Yes, you got me right! This is exactly the idea that Nolan planted in our minds in those amazing 148 minutes of dream-to-wake-up..
Little did I realize that my dreams also do similar things that Nolan projected! We consider our dreams as stupid the moment we wake up; for what we see are seemingly unrealistic objects linked together. But today, Nolan has planted a new form of idea in my mind! 'While we dream, our mind creates and perceives the dream world simultaneously. Our mind does it so well that we do not even realize it'.
Things that just didn't make any sense to me till sometime ago, make a real difference now. Human mind is an amazing tool whose creativity is used only to a meagre amount when awake! Thanks to Nolan for bringing to light this factor! Many aspects captured in the movie, are something that we naturally miss to comprehend in our dreams! The power of our subconscious!
Jotting down the factors from the movie which I could relate to in my dreams:
- In a dream, time passes slowly. Just minutes in our real world and hours in our dreams.
- Never realizing how we got to that spot in the dream.- Ahem! Are we really in the real world?! To think about it, do you exactly remember feeling when you came into the earth! Don't tell me, you know the day and time you were born, your parents told you that!
- Our mind can think beyond what we think it really can - I remember dreaming that my school auditorium is in the middle of a sea! :P
- Realizing pain when we get hurt in dreams - 'pain is in the mind'. - If you have dreamt ever that you were shot with a gun in ur palm, you would wake up to realize that your palm hurts. Yes, it did in my case!
- Something like music, a kick waking us up from our dreams! -
I've never had the habit of trying to remember dreams unless I think the dream has some signifance. Just remembering dreams can make you feel the creative power in you - I feel after watching 'Inception'. Though I feel like writing more about dreams and dreaming, I will stick to wondering and trying to dig the mystery with 'Inception'.
What started as a 80-page film treatment ten years ago, grew into what we know today as the mindblowing 'Inception' by Nolan. I am definitely not here to write a review about the movie, coz I have questions, increasing in number everytime I think about it.
And with such an impressive cast, who can all deliver perfectly, no wonder the movie is a big hit. Di Caprio has certainly done his best and the enigmatic Mal is no way less. Unlike other movies where the characters vanish quickly from the audience' thoughts, this movie reminds us of every character in it, whenever we think about the movie. Di Caprio has proven his skills in his movies, like Shutter Island and this, where he plays someone who is emotionally broken down.
He has made a perfect balance of characters and the right sequencing of the storyline, creating a whole fantastic screening for the audience. Had this script been made by other filmmakers, it is bound to be a disaster or atleast a mess. Nolan has definitely risked in trusting on the viewer's intelligence, which is partly the reason for some people not liking the plot. I would rather say they did not understand it enough to like it.
People have several interpretations of the movie. Maybe this is a-movie-with-no-definitive-interpretation. None but Nolan can actually say on what basis the movie was built. One of the reviews I read said, this is Nolan's own life that was filmed metaphorically and it was the first most acceptable reading in my view so far about inception. I have now watched it twice, and still more doubts arising, I feel like watching it more, and I still feel I will never comprehend!
Nolan is a genius to have left millions of audience thinking, even days after watching the movie. And it takes soo much imagination in real world to bring in something like dreams. The penrose stairs, a train right in the middle of the road coming from nowhere, a lift to reach the different parts of Cobb's memory, the gravity-defying fistfight, linking each level of dream via gravity shift (when the car moves and twists and turns, the Hotel where Fischer is in shifts in gravity), city folding on to itself, etc.
It took almost 60 of the 148 minutes to explain the magnificient dream-world that Nolan takes us to, still making it a point to leave the audience with several questions in their mind. What is more beautiful is how he made a blend of emotional and intellectual sorts, with so much complexity! And those fantastic time-sequencing, with a few seconds for the van to plunge into water, the lift to explode and the slow-motion explosions; a whole city built by Cobb and Mal being broken down, and with all the complexity sequencing the scenes right for the audience to understand everytime where a person comes from and where he is now - all soo stupefying!
There are quite a few plot holes, but I preferred ignoring them because of the other major areas in the movie I was trying to figure out! To mention a few of them - if gravity shift is felt in next level dreams, when the van falls, the effect should be experienced in the other levels as well. How does one wake up from limbo? If that is as simple as dying again to wake up from limbo, why was it projected as a complex deal where the person has to be trapped!? If Mal and Cobb entered Limbo for the first time where they were trapped for 50 years, did they die in a first level dream which took them to their world!? If the totem's very purpose goes null and void if a second person touches it, then Cobb's totem cannot work because it was originally Mal's!
Nolan was not just talking about subconscious, memory and altering thoughts, he has been trying to deal with the very nature of art itself. Screenwriting is an art and he has given a completely new form of life to it. Truly an artist with the power to make millions think and keep thinking.
Shall I say in conclusion - "True inspiration is impossible to fake!"
Picture courtesy: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/rorschachsrants/news/?a=13101
