incepted

[calimac]

I watched the film Inception. I liked it. I liked it because Christopher Nolan has remembered a basic principle of storytelling: complexity in some aspects should be balanced by simplicity in others. The extremely labyrinthine story was told with plain simplicity. Except for a certain fogginess at the beginning, none of which interfered with getting up to speed once the main plot started, there was no point in the story when I did not understand where they were, what was going on, what the characters were doing, and (almost always) why.

Considering that for part of the movie, the characters are split up and/or reduplicated in four (actually five) different worlds, flashed between with great speed, and that each of these worlds moves at a different speed while being complexly related to the others, it was quite amazing that all of that was maintained perfectly clearly.

The basic structure of the plot is quite simple, actually. After the opening setup, the plot is, in fact, that of a caper film. The first half shows the gathering of the team and the creation of the plan. The second half shows its execution. That's what appears to be going on, and it turns out that's what actually is. No tricks.

In fact, my biggest praise is that, despite what could have been great temptation, and the precedents of Memento (which I liked) and The Prestige (which I detested), Nolan entirely declined to provide Inception with the kind of plot twist telling you that everything you previously thought is wrong. Even the twist in the last second of the film is prepared for, and doesn't really have to otherwise affect anything that's previously happened.

The other plot device I was bracing myself for, but which I was delighted to see didn't happen, is that at no point was there anything romantic or sexual between Leonardo DiCaprio's character and Ellen Page's character. She may have a soft spot for him, but it goes no further than that. It's essential to his makeup that he's still in love with his wife and that he stays that way.

Comments

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

I would like to see this film sometime. Maybe when I have more than one day off a week.

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

I found it entertaining, but flawed. I don't think it's "great" - at least not to the degree it's being hyped in the Oscar campaign ("a hundred years from now they'll still be talking about this!"). But it's better than some other attempts at "sophisticated SF" in films.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Did we ever discuss The Prestige? I found the discussion in my own LJ, but you didn't comment there. I'm curious as to what you saw as "the kind of plot twist telling you that everything you previously thought is wrong."

J generally doesn't like non-linear movies, and he liked Inception; your analysis here may explain why.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Except for the flash-forward at the very beginning and a couple tiny in-memory flashbacks, Inception is told in strict chronological order. It's very non-linear, but it's not non-chronological. That helps.

I hated The Prestige so much I've chosen not to write about it much. The only place I said anything other than how much I hated it was in the comments to this post.

I would say that being unexpectedly told, "This character you thought you knew is actually two different characters splitting one identity" and "oh, by the way, this other character has killed himself a hundred times," count as plot twists telling you that everything you previously thought is wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

"This character you thought you knew is actually two different characters splitting one identity"

I mean this with no disrespect to you or anyone else; I'm just asking about your criteria: Does it count as "being unexpectedly told" if some viewers had figured it out earlier in the film? I had that one fairly early on. Your second objected-to point, I didn't have figured out, but it also didn't seem particularly surprising when I found out; I think all the clues were given, that something like that had to be happening.

With films like Nolan's, there's no way that every viewer will figure out everything; and Nolan himself has said that he purposely made the ending of Inception ambiguous. But with any film, my viewpoint is that if some viewers figure out something, or if the director intended for it to be left ambiguous, the film plays fair.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I thought I was logged in.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The kind of unexpected twists I really dislike are the ones where the filmmakers hide them in their very improbability or stupidity. That is, I might think of them, but then I dismiss them because they don't make any sense (or are too improbable or too stupid). Or even I didn't think of them. The Prestige qualifies here, and I allude to my reasoning in the link. I don't want to go into it in any more detail. All of M. Night Shamalama's films, including The Sixth Sense, fail in this manner too.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

OK, there probably would be no point anyway, as we have discovered that we seldom agree on films. But just in general, not addressing any film, for future reference in discussions, I'd really like to know--is

Or even I didn't think of them.

sufficient for you to reject an explanation for a plot point? It appears from your phrasing that it is, but I don't want to assume that.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

There's an "if" missing from my sentence. My fault. The full thought could be rephrased as, "if the explanation doesn't make any sense, or is too improbable, or too stupid, I dislike the twist regardless of whether I thought of the explanation earlier (and dismissed it as not making any sense, or being too improbable, or being too stupid) or didn't think of it (because it didn't make any sense, or was too improbable, or too stupid)."

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Got it. Thanks.

[gold-alarm.livejournal.com]

Why did you detest The Prestige?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Because of the utterly and monumentally stupid, idiotic, and unbelievable plot twists explaining the mysteries. That two men could detest each other enough to devote their entire careers to trying to one-up and embarrass the other is barely believable. That they would perform the extreme self-harms they do in this movie is not, nor that nobody would discover them doing them.