I is for Inception

Inception matches The Empire Strikes Back on 8.8 stars on IMDb, but with *four* Oscar wins (Best Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Visual Effects) and at #13 on the IMDb Top 250 it squeaks in directly behind Empire. It’s a close-fought thing.

At a colossal 148 minutes, it’s a full 24 minutes longer though. For all my usual grumbling about long films, Inception is one I’d make an Exception for. Haha. And the running time of 2 hours and 28 minutes is itself a direct nod to the running time of the Edith Piaf song used as the film’s central motif, “Non, je ne regrette rien” which lasts 2 minutes and 28 seconds…

Directed by Christopher Nolan, Inception features a stellar cast headed up by Leonardo DiCaprio (who I never used to rate but who I think is really growing into himself as an actor and just keeps getting better and better). Admirable support from the likes of Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and not forgetting Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard, the list and talent on display is astonishing.

The story is wonderfully convoluted – Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) heads up a team attempting to plant an idea in the head of Robert Fischer (Murphy). This they do by going inside dreams, and dreams within dreams… It’s probably best not to think too hard about it and just let it wash over you. It’s visually stunning, with buildings folding on each other, Penrose staircases climbing forever and other weird and wonderful things going on as the dreamers dream and external effects cause internal shenanigans – people float in zero-g or get soaked as events in the real world impinge on the dreams. Time slows the deeper you go, just don’t go too far or you’ll never get back.

Every rewatch turns up something new & different. Wally Pfister’s cinematography is lush and gorgeous, with each level of dream new and distinct, giving the viewer a visual hook to locate them, even if the characters themselves are sometimes confused…

Ariadne: Wait, whose subconscious are we going into exactly?

Set-pieces are wonderfully realised – a fight between Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the bad guys in the hotel starts to play with gravity as the corridor starts to tumble and roll. Nolan ended up building a full-scale corridor set on a giant gimbal which allowed him to rotate it with the actors inside, minimising the need for CG and giving the film a better sense of realism. A Bond-esque final assault on a snowy fortress. Folding buildings in Paris. Mazes within mazes within dreams.

And the ending! Ah, the ending. It seems to utterly polarise opinions – some say it’s genius whilst others feel it’s a cop-out, leaving the audience to decide whether Cobb is dreaming or not.

Me? I think it’s one of the most perfect endings of a movie – the ambiguity leaves it up to the audience to decide. Have we been watching a man in a dream the whole time? Or has he finally woken up? Will the totem topple?

Nolan isn’t saying:

“The real point of the scene—and this is what I tell people—is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”

Only you can decide. Interestingly, Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien” plays again at the end, and during the film that usually indicates it’s time to wake up…