I was really intrigued by the concept of an epic heist movie set within an illusionary dreamworld of stunning visual effects (as showcased in the Inception trailers): So I was inspired to see Inception in the cinema (which very few trailers do for me). While the epic visual effects did not disappoint on the big screen, there were several things throughout the film that bothered me: Ultimately the storytelling, which by the end provides very little payoff once the complex storytelling gives way to little more than a basic plot and offers the audience some apathetic questions.
I do have to praise Inception for being much bolder than most Hollywood films of recent years - which audiences around the world are also welcoming. Yet Inception actually feels rather conventional by the standard of other Christopher Nolan films (Memento, The Dark Knight), and disappointing in comparison with similar "complex" films (such as Vanilla Sky, Pulp Fiction, and A Scanner Darkly).
It's not a case that Inception doesn't work, it's more that the crime the whole film revolves around [planting an idea into someone's mind for corporate benefits] isn't as high-stake as the theft of a physical object (such as diamonds, money, or art - like in A Fish Called Wanda, Ocean's 11, or How To Steal A Million), so it's a struggle to relate emotionally with the threat that the characters face during their heist.
Compounding this matter, the film severely lacks character development, therefore the target in the aforementioned heist is someone that the audience barely knows and/or cares for: Meaning that the audience doesn't care for his sake whether the crime succeeds or fails.
It's the same situation for the protagonists: They all get introduced to the audience in one way or another, but only Leonardo DiCaprio [Dom Cobb] and Marion Cotillard [Mal] have characters with any sort of backstory. I actually felt that all of the supporting cast from within DiCaprio's gang (Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, etc) were using their real-life personalities [as popular film stars in films like Juno and 500 Days of Summer] to conjure an emotional relationship with the audience in lieu of explaining a narrative backstory for their characters. While this unintentional technique has worked well in other films, I don't think it works for Inception due to all the different levels that the plot operates on:
- There is the "real life" in the film itself,
- There is the first level [and subsequent levels] of the dream world,
- There are possible dream worlds for all the characters in the film,
- There is Limbo,
- Plus flashbacks regarding Dom & Mal are heavily explored.
Without emotional investment the plot of Inception may as well be any standard Hollywood action film with it's Good Guy vs Bad Guy battle, extensive chases, and explosions. Indeed the film does feel exactly like that at a couple of points during its two and a half hour running time - although to be fair to it, the film does contain enough intriguing story concepts and original visual ideas to mitigate that issue... I certainly don't ever recall seeing James Bond on an M.C Escher-style staircase or in an illusionary world built at such an epic scale!
In aesthetic terms the film has done a grand job of creating believable dream worlds and executing ridiculous effects with apparent ease. Even as someone who usually dislikes CGI effects, I was readily willing to allow for them during Inception due to the nature of the plot, and I did in fact find some scenes breathtaking! The scene of the Parisian landscape folding-in on itself was beyond words, and almost worth the ticket value alone.
As amazing as I think the visual effects in the film are, I don't think they will translate too well from the massive cinema screen to the home TV screen: For example I always enjoyed watching the Paris folding scene in TV trailers, but at the cinema I was genuinely stunned and excited by what I was experiencing up there on the cinema screen. The scale of it just overwhelmed my eyes, and as the landscape folded beyond 90 degrees toward its full 180 degrees I got a real sense of it closing down and trapping me within this odd little space.
On the large cinema screen it feels very fitting and like a natural environment before the eyes, yet a home TV screen is just too small to provoke the same response. For this reason I have to say that the film must be seen on the cinema screen, because unless your TV is the size of a cinema screen then you won't ever understand how impressive those visual effects are.
Regarding the complexity of the plot: Many people have remarked that it requires you to pay a lot of attention and leaves you asking lots of questions about it all. While this is not a lie, I actually found the film quite straightforward to follow (whereas I had been led to believe that it is really difficult).
This isn't some kind of weird David Lynch film where things seem to make perfect sense and then suddenly "WTF"?! Everything in Inception follows rules that are relatively normal and easy to understand, so you won't feel out of your depth. And despite the plot taking place on various intertwining dream levels at the same time (which gets quite tricky to keep up with), you at least know what the protagonists are aiming to achieve, so things seem to make sense even when you don't know where exactly those things are happening.
Ultimately there are a lot of things to question and a lot to look back on or enjoy during repeat viewings, but at the end of your first viewing I don't think these will really affect your understanding of the film.
