Inception

I've been trying to conjure up a phrase evocative enough to describe my reaction to this movie, but the only fitting one I arrive at over and over again is: Holy S***.

Honestly. My brain is swiss cheese. Or a colander.

Inception, courtesy of 2010's charming film lineup, is a psychological wonderland that, I think, filmmakers will be unable to trump for decades. Possibly even the duration of my lifetime. Directed and written by Christopher Nolan, the master behind the script and direction for 2000's addition to the mindf*ck list Memento, which by comparison is charming, outdid himself thoroughly. I think the respect in which he excelled the most is in the conclusions department. For, twisted and strange as it is, Memento has a definite end, an origin: a wellspring, if you would. To rephrase, Memento has a defined beginning, middle, and end: it's just that they're out of order.

Inception is a different beast entirely. Epiphany: that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Inception is the kind of film which, above all else, makes you think. It is a nonstop rollercoaster which keeps you wondering and when at last you think you understand, the world is once more turned on its head. Somehow, I am possessed to say that this is the best kind of storytelling. It's messy. Everyone who views it is going to have a different take on what everything means and on what precisely happened at every turn of the story. It will be debated. In short: uncertain, but uncertain in a tailored way, in a way that makes me step back and, hands on hips, say "isn't it beautiful?"

But I get ahead of myself. For those of you who haven't seen this film, it has a lot to do with layers and layers and layers of un-reality and the single layer of what, we must assume, based on what we are given, really is reality. But there's a problem with this setup. Like in House of Leaves , we may have an unreliable narrator on our hands as an audience. Or we may not.

What I am ultimately trying to get to, I think, is that this film is (arguably) entirely an exercise in authorial intent taking the back seat to individual interpretation. It doesn't matter what Nolen wanted us to see, because we make the choices as to what it is we do see. Every audience member is going to have their own interpretation of this film because, ultimately, each audience member is, independently of every other viewer, calling the shots.

When my parents received this as a Christmas gift, a friend of the family nodded with a knowing smile and said "I'll...be interested to hear your take." And that's just it. This film is less a film and more a puzzle, the ultimate brain teaser, and the ultimate conversation starter. (Perhaps also the ultimate argument-starter.) And it is so because there are so many parts of it which can be interpreted in so many different ways. Perhaps even an infinite number of ways. In one of my English classes we discussed as a group how each individual viewer of any piece of art inevitably projects their knowledge, their past experiences, and their biases onto that piece when they perceive it. If that's so, every viewing is going to be different somehow, even if it's only slight, because ultimately no two people are exactly the same.

I'm tempted to take the evil route here. The evil route is when I start referencing my fledgling understanding of quantum physics and alternate universes, ultimately asserting that under these parameters an infinite number of interpretations is absolutely possible, but that's beside the point. The point is thus: I can't remember the last time I watched a movie that was so ultimately baffling, inconclusive, and simultaneously so masterful. Ambiguous storytelling is so difficult to execute in a way which is even mildly convincing. Inception does so with grace.

I would definitely recommend this film. The music (Hans Zimmer) is superb, the cast is stunning, the visuals breathtaking, the story worth it (I think so anyway - I ended up forming conclusions, it's just that if I were to discuss them here this review would be an entirely different monster!) I only have a few pieces of advice: be plenty awake, sit back, buckle in, and be ready when the kick comes.