#052 - Inception (2010)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writer: Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan

Runtime: 148 min

There's kind of a sadness in me. No, I was not disappointed with Inception. No, it's not a bad movie. And luckily this time around none of the bright young stars of the movie is tragically gone. It's a little bit different.

Five years ago, I would have said Christopher Nolan was one of my 20 favorite directors. At that point, I had seen Memento and Batman Begins and was pleased with both of them. But then came The Prestige. And then came The Dark Knight. And now Inception. What does this make me think now?

If I heard the title of a movie that's being made and nothing more than that, the one director that would make me most excited to hear pinned to the title is Nolan. Nobody else can eclipse him, at least not right now. And that's not to say I don't get beyond pumped for new movies by Wes Anderson or Darren Aronofsky or David Fincher or Michel Gondry or Paul Thomas Anderson or the Coen Brothers. They're just kind of a group of directors I like to put in section 1B.

1A is Nolan. And it's not because he makes movies with such a well-honed singular style that disregards all the conventions of modern cinema and blazes a path of his own, like the Coen Brothers. And it's not because he's an artist with the camera, like Gondry. And honestly it's not just because he's a wildly intelligent guy and his acumen bursts through all seams of his work and interviews. Really, it's because he's such a brilliant guy who wants to make people think and sort through all the details of his movies with a fine-tooth comb, yet he DOESN'T shun the concepts of the theater that bring people through the doors by the thousands. Michael Bay might be trite and overindulgent, but people still go to see his movies. Millions. Why? Because he embraces the screen. He fills the screen with images and fills the auditorium with sounds that get your heart racing, giving you the two-hour thrill ride you pay $7, $8, $10, $15, $20 for. And Nolan embraces this too. He's totally gung-ho about IMAX because he's positively giddy about the amount of detail he can fit into one frame. The little hairs on your neck? Got 'em. Paint chips on the wall? Got 'em. Drops of water beading on a glass? Got those, too. The "movie" experience is just as salient as the "film" experience, at least for me.

So why does this make me sad?

Here's why: Nolan has explicity stated in several interviews that Inception is his labor of love. The story that he's been working on since he was a teenager when he first got into writing, the idea that he's been hammering out for at least 9 years since he first pitched his script to the studio. In fact, he's said that he took the job directing the Batman movies so that he could learn how to operate on a large-scale movie with an enormous set and all the trappings of a big-budget movie. Those movies were so fantastic yet they were just PRACTICE for him? Insane. Essentially everything he's been doing for the last 15 years has been working towards making Inception. And Inception is a brilliant movie. Brilliant. Ridiculous. The opening is marvelous. And while it's not perfect for every second of its run, the last 25 minutes of the movie are better maybe than any other 25 minutes stretch I've ever seen. That's not a joke. I'm honestly a little bit confused at how people can get lost in this movie. Yes I know it's a complex concept with multiple worlds and dreams-within-dreams, but it's often said in writing that if you (as the author) know the world you're describing, your readers will too, without fail. And I'm quite certain that Nolan knows his world. Backwards and forwards. And the fact that he doesn't present the "rules" of the world in a step-by-step manual is his way of thanking the audience for paying attention. You don't need a list of rules to be able to understand what's going on, he reveals them alongside the story so that everything flows together. The first time I saw this movie, I was in the midst of a fit of vomit and yet I found the story understandable. (Seriously, I threw up 10 minutes in and was fading from some bad dehydration. So I saw it again.)

It's at a point like this, after gushing about the movie, that I kind of want to say it's the best I've ever seen. But you know what? It probably isn't. Movies are inherently limited. Limited by the story itself, limited by their length, limited by the screen they're displayed on. Inception, at least to me, completely maxed out all of its limits. The story is fantastic--but it's not the best story ever written. It'll end up being one of my favorite movies ever, sure. But ONE OF. Not the single best. And that's okay. To appreciate and be utterly impressed by it is enough for me, I don't need to immediately place it on a pedestal just two weeks in. It could grow on me, or it could fade. Either way, it won't change the fact that it floored me--twice in a week.

When I left the theater, other than the inevitable "did the top fall or did it keep spinning" questions (by the way, SICK ending. Very slick. Nolan has mastered the art of the last shot.), the one major thought that was swirling in my head was, "Is this it? Is this the apex?" Nolan is in my opinion the best we have right now, and from everything I've read, this was the best he has. I'm quite certain he'll put out more brilliant movies, but will he ever be able to top this? I know what it's like to have ideas, to have ideas for stories that you want to build, you have THE ONE that's always at the top, always the ideal scenario, you're always tweaking, and then below that you have THE OTHERS. They're good, sure, and you love them, but they're not the one. And from what I've been hearing, this is the one for Nolan. Will he become satisfied? Will he move to be more experimental? It kind of makes me worry. It kind of makes me sad.

It's a bizarre feeling to leave a movie that thrilled you from start to finish and feel sad.

In a way, I kind of hope to feel it again.

I know this wasn't a true review of the film. But I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about something that was on my mind. And no review of the film will do it any justice. So just know that I suggest you go see it. And if you don't like it, that's okay. But it will be more than worth it for those of you who do.