Inception:- Reality As Perception

The idea of dreams and reality have been amply explored by cinema over the years. Although Hollywood with its formulaic approach could not venture into something that could possibly test the audience's intelligence and will not guarantee immidiate returns, but European cinema has since ever been enamoured by the idea of reality. With Last year At Marienabad (Alan Resnais) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=019kmMFpCcI in 1961, the director pushed the ante leaving the question of dream or reality upto the intellect of its viewers by creating a byzantine conduit or a maze like narrative strucure and throwing away the keys. Probing into the ennui in swinging sixties of Londin, Antonioni's "Blow Up" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xz1utzILj4 takes us through a "used up" photographer's perception of reality. Through the 60s and the 70s there have been movies that have constantly probed in this area.

With the mega hyped release of "Inception" this year, Christopher Nolan goes down this route within the confines of the hollywood studio system and the not so flexible large chunk of the audience. I chose to write this some time after the initial release of the film to sight some perspetive on the "actual" achievements of the film. Did this film push the medium as touted by Warner Bros? High expectations wouldn't you say? with the studio trying to compare Nolan to the master Stanley Kubrick as his second coming. Well, this is no 2001 a space odyssey. It is fair to call it a heist sci fi genre film. Now, I wouldn't go into the plot or its meaning and try to fit every piece of the puzzle here. I think tha has been more or less done by innumerable takes on the film post its release.

I am addressing a bigger question here. What does Inception mean for cinema? I doubt it will change much. Lot has been made about Nolan's respect for audience's ability to grasp narrative which does not have a linear convention. I think it is a fair point except that I don't believe Nolan went far enough with his vision to a point where a the line between reality and illusion would become non existent. It would have been challenging for the audience certainly but also for the studios who have 160 million $ riding on it. Nolan has also explored and pulled off convincingly the experiments with the structure of his narrative and how the order of sequences can be altered to heighten the impact and keep the audiences on the edge of their seat coming again for more. With Memento ( his most famous work ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vS0E9bBSL0 which was a masterpiece of non linear structure, it was clear that we have a unique talent . Insomnia was probably his most straight forward work so far still capturing the obsession and suspense of the original. Batman Begins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eILWtra6AcU and The Dark Knight were the first films about superheroes and "Superhero" films, not reducing the ideas of good and evil to baseline carricatures and dissecting the mythology of the comic book characters to make it relevant within our context. With Prestige, he again comes back to the illusion that the two rival magicians create for the audiences ultimately succumbing to the obsessions of their own trickery. This is a formidable talent.

Nolan's talent as a story teller is unquestionable, but over the course of the decade one can notice a clear pattern to his narrative either trying to be non linear or interspersing simeltaneous events as they takes place in different sub plots of his film. This may not be a criticism but to be among some of the all time greats as WB makes it a point to remind us in the promotion, I would hope to see him push the ante both in terms of content and structure. I think all of us have accepted his command over his narrative but there can be a tendency to lose the characters in this obsession over the structure. Nolan also is not be edgy enough in the films he has made so far. One hopes that he does not get trapped in the comfort zone of the studios or his rabid fanboys and keeps exploring himself as a filmmaker. One would like to see Chris Nolan introducing some wit and humour in his films. The biggest criticism I have of him is his inability to shoot action. For a director of such great abilities, his action sequences leave a lot to be desired with the shaky cam and high octane editing which as a norm is being passed off as "apparent" action, it is mediocre by his standards.

Here is hoping from this master storyteller that he keeps pushing the ante for cinema in the years to come. One of the few rays of hope in today's hollywood.