dream and not facing up to reality?
The film is complicated to explain in words but it would be clear if you watch the movie, unless you have a slow mind.
So, what wakes you up from a dream? It is called a “kick”. Free falling or just falling would wake you up from a dream, isn’t that how you wake up from a dream sometimes? Dying in a dream would wake you up as well, but the pain would be as real as reality. And can you remember the beginning of your dream? No, I don’t think so.
The movie ends with a question mark. It leaves the choice to the audience – is it a dream or is it reality?
The cast should be applauded for their very fine and superb performances. Leonardo Dicaprio is outstanding as the troubled Cobb, a man haunted by his past who cannot let go of his dead wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). Ken Watanabe as Saito is simply great, though I have never watched his films before, but he shared good chemistry with the casts. I have always been a fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page, and was quite thrilled to see them in a major mainstream movie (they are always off doing indie movies)! And they definitely did a great job! Marion Cotillard as the haunting Mal, her acting chops was very good and convincing and I was quite afraid of her character. Cillian Murphy, whom I remembered from the thriller Red Eye together with Rachel McAdams, his baby blue cold-staring eyes, also brought depth to his otherwise typical character.
And how can I forget the awesome director Christopher Nolan for his awesome writing and directing. The cinematography and editing were all brilliantly and beautifully done. It would be an amazing breakthrough for mankind if we can ever infiltrate into other people’s dreams. But at the same time, it is a dangerous thing after all.
I have read that the dream sequences in the film uses minimal CGI effect (it was mainly used to polish and enhance the effects during post production), and all the places seen in the movie were shot in real places, it includes the snow falling area. Even the defying gravity, zero gravity hallway fight by Joseph Gordon-Levitt was real, a rotating hallway was specifically built for that scene (which I love), no blue/green screen whatsoever. All the dream sequences were really an eye-popper, everything just felt so surreal.
Inception – the movie that MUST NOT be missed this year!
Go watch it PRONTO!
So, do you want to dream forever or be in reality?
(:
She starts with, "Does this count as annoying?" and she adorably slaps her face "tok tok tok tok tok tok" with her cheeks bouncing up and down, and Gru says, "Very annoying."
She adores Unicorns. So she says "It's so fluffy, i'm gonna die!" and when she gets the Unicorn, she says in a little more aggressive tone, "It's so fluffly!", as she shakes the Unicorn.
