Oh, kid, I do believe that our dreams are wrong

[sovay]

Inception (2010) is an incredibly intelligent film. I loved its play with genres, with film and surrealism, with ghosts, and I loved the one sequence straight out of Cocteau's Orphée (1949).

I am never seeing another film at a Jordan's IMAX.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it rather thoroughly as well, for many of the reasons you state (though not because of Orphée, which I haven't seen, and now must), but off and on as I watched I asked, Is it profound? Is any of this even remotely profound? And it seemed to me that the one place where perhaps it was, or was trying to be in a way that had an honest chance of success -- the placing of the spinning top in the safe at the center of her being, and the whole storytelling complex intended to support that moment and arising from it -- is also the one place where the film collapses. It really really does not stand up to close analysis. The only aspect of the film that effected me emotionally also happens to be the only part of the film that doesn't work, and since that one moment is the pivot point for the film as a whole, it means the whole film collapses too. I may be wrong about this, but I don't think so; I will need to see the film again to be sure.

[sovay]

And it seemed to me that the one place where perhaps it was, or was trying to be in a way that had an honest chance of success -- the placing of the spinning top in the safe at the center of her being, and the whole storytelling complex intended to support that moment and arising from it -- is also the one place where the film collapses. It really really does not stand up to close analysis.

How so? I agree that Mal's totem is integral to the story, but I'm not sure I would have called that one gesture its emotional heart; and I did not feel that the film collapsed there or elsewhere.

[ericmvan.livejournal.com]

I think the film is profound, but it is mostly about the nature of film narrative, and I think its equation of film narrative to shared lucid dreaming is just plain correct and insightful.

As with every Nolan film, it becomes much more emotional once you understand (or, in this case, think you understand) what is going on. Dom Cobb's plight may be completely not what we think it is, and that adds much poignancy.

It just occurs to me now that there are strong thematic similarities to Engine Summer, but the latter is about the deep purpose of narrative art while this is more about its limitations, about the gap between narrative art and reality and the ultimate insularity of the narrative artist. But it really is ferociously brilliant about that.