More mind-bending than Memento and more enthralling than The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s latest exceeds even his own lofty ambitions. Inception is nothing short of a monumental achievement; a tour de force of imagination that thoroughly engages visually, intellectually, and emotionally.
At its core idea, Nolan’s film is a science fiction heist thriller, and one that snatches full advantage of a sideways reality where the mind can be infiltrated. Neo-noir anti-hero Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a dream thief, and he’s the best “extractor” in the illegal business of exploiting the surreal as a gateway to the subconscious’ most intimate secrets.
His unique specialty has rendered him a fugitive, a threat to powerful organizations, and an outcast from his own home. Presented with an opportunity for redemption, Cobb assembles a crew of the very best to break into a competitor’s mind and plant the seed of an idea at its fundamental genesis, or inception. A point man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with mind crime experience, a forger capable of shape-shifting imitation (Tom Hardy), a chemist (Dileep Rao) who concocts the sedatives, and an architecture prodigy (Ellen Page) tasked with designing the labyrinths.
DiCaprio is a tiered fountain of emotion, erupting in anger or collapsing in despair as Cobb struggles for control of his own subconscious and imaginary projections of his estranged family. Gordon-Levitt and Hardy are the wit and action components, stealing scenes and cracking wise/skulls in zero gravity. The characters occupy a globe-trotting set of practical locations, ranging from Canadian mountaintops to Parisian streets, and exist in a rich realm of text and subtext that topples and folds on itself, Inceptionrevealing high-minded ruminations on the metaphysical and Freudian philosophy amongst the gunfire, explosions, and captivating set pieces.
Nolan harnesses the dreamscape as a realm of infinite possibilities and plunges his enraptured audience into a complex, immersive narrative that deliberately, simultaneously shakes up the laws of physics, the rules of conventional plot structure, and even his own early established principles. His creation winds, bends, and twists until the cinematic experience becomes an extension of his fabricated, multi-layered dream world. You’re thrust so deep into this dizzying illusion that when you stagger out into the real world again, you’ll feel as though you just woke up.
The easiest and most accurate comparison is the Wachowskis’ The Matrix, a similar sci-fi mind-bender that broke new ground over a decade ago. But Nolan pushes past untethered, dazzling action and into cerebral territory navigated by Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York or Kubrick’s own oeuvre. As an auteur, Nolan has outdone himself and orchestrated a personal drama and epic adventure that co-exist on a grand scale.
Inception won’t just affect you for 148 minutes, it burrows into your brain. Nolan’s film will frustrate those expecting surface-level entertainment and titillate the rest, practically requiring repeat viewings to fully grasp the conceptual framework and its thoughtful intricacies.
Here's the trailer:
Movie reviews
I'm just a guy who likes to watch movies - at the same time reviewing them also
Monday, September 20, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Nice documentary film for you
Reindeer Spotting – popularly dubbed ‘The Train Spotting of Santaland’ – is now the highest grossing Finnish documentary of all time. Released in Finnish cinemas, it had already 51,000 admissions in five weeks.
The documentary, which follows the lives of a group of petty criminal drug addicts in the Lapland capital, looks set to go worldwide with the world rights having been recently bought up by the Australian company ‘Autlook.’
Reindeer Spotting tells the story of a group of drifting young men at the beginning of this decade. In particular it focuses on ‘Jani’, a drug addict who manages to make his way from Rovaniemi to Paris, Barcelona and even Morocco. Jani explains that Rovaniemi is ‘just the kind of place you want to escape from. If you’ve always lived in Rovaniemi . . . Fuck.’ With graphic content, the film is rated 18.
According to the movie review site ‘Twitch’ ‘The trailer is pretty uncomfortable stuff, shot by someone who was pretty clearly involved in the scene at the time and therefore given the sort of intimate access that comes from an insider’s position.’
Another reviewer, on IMBD.com, claims that, ‘The footage filmed for this film is absolutely horrifying. Every terrible thing is caught on tape when Jani and the boys start to ‘shoot up’. The film also includes some very explicit footage of how these drugs are used. If you didn’t know how to use heroin . . . before, I’m sure you know after this film.’
Trailer with english subtitles
The documentary, which follows the lives of a group of petty criminal drug addicts in the Lapland capital, looks set to go worldwide with the world rights having been recently bought up by the Australian company ‘Autlook.’
Reindeer Spotting tells the story of a group of drifting young men at the beginning of this decade. In particular it focuses on ‘Jani’, a drug addict who manages to make his way from Rovaniemi to Paris, Barcelona and even Morocco. Jani explains that Rovaniemi is ‘just the kind of place you want to escape from. If you’ve always lived in Rovaniemi . . . Fuck.’ With graphic content, the film is rated 18.
According to the movie review site ‘Twitch’ ‘The trailer is pretty uncomfortable stuff, shot by someone who was pretty clearly involved in the scene at the time and therefore given the sort of intimate access that comes from an insider’s position.’
Another reviewer, on IMBD.com, claims that, ‘The footage filmed for this film is absolutely horrifying. Every terrible thing is caught on tape when Jani and the boys start to ‘shoot up’. The film also includes some very explicit footage of how these drugs are used. If you didn’t know how to use heroin . . . before, I’m sure you know after this film.’
Trailer with english subtitles
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