For a film that goes into dream, inside a dream and
goes further more, like the mirror with a mirror concept
envisaged by Ariadne (Ellen Page), the staggeringly
simplistic depiction helps in not losing the audience
anywhere. But in order to be understandable, the multitude
of layers limits itself to the layers of dreams and
doesn’t go beyond the “anti-bodyguard”
concept. Wish they could have at least explored the
fact that different minds act at different speed.
In Prestige (another offering from Nolan), Micheal
Caine says that, the trick doesn’t lie in the
disappearing act alone; what brings the applause is
the reappearing act. In Inception, the ambiguity of
the reappearing act (finale) works wonders for the
film during the screening time but as the fog clears
the complexity takes a toll on the ingenious screenplay
as it tests the ground rules again letting the feeling
hang in there unless Nolan comes up with a sequel.
What do I mean by that? Before we get to what I intend
to say let me brief you few things. While instructing
Ariadne about a trick that needs to be employed while
architecting a dream, Arthur (Joseph Jordon) says
that, the complex maze of a setup should always have
a back door in the form of a paradox which only the
creator can sense. Similarly in a radically different
method, Cobb (Leonardo) uses a spinning top theory
to ascertain that he is in reality by setting a rule
that it will continuously rotate when set to motion
only in the dream – indicating the shift from
laws of physics again. It can be called clever delusion
by showing the spin of the spinning top only twice,
but even for the conceit driven Cobb, reassurance
of his reality never occurs by using the spinning
top. Then again when in dream laws don’t matter
when you don’t need them and does when you want
to create a stunning stunt sequence. It is the power
to mend the rules while making us believe that everything
does fall in place, that idea incepted in us makes
Inception a grand art.
Harish S Ram
tornado.harish@gmail.com
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