Christopher Nolan's INCEPTION

[spagmasterswift]

I love these types of films

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and the question of how much of the story is a dream and the relationship between cinema and dream is an interesting one to ponder. I would imagine many film directors are trying to get their audience to have a moment of inspiration, a realisation that they came to seemingly without any prompting. For me the meat of the film is the main characters journey into his subconscious to make the decision to let go of the guilt he feels about his wife’s death and to be able to again look his children in the eye. Her father aids him by providing him with one of his pupils as a guide to get this done. The inception seems to be actually on him. The rest of the films crazy plot is the misdirection, wonderfully handled with the three different timings and settings of the dreams. While he is busy trying to carry out what he perceives to be his mission, the actually reason for it all is slowly unfolding.

At least that’s how I read it. The idea that

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its not only unhealthy to obsessively hold onto the memories of a lost loved one, but its also doing them a disservice (as your subconscious can never imagine the complexities of another human being fully to do them justice) - you are holding onto a fantasy and to realise this is a step to moving on with your life. I’d say that was Nolan’s inception he was pulling on his audience

.

[dazzling_bubble]

"The film is about your own interpretation. How is a simple "I think it's alll a dream" over analysing? Particularly baffling when you then start pointing out possible continuity errors. "


My continuity errors have nothing to do with whether the film was a dream or not! I'm sure he didn't dream a crew members hand on show?!

I agree with above, there doesn't have to be an answer. I'm not right and your not wrong its subjective.

Like I said I've only seen it once, I get your point. I was giving mine. End of.

[Matt]

Sorry mate, but you say I'm over analysing when I simply say "I think it's a dream" and then proceed to pick out (ie over analyse) little continuity errors. I guess irony isn't your strong point.

[rmoxon]

On the subject of the ending I actualy read lots of posts all over the internet after I saw the film and at the time there seemed to be more reasons floating about why it cant possibley be a dream than reasons it was one.

I still maintain we arent suppose to know though, to me if the film makers wanted us to work out that it was all a dream they would have explained everything in the film, you cant state "its all a dream" and then not give exact details why. Where as if you simply leave it open ended it actualy gives you that ambiguity but it also makes the viewer focus more on the human elements of the film (which i personaly feel its really about) and I think that works alot better for this kind of story.

[bash]

Its just like Total Recall in that sense, just left to the audience to decide. Thats how I prefer it too, love the mystery of it all rather than any absoluteness.

[spagmasterswift]

But Total Recall was

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all part of his adventure holiday...

the images he is shown before he gets strapped into the machine

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all happen later on in the film...

[Baseley09]

IMO it's not a dream at all and the spinning top end piece was just tacked on as a joke.

Don't start on Total Recall please, despite being one of my favorite movies ans watching it a few times every year since release, i'm none the wiser

[rmoxon]

Eh? how can people not understand Total Recall?, the film explains everything, nothing is left in the air.

[dazzling_bubble]

Sorry mate, but you say I'm over analysing when I simply say "I think it's a dream" and then proceed to pick out (ie over analyse) little continuity errors. I guess irony isn't your strong point.

No I'm sorry mate as you don't seem to understand the difference between pointing out continuity errors within the films production and 'analysing' the films story.

You can't over analyse production mistakes as they are fact and are there, I never said this film is "crap" because of the errors I just stated they were there.

I agree with the above as you can't say the film is all in his mind without complete evidence or proof, my continuity errors on the other hand had evidence to back them up.

Therefore when I said I had an opinion and you had an opinion thats all they were, opinions...........Surely the point of being on a 'forum' is to discuss everyones point of view and do with them as you wish. Not criticise. But again, this is my opinion.

[Neon Ignition]

As a semi-related tangent. They're about to start making the remake of Total Recall for a rumoured $200m starring Colin Farrell. I can't even fathom the mistake the studio's making.

[spagmasterswift]

Hmmmm....

[Lyris]

Watched it a few nights ago.

It was a very interesting experience and it reminds me just exactly why I feel the way I do about Chris Nolan's movies. It is exasperating because he is clearly a talented guy.

The only way I can explain it is using terms which are close to me.

When you encode MPEG video, there is an option called the LowPass Filter which removes fine details from the video. It sucks the joy out and means that the tiny sharp details and the middle, thicker details start to look the same as each other. In short, there is lessened range between the dull parts and the exciting parts.

Whenever I watch a Chris Nolan movie, I feel that the storyline has been low pass filtered. That's the only way I can explain it. There are just no peaks, nothing dazzling. Everything has a glass ceiling over it. But, and this is the exasperating part: you can still tell the bits that WOULD have been great if the film hadn't been handled by someone so dull. You're left thinking "Why don't I care about this?" The spinning top, the dreams within dreams, the knock-on gravity effect - this is great stuff - but the film just can't sustain its length so by the time the best plot points come, I just didn't care - and I was frustrated, because I knew that I almost had!

It's the best of his films I've seen yet, leaps ahead of Dark Knight, but with the same flaws. But ultimately the entire thing was as dull as his lead characters' suits and ties.

[Decider-VT]

I can't quite figure out whether or not Nolan can't handle characterisation well or if his films are just horribly miscast (Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ellen Page). It feels like all of the parts are in the right place for interesting character arcs but I just end up not caring about them whatsoever. (I still love Hugh Jackman in The Prestige, though.)

[rmoxon]

I persionaly think Nolan is great with character development and generaly casts his films perfectly

Ok Katie Holmes wasnt great in Begins but he rectified that and Maggie Gyllenhaal was good.

Bale is a perfect Batman and if you say the characterisation in those films is bad then you dont know anything about the Batman Character Id say.

Inception is another perfectly cast Film, even though its really a one man show from a scripting standpoint I think all the cast are charismatic enough to hold the screen themselfs and make whatever scraps they are generally feeding off their own.

I generaly dont like Ellen Page much but I think shes been in movies with horrible scripts in the past (For example I feel Juno has an absolubtley awful script and is one of the mnost overrated films thats been made in the last decade). While her performance is still nothing special she was good in this film though and I think alot of that has to do with Nolan using her right.

For me hes one of the top directors around in every respect, one way he is different to most mainstream directors though is that his films are never manipulative which means that people who are more use to the typical hollywood method of force feeding us emotional sequences may misunderstand some scenes in his films as cold.

[Lyris]

I don't think there was any problem with casting. I think I would have become bored more quickly if it hadn't been for Leonardo Dicaprio's on screen charisma.

It wouldn't really make a difference who most of the other male leads were though, they all end up looking the same. I don't understand his obsession of dressing all of the characters like bankers/businessmen.