When viewing a particular genre of film, specifically science fiction with its built-in “what if” disclaimer, viewers are inclined to be less pejorative about the non-intuitive nature of the setting. The projected reality may not make complete sense, and the characters within may appear flat in comparison to their surroundings, but we subconsciously issue a license that allows the filmmaker some latitude in transporting us through it. The entire process doesn’t make sense when one reads it like this, which helps support the argument that film is unlike any other medium used for expressing the abstract notion of the idea.
Christopher Nolan created Inception out of an idea, constructing the film from an original concept, rather than adapting an existing work. This course has proven to be most effective in producing science fiction films, using 2001 – A Space Odyssey and The Matrix as immediate examples. Still, he faced the structured demands of the Paradigm and the binding constraints of Hollywood dogma in breathing life into his vision. Nolan’s concept revolves around the question, “What if we could insert ourselves into the dreams of others?” I’m certain that Spongebob Squarepants tried it once. However, Christopher Nolan represents a few steps up the evolutionary ladder from a sponge, inviting us to assume that his execution would include greater insights and fewer bubbles.
David Edelstein’s review in New York Magazine was one of a few slams that I read prior to seeing the film. His tone was unduly harsh (and judging by the attached reader comments, highly unpopular), but I understand the sentiment behind his words. I have a personal saying I use whenever faced with an unidentifiable logical breakdown: “There’s something wrong with the math.” Edelstein recognized something wrong within the formula, but he focused his attention primarily on the surface of the screen. Allow me to expand on your thoughts, David.
Flaw 1 – Motivation: Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), driven by the desire to see his children and the guilt he carries over the death of his wife, takes a tricky assignment and deadly risk. This is a major fail. The character moves freely throughout Europe and Asia, despite a murder charge in the United States. Are we dealing with a future without Interpol? Roman Polanski should be so lucky. If we presume that Cobb is a man with extraordinary skills of deception, he should figure out a way to get the kiddies on a plane for a quick visit. As for his psychological hand wringing over the dead wife, subsequent revelations make the whole guilt trip seem petty in comparison to the hell he derives from it. Moving on to the members of Cobb’s Inception Team, there is no reason outside of a dark theater for any of them, beyond mere greed, to participate in this operation. Because of the accelerated pace of the plot, not much time is left for Nolan to develop the secondary characters. All bow to the Paradigm.
Flaw 2 – The Saito Dream Sequences: The movie opens with the Saito dream (reappearing in its proper context at the climax), which is embedded within a higher-level dream that Cobb is using to audition his services to the Japanese executive. While I can follow the multiple levels of logic (Being a dream-within-a-dream, this is strictly of Saito’s creation, rather than a first-level mockup. Therefore, knowing of the dream’s existence allows Dom to later find Saito at the Limbo level and return him to the conscious world. Normally, Dom does not like going into environments with which he is familiar, but his wife no longer constitutes a threat at this point, allowing him new freedom.), it is obviously a convoluted circuit that requires multiple proofing. This is another outgrowth of the Paradigm; in order for Dom to save Saito at the end, he needs to know where Saito is. Nolan doesn’t understand that his construct flies over the heads of most of the viewing public. The accessibility of this key plot element is questionable.
Flaw 3 – The Bad Guys: Similar to the white blood cells in Fantastic Voyage, Nolan creates a dream defense mechanism from within … big guys with guns, protecting the dreamer from outside interference. Again, the Paradigm demands conflict and Nolan offers something entirely unreasonable to evolutionary purpose in order to satisfy the demand. He glosses over the process as some sort of industrial espionage counter-measure, but its nature as an implanted schema, combined with Dom’s own self-created saboteur that somehow manages to elude the same defenses, creates one more multi-layered logistical morass that defies simple explanation.
Given consideration to all of the above, the actual execution results in a very entertaining movie experience. I credit Nolan for thoroughly exercising his director chops and DiCaprio for working within his character throughout the film. The pacing permits only a couple of dead spots and the movie ending leaves things appropriately vague. My only recommendation, beyond seeing the film, is to commit to seeing it twice, allowing Nolan’s ideas to form fully before making a final judgment. I agree with Mr. Edelstein that the hype and praise surrounding this release is overdone and I’m willing to bet that after a second viewing, you’ll never want to see it again. Still, taken strictly as an exercise, Inception provides a cautionary example of the effect of the Paradigm on conceptual filmmaking.
Abstract Invention by Charlie Accetta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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