Inception Through My Eyes

They say, in India, when you start something new, always start with the name of God. God isn't exactly an entity I believe in much. I pray sometimes, but to no effect. And He, if He exists that is, is as ignorant towards me. So who is it, whose merit deserves a mention in my first blog post.  Baba Ramdev? Well tried Babaji, but I guess the newspapers have written enough about you, your current affairs and your tryst with black money. Then who? Nadal? So what if he won again. Nothing new in that. And as an Indian Citizen I know writing about cricket does not matter because every reader is a fan, a historian, a commentator, a coach- an Indian in short. So lets move to my favourite topic then - FILMS.

Now here I guess I have too many options. Hollywood or Bollywood (Oops! Sorry Mr. Bachchan, Hindi Film Industry I should say). Actor or director. Wait! Yes! Director... Let me see... James Camaron? What's he done in the recent past? Avatar! Yes, but I haven't watched it yet. What do I write! Anurag Kashyap? Or rather I should wait for Shaitaan's reviews first. Ridley Scott? Yes I did watch Body of Lies a few days ago. Or how about Nolan? Yeah. He is the one. Its almost an year since I watched Inception. Though a review at this point in time seems absurd. But none-the-less, someone said, 'Better late than Never.' Okay. Let me call it a tribute then to Inception. Here is Inception, through my eyes.

Christopher Nolan this time comes forth with a visual extravaganza that is set to scintillate every nerve of your body and that leaves you demanding for more. Nolan rightly delivers what is expected of a director of his stature after the success of his previous films Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Memento (I'm purposely not mentioning Following, Insomnia or The Prestige due to they not being considered commercial films by many) . This time Nolan comes up with a film about Dreams (no not the big city dreams of a small city girl Yash Raj pot-boiler). Nor about people living their dreams but about people living in their dreams. Dreams as he calls it are ‘the most resilient parasite’ and Inception sucks the blood out of your face as it completely bowls you over in the first 5 minutes itself. As the movie begins with a dream within a dream, Inception demands the viewers’ attention right from the first minute of the film to its 149^th running minute. Shot in 6 different countries with a rumoured mega budget of over $200 million, Inception is worth every penny that one spends at the box office.



Inception is a sci-fi psychological-heist thriller which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, a man who can get into any person’s dreams and thus can steal any kind of personal or secret information from the man’s sub-conscience. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Arthur, Dom’s associate who is perfect in his job. The film begins with Saito (played by Ken Watanabe) taking an audition of Dom and Arthur and their crew. But it turns out that they fail as Dom’s dead wife Mal (played by Marrion Cottilard) keeps mysteriously appearing in his sub-conscience. Arthur and Dom leave Saito before he actually comes out of his dream. They are about to escape when Saito again meets them and offers them a job of not stealing someone’s ideas but to plant one. While Arthur insists that such a thing is not possible Dom agrees to the job in return of getting his hand cleared of all criminal charges that he faces in the US and which is why he cannot return to see his young kids.

Saito needs Dom to plant the idea in Robert Fischer Jr.(Cillian Murphy)’s head to breaking up his father’s business empire so that Saito can take over the entire energy business of the world. Now Dom needs a crew of an architect to design the world of their dreams, a thief who can frisk stuff as easily as he can take up some one’s identity and a chemist who can keep the shared dreamers sufficiently sedated till their job is done. Dom finds an architect in Adriane (Ellen Page) who is recommended by Dom’s father (played by Michael Caine), a forger Eames (Tom Hardy) and the chemist Yusuf (played by Dileep Rao). Now Dom and his crew along with Saito manage to get Fischer into slumber and pass into a triple levelled dream to plant the idea of breaking up his father’s empire. En route to their final destination they end up straightening the strained relationship between Fischer and his father and also bringing to light the motives of his Godfather and his father’s friend Peter Browning (Tom Berenger). Dom and his crew end up in a four levelled dream totally unplanned and thus Adriane also helps him solve the mystery of his dead wife’s presence in his sub-conscience. Dom and his crew are successful in their endeavour and Dom returns a free man; but Nolan leaves the story open ended, not showing whether the world that Dom returns to finally is the real world or that of a dream.

Leonardo DiCaprio steals the show all the way with an awe inspiring performance. Joseph Gordan-Levitt in the role of Arthur is brilliant and Cillian Murphy leaves a good impression. Nolan succeeds in deceiving the audience in a maze of dreams within dreams and hardly does one realise the need to munch pop corn or even flutter an eye lid. The only thing that seems odd is that all characters in the movie seem to be too easy about the concept of shared dreaming and understand the twisting chain of events with hardly any effort. The VFx used in the film are first rate especially the scene in which one half of the city of Paris closes like a lid on the other half. Joseph Gordon’s zero gravity sequence does raise an appreciating murmur amongst the crowd and after a long time we get to watch a film with pin drop silence in the crowd and claps after the end of the show. Not sure as to how many awards does Inception bag but it surely has won the hearts of millions across the globe and is set to do well in India too. With a strong script, impeccable execution and flawless cinematography, Inception is by far the most entertaining film of this year till now.

My rating 4/5 and a word of recommendation to watch the movie.

So here I am at the end of my first blog post. For those who read the whole of it, either I salute your patience, or your love for Inception. For those who slept half way, well I guess I was successful in atleast achieving that.  And for those who got bored just after the introduction and skipped to this paragraph straight away, it tells me how much you love me and it was very sweet of you just to open a link I shared. So I'll be back soon since I have nothing to do here at my training site. And I can't watch a movie in office as I forgot my headphones again at home.

Adios!

Yours Truly!