Inception -- 'Holy cock'

I was the first one in the cinema to say 'awwww' when the end credits of Inception began to roll -- not because I was sad that it ended, no, but because the ending made so much brilliant sense. I saw it coming, just a few seconds before the screen blacked out, and I was all like 'awwww now that was some clever shit right thar.'

Inception is a heist movie about dreams. Dom Cobb (none other than Leo Dicaprio) is an Extractor -- originally working in security of the mind, he specialises in stealing ideas from people's minds through their subconscious. Cobb is a fugitive from the United States; he is forced to work overseas, away from his children. However, Cobb finds himself employed by a billionaire businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe), who offers him a job in exchange for a clean record, which can apparently be made with one phone call. But the job has a twist: Instead of extracting an idea from a subject's mind, he must instead implant one, through a very difficult, complex process called inception. Cobb assembles a team Ocean's-Eleven-style, including Arthur, his long time associate and Point Man (the subject researcher, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt); Ariadne, a college graduate and Architect (the dream-builder, the lovely Ellen Page); Eames, a snide British stalwart and Forger (essentially an in-dream shapeshifter, played by Tom Hardy), and Yusuf, an atypical Indian scientist and Chemist (he devises the formula necessary to descend into the dream state; played by Dileep Rao). However, the job is blown some setbacks due to an interesting mystery involving Cobb and his dead wife, who makes some eerie appearances to drive the plot.

Inception is some crazy ass shit. Because he's exploring a concept which I have a hunch most of us have never really thought about too deeply before, Christopher Nolan has to set down some ground rules. Remember this is the guy that made The Dark Knight, so note that he knows what he's doing. I'll sum up the rudimentary dream rules for you in a nutshell:

You die in a dream, you wake up for real. However, you can still feel regular pain which doesn't kill you. You can have dreams within dreams. In this case, if you die in a dream, you will ascend to the earlier, shallower level of dream. E.g. if I go to sleep and I dream I'm in a pyramid, and then I go to sleep in my pyramid dream and wake up in the Himalayas, if I die in the Himalayas dream I will go back to the pyramid. Dying in the pyramid will wake me up. Thirdly, you can also ascend dreams/wake up by delivering a "kick." The kick is essentially that falling feeling you get (it's called a hypnic jerk -- this is the bit I'm a bit sketchy about, as this does not actually happen in dreams, but only during hypnogogic state: the period between wake and NREM sleep. NREM is where you DON'T dream). Lastly, time bears a different appearance in each level. In the first level of dream, five minutes of real time represents an hour in the dream. In turn, a few seconds in dream time can mean a couple of hours in the second dream. And so on.

So basically, Nolan's concept of the dream is astounding. He nails the non-linearity of the dream world, and the way he's put together this film is amazing. It took him ten years to write this script. Guy's done some serious work. There are fantastic action sequences, the cast is stellar (despite DiCaprio incorporating a little too much of his character from Shutter Island within the role of Cobb), and the story pulses with an unpretentious dazzle which few would expect from a movie with such hype. Nolan manages to make us care about the characters, and that is the key to a good action sequence -- to have the audience caring what happens. Cobb's relationship with the projection of his deceased wife within his subconscious is also captivating; the tense love between the two is especially enthralling when one considers the indistinct hate that stems from their affection. 

But it's difficult to surpass the excellency with which Inception conveys its events. It's not so much the story itself, which is actually not that complicated once you put your brain through a few paces, but just the way it's told. Nolan's vision of a dream makes wonderful sense (however, please do not believe it to be true. Nolan may yet achieve his secret goal of incepting all of us by convincing us that we live in a dream and must kill ourselves to awaken). I love how the different time durations are always acknowledged and synchronised so that events make chronological sense. Also, the special effects are amazing. Here's a kicker: The state of the level above a dream tier affects how that tier behaves. For example, if one is thrown into a bath in reality, his dream will overflow with water and he will wake. If someone is given a "kick" during one dream state, they will awaken into that state from the one below. If that makes sense. Blah. Watch the movie and it makes perfect sense. 

Anyway, back to the point. Part of the movie involves all the crew in free fall in a van in dream state A. However, only one of them is presently awake in state A. The rest are in states below. Only Joseph Gordon-Levitt is awake in state B; the others are all in states below. In free fall, one is essentially in a vacuum. So Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in a vacuum. But before that, the van in state A is rolling around and shit. So Gordon-Levitt is having these fights in a room where gravity is constantly changing. They did not use CGI to do that. They used a fucking rolling room. 

Anyway, the twist comes right at the end. The thing is, you don't even know if it's a twist. Nolan has his last laugh, leaving the film as open to interpretation as poetry. It's a daring finale for a daring movie. You know what's the strangest part though? With all its complexities and multifaceted vibrance, Inception at its core ultimately delivers a very simple moral, one which I can quote right out of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: 'It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.' 

Inception is a film that will have you rolling your head around. Why? Because the film's events are so open to one's interpretation. The most fantastic thing is, that either way one chooses to analyse them, the elements make sense. It's like a multipurpose jigsaw puzzle. It's brilliant. If Inception has you mindboggled, don't worry, you aren't stupid -- it's driven us all mad. In a good way, of course. The truth kind of is... if you don't walk out of that cinema slightly perplexed, then you probably didn't watch the movie right. 

Here's a tip: When you walk into this movie, pay attention. You will need it. Nolan explores a realm that we are seldom aware enough to explore ourselves, and delivers his own interpretation of it for which you yourself must understand the ground rules in order to take part in this fantastic narrative. The film is trippy, intelligent, and in context of the plot, glowingly astute. Prepare to be mindblown. 

5/5. Do not miss it.