Inception (2010)

Yeah! I have finally come back. I bumped into a very ingenious interpretation of the movie Inception from Devin Faraci, obviously an experienced moviegoer. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by the latest effort of Chris Nolan when I left the cinema. Yes, once in a blue moon, given that I could hardly spent over a hundred dollars in the cinema in one year, including a coke most of the time. Well, you know how I gather my knowledge in films. A poor man's excuse, okay!

So, what's the glitch? Batman's movie is supposed to be an action movie, and when a bit of character development and struggle of moral is blended in smoothly, it is spectacular. While I see Inception as a movie about a concept, too much action will likely, if not definitely, spoil it spectacularly. A rather harassing thing is the almost mechanical way to bring out the function of the dream-sharing technology (except the beginning ten minutes), while at the same time, a very confusing way and up to the point of complete negligence of the duty to answer "how does it actually work". The plot is amazingly complicated, and keeps begging me to find the loopholes. Of course, I lost my way. I thought maybe I should watch it again, or maybe my taste has gone bad. After all, I think a movie about a concept should be made in a simpler way.

To my own shame, it is, in fact, a simple and elegant movie. So, according to Devin, the whole movie is actually Cobb's dream, and the concept it is trying to present is about film-making. Let me give an example. Mr Nolan had made a movie, and invited the (targeted) audience to his movie. We went through the movie as if we were on a journey to the top of a hill where a mighty castle stood. He put many things en route. For examples, sophisticated stuffs like dream and relative time, spectacular visuals like folding of the city, thrilling moment during the car chase, and an after-class open question, "Do you think he is still dreaming?". Wow! Amazing! A very large group of audience was equally mesmerized. (I even had to sit through my friend's talking of how to control dream. Well, I enjoyed it, because at that time, I was really in need of someone to drag me out of confusion.)

Then comes the second group of audience (or perhaps just myself) who thinks, "C'mon, just save the bullets." or "You could have rolled more film on Leonardo or Marion. I think both of them are very good actors." But that's not the end. There's this elite group of Jedi, at the third level, who noticed a twig in the middle of the road, a bird of certain species on that particularly short tree. Then they smiled because, bingo, they have solved the puzzle. Does the whole thing sound familiar? Yes. Cobb is the director in the movie, and the rest you can read from Devin's essay (click on my title 'Inception').

Well, I don't think Mr Nolan would admit it (just like in the interview about Memento's ending), but this theory comforted me. It explains why the details of many parts (especially the technology) were carelessly omitted in the movie. On one hand, dream lacks details and it was Cobb's dream. On the other hand, that's not the focus; the idea that he wanted to plant into our head is about film-making. All the complexity in the plot are just parameters of the equation, while only the form of the equation is important. (Of course, on presentation, we have to write the full equation.) The way he tried might risk dislike from some film critics, but I see it has already garnered enough fans on IMDB. See, my taste is really out-dated. As Mr Nolan has created a masterpiece on film-making, why not make myself a dream to write about research in science one day. Hehe^^, 发梦还早呢。