So, Inception.
This isn’t going to be a traditional review, as I’ve got one of those going up at Newsarama on Monday. You, my loyal readers, get rambling and non sequitur transitions. Yay!
I’m a total mark for Christopher Nolan, which you should probably keep in mind throughout. One of the very first DVDs I ever bought was Memento - the special edition one that’s packaged like a mental hospital dossier and lets you watch the scenes in “reverse” order. Not that I’ve ever done so, but I could.
Regardless, I’ve admired the man as a filmmaker for going on ten years now, and that was before The Dark Knight launched him to the lofty heights of my favorite contemporary directors, along with the Coens, Lynch, Cronenberg, Herzog, and Tarantino. After Inception, though, he may have (at least temporarily) surpassed any of them. After transitioning from stark psychological thrillers to cerebral blockbusters, in his latest film Nolan demonstrates his mastery of both forms with a tour de force that is alternately a heist movie and an intense meditation on the burden of guilt and how it can transform your entire identity.
I saw Inception last night in a sold-out IMAX theater with my brother and my girlfriend. My brother, whose interest and taste in film is virtually identical to my own, is just as big a fan of Nolan as I am, and even my girlfriend, who doesn’t share our slavish devotion to cinema, recognizes and enjoys his talent. None of us, however, were sure of what to expect going in. The various trailers explain the most basic version of the premise – Leonardo DiCaprio leads a team of corporate thieves who steal secrets through their targets’ dreams – but it’s hard to know what to expect from a film like that.
As the credits rolled and the audience broke into applause, I looked at both of them, and imagined that I was wearing a similar expression on my face. My brother simply said: “That was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.” And…yeah. It’s damn sure got to be right up there. Without giving anything away, what Nolan manages to pull off in terms of story structure is astonishing – the last hour of the film operates on four or five different levels of reality, but I never felt lost once, largely down to the skillful way in which Inception teaches you how to watch it, without getting bogged down in unnecessary or distracting exposition. Longtime Nolan collaborators Lee Smith (editor) and Wally Pfister (cinematographer), both multiple Oscar nominees, outdo themselves once again in keeping pace with their boss, building a beautiful labyrinth from Nolan’s intricate blueprint of a screenplay. It’s so encouraging to know that there are still filmmakers out there like Nolan and his team who can deliver a thinking man’s action film, melding legitimate emotion and thought-provoking concepts with adrenaline-pumping set-pieces.
Speaking of which, Nolan often drops Blade Runner as the film with the single biggest influence on him as an artist, and with Inception, he may have finally succeeded in creating a movie that belongs beside it in the canon. In this age of narrowcasting and audience balkanization, I doubt whether any film could have the same impact on popular media as Blade Runner did, but Inception can certainly claim the same audacity of ambition and fulfillment of its own promise. Perhaps the highest praise I can give it is that, after seeing it, I wanted to see it again, immediately. The last time that happened…why, it was The Dark Knight.
I could go on, but I won’t. Check out Newsarama on Monday for a slightly more disciplined, less manic review, get thee to a multiplex at your earliest convenience, and check out the new joint from one of the best mainstream filmmakers of our time.
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