Posts tagged christopher nolan

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Time
Hans Zimmer
Inception (2010)

Words by Aldrin Calimlim
Illustration by Rob Cham

I can already imagine the compilers and editors of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die rushing to deliberate which film to boot off their current list to make way for Inception in the book’s next edition. Now this may all sound a bit hyperbolic, but I assure you that my apparently feverish excitement over the film is not at all unfounded. I am most certainly not alone in thinking that Inception is one of the best films, science fiction or otherwise, to come out in years.

I’ve seen it twice, and my mind was no less blown on one occasion than on the other. If anything, the film becomes more and more engaging with every viewing, which, concurrent to answering some or all of the questions that were formed in one’s mind during and after the previous viewing, sprouts even more brain-teasing ones. One wonders if Christopher Nolan had the Penrose infinite staircase, a three-dimensional representation of which appears in the film during a dream (for where else can a three-dimensional version of the object exist?), in that brilliant mind of his all the while he was writing Inception. His is a thinking man’s film that does not only require multiple viewings; it deserves them. His is a story with so much daring and so much cunning that it has managed to set minds abuzz and ablaze with intelligent discussions that run the gamut from the profoundly philosophical to the tremendously technical, in-depth analyses that are, outside of the recently concluded Lost and, to a lesser degree, Harry Potter, unprecedented.

Probably the hottest topic of discussion among those who’ve seen Inception is the now famous final scene, an ending showing the protagonist’s totem or personal indicator of the fidelity of his surroundings, an object that tells him whether he is in a dream or in reality. His object is a stylized top which when spun while in a dream, filled with impossible inertia, doesn’t stop rotating, but when spun in the real world behaves as expected, bowing to the laws of physics and ultimately falls and stops spinning. The debate stems from the fact that just when one thinks Dom Cobb, the protagonist, has finally reached the happy ending he desperately wants and deserves, one sees the scene panning to his totem, slowly revealing it as spinning wildly as though stationary, until it begins to wobble, and then… the scene cuts to black. One groans, then lets out a succession of wows, then claps, then contemplates for an indefinite amount of time this feat of legerdemain of an ending.

The gravity of this final scene is augmented by Hans Zimmer’s excellent piece called Time, which is also the final track in the original motion picture soundtrack album, the composer’s best since, well, last year’s idiosyncratic and playful Sherlock Holmes film score. Like the other tracks in the Inception score, the enigmatically and aptly titled Time is, true to the film’s main narrative device, suggestive of an altered state of consciousness, underscoring the dreamlike quality of the scene it plays over, besides being an amalgam of Paul Oakenfold’s ambience and Michael Giacchino’s breadth. The track also serves as the leitmotif of the film score, lending credence to the film’s obsession with the flow of time and its attendant hopes and illusions.

Time starts off slow as Cobb nods to his colleagues who helped him succeed in his last mission and prepares to make his way home, then it crescendoes in true Hans Zimmer fashion with a rise and fall in intensity, emotional and melodic both, and then suddenly becomes soft and silent, a meditation of the titular abstract concept as Cobb is finally reunited with his family, leading to a final, jarring and vaguely melancholy fall-off that coincides with the aforementioned cut-to-black effect, in turn signifying that the top neither stops spinning nor topples, that at that exact point in time, time itself is rendered irrelevant.

For Cobb, in that moment, there is only the now. It’s his wish to be with what’s left with his once complete and happy family again, to start over. It’s where he has finally found himself in. It is, in a manner of speaking, his dream. But also, in that moment, Cobb realizes he’s finished biding his time. He’s through battling his messed-up memories, simultaneously persistent and volatile. In the end, totem or no continuously spinning totem, it may as well be, for all intents and purposes, his reality. I’ve seen the movie twice, and I could swear that right after the scene is blacked out, there’s the sound of a stylized top tottering and ultimately falling. Like a wizened character said early on in the film, “Who are you to say otherwise?”

[reblogged from pelikula, for great justice]

