I haven't seen a movie recently that I had such high expectations going into my viewing. I'm happy to say that the movie lived up to the hype for me, even though I'm still not quite sure what it is I saw.
The movie is a sublime piece of postmodernism. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a man who makes his living infiltrating peoples' dreams to find out their secrets. He has been hired by a wealthy businessman in order to convince one of his rivals to split up his inheritance for his benefit (the benefit of the first wealthy businessman). If Cobb helps him, he will make it possible for Cobb to return home, where he is suspected in the murder of his wife.
It seemed to me that the whole point of the film is that the viewer is never sure of what they are seeing, You see, not only can the characters enter people's dreams, but the characters inside people's dreams can also go to sleep and enter into the dream within a dream. Since this can continue infinitely, the viewer is constantly disarmed, never knowing for sure what they are watching. The final sequence reminded me of watching a juggler who is being tossed more and more objects while juggling. It becomes a game to see how many balls can be kept in the air at once. In the same way (without giving away too much), the films climactic moments seem to constantly demand more of the film and its audience, but its success seemed effortless.
The cast here is great. Every actor and actress is believable and engaging. I was particularly impressed with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur. He is in a supporting role in every sense of that word, and he is believable and effortless in his portrayal.
I often have thought that action movies are among the hardest genres of film to do really well because often times the believability is called into question. Since this films action primarily takes place in the mind, the visions are otherworldly and the normal laws of the universe don't apply, so one can watch the movie with total abandon. Something tells me that people will be talking about this movie for years to come...I know I will be watching it again.
It is one of my favorite films of 2010, and it will stand the test of time as a sci-fi masterpiece, but I do have one beef with it, and that is the last ten seconds of the picture. Chris Nolan's story would not be any less of a film if he left that on the cutting room floor, and I would argue, it would probably be MORE of a film because of it.
ReplyDeleteTo make an extremely long argument short, Nolan makes a completely unnecessary "open ending" and forces the audience to consider multiple possibilities that without those last few seconds would not even be needed.
I love that this film has the structure that it does – that there are two entirely different stories layered upon one another that can exist simultaneously. And I love that we as the audience get to question the validity of each. But this fracture exists long before we see the top, or "totem". And since we’ve seen the top fall over during scenes of “reality”, we have to assume that the top was going to fall over regardless – that in Cobb’s Limbo state, he has convinced himself that the top actually *can* fall over. Unless of course we entertain the possibility that everything we see is legitimately occurring until Cobb goes to Limbo and from that point on everything we see is a construct of his imagination.
What I don’t love is that Nolan feels the need to highlight this structure and point out the layers. The final shot is something of a middle finger to the audience, refusing to allow you, even for a moment, to relish Cobb’s triumph. Instead, Nolan robs all the power of the mainline story by forcing you to question it at all. This type of story is best served as an underlying, quiet, alternate take on the film, allowing less intellectual members of the audience to walk away feeling like they understood it, while those who love to dissect and argue films have something they can really sink their teeth into. There’s no reason to leave an entire audience intentionally in Limbo – it is a wholly unsatisfying exercise, that here finds itself at the end of an incredibly satisfying (up to that point) film.
Good thoughts Rob. I will admit that I didn't take it as philosophically as you did. The last scene called into question most of what had gone before, but I think that is well within the tone of the film. A straight denial of the film's veracity (like "The Usual Suspects", for instance) would be much more frustrating to me, since that whole film was telling a linear story, so we thought. Here, the nature of reality is always in doubt, and while I agree that it can be frustrating to think that Cobb's satisfaction is not real, that is consistent with the tone of the rest of the film. I need to see it again...it's one of those kind of movies that would only get richer with repeated viewings. I can totally see why you were unsatisfied, though I did not feel that way at all.
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