Repeat viewings is something that I'm intrigued by more than anything else about the film. I always suspected that Inception would be a film I would want to see more than once (even if only for the visual effects). However having seen it once so far and not getting much enjoyment out of the story, I feel as though I'm being guilted into wanting to watch it again and again until I enjoy it and am raving about it like everyone else! But I'm certainly interested to see whether or not the things I've heard about since watching the film will affect how I experience the film on a second viewing.
Another thing, apart from the visuals, that I greatly enjoyed was the musical scoring by Hans Zimmer. In typical Zimmer fashion the muscial score perfectly conveys the sense of emotion during each part of the plot without distracting from what happens on screen. It is also refreshing in the 21st Century to see an action film that doesn't make much use out of selling out to the commercial world: There are a few minor "drink this, use that" moments, but you won't find corporate logos and popular music tracks littering this film as you might in a modern James Bond.
I fancy Zimmer/Inception to win Best Score at the Oscars, even if only because I enjoyed it and haven't heard any other film scores for this year apart from Toy Story 3.
If hype and audience figures are anything to go by then you'd have to be daft to not bet on Inception winning Best Picture too.
But the one Oscar award that I think is surely guaranteed for Inception will be Best Actress, or Supporting Actress, (I can't figure out what role her character plays in the film) for Marion Cotillard.
On the one hand Cotillard seems to be a supporting actress because the plot tends to focus on the professional relationship that develops between DiCaprio & Ellen Page during the heist while Cotillard is in the background; yet on the other hand I think that it's the flashbacks and haunting memories of the relationship between DiCaprio and Cotillard that are central to the plot and provide it with the motivation for everything that happens. Therefore in my opinion Cotillard is the main actress - even if Ellen Page appears more often as DiCaprio's assistant - and I'd actually go so far as to say that Cotillard is more pivotal to the film than DiCaprio's character!
In recent years Marion Cotillard has proven herself time and again as a star capable of playing very diverse roles. Since featuring in her first American film (Big Fish. Directed by: Tim Burton, 2003) she has played roles including:
- a César award-winning performance as a prostitute seeking vengeance for her murdered husband in A Very Long Engagement (Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2004);
- an utterly enchanting French cafe owner in A Good Year (Directed by: Ridley Scott, 2006);
- an Oscar winning performance as chanteuse Edith Piaf in the French biopic La Vie En Rose (Directed by: Oliver Dahan, 2007);
- the love interest of notorious 1930s bank robber John Dillinger in Public Enemies (Directed by: Michael Mann, 2009);
- and a Golden Globe nominated performance as the wife of an uninspired Italian filmmaker in Nine (Directed by: Rob Marshall, 2009).
Although Cotillard's natural Gallic charm regularly shines through her roles, she is capable of transforming herself in dramatic fashion (as evident from her multi award-winning role as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose), and she has managed it again with her latest role.
In Inception Marion Cotillard plays Mal (the dead wife of Leondardo DiCaprio's character, Dom Cobb), whose ghostly presence haunts his mind and drives the plot. There are rare occasions when Mal seems to be a loving wife with Marion Cotillard's natural charisma and beauty, but for the most part she convincingly appears as a cold-hearted character with little appeal, which is a transformation I think rivals that of La Vie En Rose.
Coincidently the song Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, sung by Edith Piaf and used in La Vie En Rose, was also used as the all-important timer song throughout Inception. Further to this, Hans Zimmer wrote the score for Inception based upon the rhythm of Piaf's song so that the film score subtly imitates the timer song: This is demonstrated by a video called Inception Music Comparison, which can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here.
The use of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and its re-interpretation by Zimmer worked well in the film, but I don't think the use of that particular song was vital to it. As such I found the song quite annoying while watching Inception because I felt as though it was being used as a blatant reference to La Vie En Rose (due to the fact that Cotillard had acted in both films).
I don't usually mind references in film, but in this instance it was frustrating because the reference constantly made me think of Cotillard's character in La Vie En Rose, which was little more than an unnecessary distraction from the stories within Inception.
Apparently Christopher Nolan had chosen to use that particular song within Inception long before Cotillard was cast as Mal - so in that regard the song isn't really a reference to La Vie En Rose - however I do think that it would have been wise to choose a different song once Cotillard joined the cast in order to avoid this issue.
But then again, with Inception being so full of complex writing and burning questions, perhaps this is little more than a minor issue amongst many more for myself...
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