A dream; a cerebral experience that we all feel on multiple occasions during our lives; but what if people could actually steal your dreams, or an idea from you while you sleep. This is the unimaginable idea that Christopher Nolan creates in his newest film; Inception. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, an architect that has the ability to use heavily sedated drugs that allows himself and, if needed, others to enter the subconscious of a host and enter their dreams. Unfortunately Cobb’s past restricts him from being able see his children in America as he is somewhat exiled to Europe. With the persuasion of a billionaire named Saito, who promises Cobb a way to get back to his children, Cobb accepts one final job, to get Robert Fischer, the heir of a billion dollar company, to split his father’s energy corporation in half allowing Saito’s company to compete, disallowing the corporation to become an energy superpower; in doing so Cobb takes “A leap of faith” to insure that he will find a way back to his real home In America. With the help of his right-hand man, Arthur ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt) Cobb assembles a team made up of a intelligent chemist named Yusuf ( Dileep Rao) , a sly forger named Eames ( Tom Harvey) , and a brilliant young architect named Ariande ( Ellen Page) that can execute a near impossible plan; instead of stealing a dream, plant one in the unconscious mind and give the allusion of true inspiration to Fischer so the company will be broken up and Fischer can find his own path, instead of following in his father’s footsteps.
The cast is near perfection, DiCaprio shows us yet again why he is one of the most well respected actors of this generation, while Gordon- Levitt shows why he is one of the newest actors over taking the movie world. Even with these master class performances Ms. Ellen Page still was the audience favorite, not only for her maturity on how she handled the roll but the fact that she was the audience’s guide throughout the movie; asking the questions that we were all wondering and trying to get a deeper understand of the cerebral jigsaw puzzle that was Inception. Everyone’s performance was absolutely brilliant; to think of any other actor or actresses to attempt to enliven the roles that were portrayed in the movie is frankly futile. Each actors commitment to their part was shown throughout the movie which not only invited the audience deeper into the movie, but also gave an emotional relativeness; showing what anyone would risk for the sake of their family or children.
The music was portrayed almost as a subtle art throughout the movie; Nolan knew exactly what kind of impression he wanted to leave on his audience not only from watching the movie but the emotional attachment from the music as well. Hans Zimmer creates a musical masterpiece that literally is timed to perfection with every key stroke and Crescendo that sends surges up and down the body of any person who has a deep appreciation for music. If you really wanted a straight description of the music of this movie you could call it a “dream” piece. The music subtly changes every couple of minutes just as the layout of a dream would; the hard strong notes that indicate a violent scene, to the soft soothing melody when emotion is being shown; throughout the movie the music is in a dream of itself, constantly changing to the mood of the composer creating an invigorating musical experience. This is one of the only films that could have two or three scenes with nothing but music playing and the audience does not lose focus, but actually becomes more intrigued. The music literally cultivates you and tells its story with its staccato notes, crescendos and decrescendos, and beautiful harmony; the need for word use is eradicated and this is very much appreciated because it lets you feel the emotional setting around the movie and the characters; not many movies can make you do that. When I say this I mean this with every fiber of my being, you will not forget the music that you heard in this movie simply because it is astonishing.
The critics for the movie both had negative and positive aspects; but the majority of the critics found this movie to be an enormous sigh of relief, after long searching for something original they have finally come across this “masterpiece” that has the ability to blow you away then suck you right back in. Even this being said some, critics still had a few problems with Nolan’s creation. Critics stated that the movie was a bit too farfetched for its own good; surprisingly associated as a failed version of The Matrix, Inception was perceived as a film that contradicted itself and almost “made up rules” as the movie went on, which of course creating all the questions and “what ifs?”. Although this is true ( to an extent) I still felt as though that was the point of Nolan’s “dream” creation; to show that he can make up the rules as he goes along because in dreams you don’t have rules, you control what you want to control. Dreams are the human’s cerebral escape from the real world; we use dreams so we can make our wildest fantasies come true and create the world we wished we lived in; that’s exactly what Nolan did. He created a world that has neither boundaries nor limits to what the brain can do, since we as humans have never used the full extent of our brain power; in short creating the overwhelmingly debatable question: What could you do if you could access someone’s entire mind through their dreams?
Overall the film was a technical masterpiece. The shots in the movie are absolutely breathtaking, making you appreciate just a bit more the beautiful work of art that is Inception. This movie was the type of movie you could tell was carefully written so that it would deliberately leave audiences guessing and debating what really happened. I highly recommend watching this movie, then watch it again, then one more time after that because that’s what it takes to understand that there is no understanding it, the movie is a “rubix cube that fights back”; the only way to solve the dream is to enter it yourself.