Inception

Sigmund Freud, that veritable master of the mind and erstwhile liaison betwixt the dream world and our own (is there really such a hard distinction between the two?), said, “Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.” In a world where dreams are entered into volitionally, like remarkable virtual reality chambers, anything is possible, including theft, and its opposite, what the film calls Inception, a beginning and an end in which both are simultaneously evident and obscured.

Cobb (Leo) is a master of this soi-disant “inception”, a criminal of sorts, on the run from authorities and, in more ways than one, from himself, from his past, from the memories that haunt his waking and dreaming life, an admixture he can’t seem to separate clearly, as if his internal centrifuge has gone horribly wrong.

Along with his cast of oneiric bandits, played by a cast of top-notch actors, some familiar faces (Caine, Murphy, and Watanabe) and others new to the Nolan regime (Gordon-Levitt, Page, and Cotillard), Cobb seeks to infiltrate people’s minds through their dreams, colluding in and amongst their projected lives.

As we have to come expect, Leo is fantastic. His ability to draw on the melodramatic styles of his directors, to inhabit the characters he plays, and to simply speak the truth of the scene, is captivating, if not intoxicating. Christopher Nolan, the director, has surrounded Leo with a cast that both highlights the film and punctuates its very calculated movements with panache and a sense of jeu d’esprit, which is only one side to Nolan’s coin, with a backside as insidious as it is immaculately acerbic.

Dreams have a life of their own, the film seems to tell us, while reminding us that we are the authors of those selfsame dreamings: the creator and the created, enfolding on itself in an open and mysterious loop. That is the meaning of inception, after all – both a beginning and an end, at times one and the same, of a thought or feeling or desire whose provenance is lost in the labyrinthine hedges of our minds.

The film instills a sense of wonder at the world of dreams, of our dreams and the dreams of others, of another world in and of itself, a created cosmos, in which the rules may have changed, and in which the playful musings of the spirit are made manifest alongside the penumbral magic of the other side of our lunar souls. In a word: Art. All art is essentially volitional dreaming of sorts, entering into another place and time, created either by ourselves or by others, sometimes simultaneously.

Art, like dreaming, may seem, at times, to lack meaning, to be obfuscated by a misleading artist or, simply, by postmodernism, an absconding racket. Inception is neither. Inception is a work of art, discernible and impenetrable, a dream incarnate on the silver screen, and, though not quite perfect, still the best picture of the year thus far.

A quote comes to mind, something said by Luis Buñuel, another filmmaker, both enlightening and amusing, its truth apropos to Inception, and, indeed, to all art, and to all artists: “If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I’d like to spend them, I’d reply ‘Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other twenty-two in dreams.’” I think Nolan understands this as well as anyone. And I most certainly agree.

Rating: 4/4 Stars