Film Review: Inception

Inception tells the story of Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an expert at entering people’s dreams and stealing their secrets. Then he is given a new challenge – to do the opposite, to use his skill to plant an idea in someone’s mind. To do this, he needs to go deep into the dreamer’s subconscious, by creating a dream within a dream within a dream.

This concept makes for a structure as intricate as can be expected from director Christopher Nolan – each level of the dream operates on a different time scale, and events that happen to the sleeper can affect the content of the dream. For example, when the dreamer is falling, there is no gravity in the dream, resulting in one particularly spectacular fight sequence. The interactions between the different levels are well-handled, with enough markers to remind the viewer of what is going on ‘outside’ the dream. Indeed, it is impressive how the film manages to dazzle with its complexity while still not leaving the audience behind.

Nolan also finds hugely imaginative ways to represent the subconscious mind, to visually stunning effect.

DiCaprio, one of my favourite actors, is impressive, and there is a starry supporting cast, including Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Ellen Page gives a mature performance as Cobb’s protégé the aptly-named* Ariadne, a talented trainee architect who he tempts away from her studies to learn to ‘build’ the settings for the dreams he enters. Her character in part serves as a plot device so that the processes of Cobb’s work can be explained to the audience, and to force him to face up to the past that is haunting him, but she brings a depth to the role, and there are some great sequences as she learns to manipulate the landscape of dreams, discovering the joy of “pure creation”.

*Ariadne was a character in Greek myth who guided Theseus out of the labyrinth of the Minotaur.

Film Review: Shutter Island

Director Martin Scorsese has created an old-fashioned thriller, in which he openly acknowledges his debt to the likes of Hitchcock. The film is set in the 1950s, and its tropes and imagery hark back to an earlier age of cinema: the protagonists are physically isolated on a forbidding looking island, dramatic weather sets the mood, the hands of the inmates reach out through the bars of the asylum cells.

However, the film is not an exercise in knowing pastiche, more of a faithful homage. And it is fitting, therefore, that I found it enjoyable in a very old-fashioned way – as an exciting and satisfying mystery. Despite the many twists and turns of the plot, it was in no way demanding to follow and I felt that the story was always ‘fair’ to the audience in that none of the twists came out of the blue. They were not predictable, but they were always set up within the context of the story. Twists that come completely out of nowhere can feel contrived, leaving the audience feeling cheated, as though the film they thought they were watching has been tossed aside for the sake of some meaningless cheap shock. In this case, the twists, as good twists should, throw new light on what has gone before, so that, even when everything is turned on its head, the audience still feels they are watching a complete and satisfying film.

Leonardo diCaprio - an excellent and somewhat under-rated actor in my opinion -gives a typically convincing performance in the lead role, and the supporting cast do a good job too, with just the right amount of hamminess on display for the type of film. Everybody looks the part - Mark Ruffalo in particular, as diCaprio’s sidekick, seems to have the perfect face for the 1950s - and the cinematography is stunning and atmospheric.

Despite touching on some interesting points about power, exploitation and the nature of madness, it never explores any of these ideas further than they move the plot along. This is not a think piece. It set out to be a thriller and it delivers magnificently – a masterclass in tension, pace and atmosphere.