Director Nolan creates a dream to get lost in
Writer and director Christopher Nolan may be best known for
helming the
”
Batman
”
prequels
”
Batman Begins
”
and
”
Dark Knight.
”
But he is also known for making mind-boggling movies that almost
require more than one viewing to pick up on all the nuances of the
story, such as
”
Memento,
”
”
Insomnia
”
and
”
The Prestige.
”
Director Nolan creates a dream to get lost in
Writer and director Christopher Nolan may be best known for helming the “Batman” prequels “Batman Begins” and “Dark Knight.” But he is also known for making mind-boggling movies that almost require more than one viewing to pick up on all the nuances of the story, such as “Memento,” “Insomnia” and “The Prestige.”
His latest film, “Inception,” seems to combine the best of both worlds for Nolan. It is a blockbuster, earning $60.4 million in its opening weekend, but it has all the things in it that made “Memento” such a great film.
“Memento” came out in 2000 and stars Guy Pearce as Leonard, a man who is suffering from a memory loss that makes it impossible for him to form new memories. His memory problem is so compounded that if he starts a conversation with someone, a few minutes later he will not remember who he is talking to or what he is talking about and the conversation is likely to repeat itself all over again. The last thing he remembers, however, is that his wife has been killed and he tries to make up for his memory loss by taking fastidious notes of everything he learns – on paper and with tattoos on his skin.
Nolan breaks the narrative rules in “Memento” in that the movie isn’t really told from start to finish – in a way that is hard to describe, the movie is told from the end to the beginning. We get snippets of Leonard’s life in reverse that fill in the blanks he can’t fill in for us.
Nolan’s latest deals with how the human brain stores information in some sense as well.
“Inception” is a movie about dreams. The biggest mystery for most viewers will be the question of when the dream begins and when the dream ends. It’s a question that is open to interpretation and probably requires more than one viewing to truly understand.
The world of “Inception” is one in which the technology exists for people to enter into each other’s dreams. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and their cohorts use the technology to manipulate information out of people in their dreams – their biggest clients are corporations wanting to outdo the competition.
Most of their work is done overseas since Cobb is a wanted man in the United States, and Nolan slowly reveals exactly what Cobb is wanted for throughout the movie.
Things go wrong early on when the guys share a dream with Saito (Ken Watanabe) and he realizes they have been manipulating him. Instead of threatening to kill them, Saito offers them a deal. If they can use a technique called inception to plant an idea in the mind of the heir to a rival corporation to break up his holdings, Saito says he will clear Cobb’s name in the U.S. so he can return home to visit his children.
Despite their ability to extract information from someone, Arthur doesn’t believe inception is possible. Cobb does, though he said it is hard to make someone believe that the idea is all their own so it requires going deep into someone’s subconscious – as a dream within a dream within a dream.
Cobb works on putting together his team. First he needs a new architect since his original one, Nash (Lukas Haas), is disposed early on. He finds Ariadne (Ellen Page), who is in charge of creating the dream world in each level. She is quite perceptive, though, and sees that Cobb is haunted by things in his own subconscious that could derail the entire job. For instance, his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) keeps showing up in the dreams and killing people off. Luckily for them, when they die, they just wake up.
Cobb also calls in Eames (Tom Hardy), who gets to know people close to the target so that in the dream he can take on their form and plant the first seed of the idea. Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is in charge of sedating everyone so they don’t wake up in the middle of the dreams.
The target is Robert Fischer, Jr. (Cillian Murphy), whose father has just died. The group corners him on a flight to Los Angeles. But it gives them the 10 hours they need to do their work. The problem here is that with the deep sedation, those who die will not wake up but will get lost in limbo. Cobb explains to his colleagues – after they are all asleep – that limbo will pretty much scramble their brains before they wake up.
In between all the philosophical dream stuff, the movie is a basic action film. There are high-speed car chases, shoot outs and fist fights, but Nolan balances it all just right. And he leaves the viewer wondering at the end, how much was meant to be a dream and how much was reality.
Movies Under the stars ends July 29
The Hollister Downtown Association continues its outdoor movies series July 29.
The Movie Under The Stars has no admission prices and allows people to bring blankets and chairs into the viewing area. People are allowed to bring their own food from outside and from nearby restaurants. Pets, alcoholic beverages, smoking and coolers are not allowed. Minors must be accompanied by adults.
The movies start half an hour after dark.
Over the Hedge, July 29: Despite Verne the Turtle’s initial hesitance to breach the formidable foliage that has appeared on his doorstep since last fall, the arrival of fearless raccoon RJ and revelation that their new human neighbors throw out enough food in one day to feed a whole forest lead the gang to consider taking the plunge and exploring the snack-filled suburbs. As Verne and RJ learn to work together in taking on their strange new surroundings, Stella the Skunk, Hammy the Squirrel, Heather the Opossum, and Heather’s father, Ozzie, join in on the fun by scavenging for Girl Scout cookies and attempting to scuttle past the pesky new suburbanites undetected.