pelikula

Inception (2010) D: Christopher Nolan S: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page As was my wont in most screenings I had gone to, I walked into Inception carrying four fingers of Kit Kat and a tetra pack of Chuckie. In each of the past screenings where I brought them in lieu of the more common popcorn and soft drink tandem, I ended up consuming them less than fifteen minutes into the film. Inception ran for 148 minutes, and within that relatively long period neither taking a break with my chocolate-covered cream-filled wafers nor taking a choco-bursting sip of my chocolate drink crossed my mind. In retrospect, how could either act possible have done so? When your mind is being messed with by an unusually mind-bending film, there’s no room for such delicious chocolatey prospects. Inception is that rare film which makes even the most dedicated chocolate fiend forget about his sweet tooth even when a couple of chocolate snack items are within his reach while watching it. In other words, Inception is so damn good. Now that my weak, but sensible, attempts at chocolate metaphors are thankfully done and over with, allow me to try a different sort and then elucidate: Inception is a matryoshka doll of a film, its primary conceit being one which evokes the Edgar Allan Poe poem, A Dream Within A Dream. Most of the scenes in the film take place, as one of its several taglines declares, in “the architecture of the mind,” and its protagonist, Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo Caprio with echoes of his tormented character in Shutter Island), must take advantage of this architecture, to wit, the very nature and design of dreams, to accomplish with a special team of “dream invaders” his eponymous mission: to implant a critical idea into a person’s subconscious—or more specifically, sub-sub-subconscious. Admittedly, this concept of multi-layered communal dreaming, not without its own set of rules, may be difficult to follow at first, giving rise to apparent plot inconsistencies, but for the attentive and perceptive viewer the rewards are extremely gratifying. Like a well-crafted nesting doll, Inception is a creation in which surprises abound. Almost every twist and turn of Inception is fueled by references to Jorge Luis Borges’s works. The main setting itself, the universe of dreams and their labyrinthine confines (indeed, as writer and director Christopher Nolan named the “dream architect” after Ariadne, who, in classical mythology, helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur’s maze), is unmistakably Borgesian, practically begging the film’s viewers to consider questions about reality and choice while witnessing with pulses racing and jaws agape an entire city fold in upon itself and men in suits defy the laws of physics in the complex manner of M.C. Escher and Stanley Kubrick. And yet for all its mirroring of other artists’ sensibilities, Inception is also obviously a film made by no less than Mr. Nolan. Insulated from its moral and philosophical leanings, Inception is still an excellently choreographed actioner, belonging to a category of movies that has been elevated to new heights by Nolan with The Dark Knight. Inception is essentially a heist film where the robbers stick up someone’s mind rather than someone’s vault, where their object of pursuit is abstract rather than material. Inception is a high-speed caper that really holds its audience’s intelligence in high regard. At film’s end, surely the most effective cut-to-black flourish in years, members of the audience are made to realize they’ve just snapped out of a two-and-a-half-hour multileveled shared dream designed by Christopher Nolan, a true architect of the mind if ever I’ve seen one. And like any other dream that is particularly good and exciting, it’s one I imagine most people who’ve seen it will want to have again. I know I do. Next time, though, I won’t bother with the chocolates. Endorphin rush? The film, masterful and mind-blowing, already has that covered. [image via Pelikula Tumblr]

Inception (2010)
D: Christopher Nolan
S: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page

As was my wont in most screenings I had gone to, I walked into Inception carrying four fingers of Kit Kat and a tetra pack of Chuckie. In each of the past screenings where I brought them in lieu of the more common popcorn and soft drink tandem, I ended up consuming them less than fifteen minutes into the film. Inception ran for 148 minutes, and within that relatively long period neither taking a break with my chocolate-covered cream-filled wafers nor taking a choco-bursting sip of my chocolate drink crossed my mind. In retrospect, how could either act possible have done so? When your mind is being messed with by an unusually mind-bending film, there’s no room for such delicious chocolatey prospects. Inception is that rare film which makes even the most dedicated chocolate fiend forget about his sweet tooth even when a couple of chocolate snack items are within his reach while watching it. In other words, Inception is so damn good.

Now that my weak, but sensible, attempts at chocolate metaphors are thankfully done and over with, allow me to try a different sort and then elucidate: Inception is a matryoshka doll of a film, its primary conceit being one which evokes the Edgar Allan Poe poem, A Dream Within A Dream. Most of the scenes in the film take place, as one of its several taglines declares, in “the architecture of the mind,” and its protagonist, Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo Caprio with echoes of his tormented character in Shutter Island), must take advantage of this architecture, to wit, the very nature and design of dreams, to accomplish with a special team of “dream invaders” his eponymous mission: to implant a critical idea into a person’s subconscious—or more specifically, sub-sub-subconscious. Admittedly, this concept of multi-layered communal dreaming, not without its own set of rules, may be difficult to follow at first, giving rise to apparent plot inconsistencies, but for the attentive and perceptive viewer the rewards are extremely gratifying. Like a well-crafted nesting doll, Inception is a creation in which surprises abound.

Almost every twist and turn of Inception is fueled by references to Jorge Luis Borges’s works. The main setting itself, the universe of dreams and their labyrinthine confines (indeed, as writer and director Christopher Nolan named the “dream architect” after Ariadne, who, in classical mythology, helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur’s maze), is unmistakably Borgesian, practically begging the film’s viewers to consider questions about reality and choice while witnessing with pulses racing and jaws agape an entire city fold in upon itself and men in suits defy the laws of physics in the complex manner of M.C. Escher and Stanley Kubrick.

And yet for all its mirroring of other artists’ sensibilities, Inception is also obviously a film made by no less than Mr. Nolan. Insulated from its moral and philosophical leanings, Inception is still an excellently choreographed actioner, belonging to a category of movies that has been elevated to new heights by Nolan with The Dark Knight. Inception is essentially a heist film where the robbers stick up someone’s mind rather than someone’s vault, where their object of pursuit is abstract rather than material. Inception is a high-speed caper that really holds its audience’s intelligence in high regard.

At film’s end, surely the most effective cut-to-black flourish in years, members of the audience are made to realize they’ve just snapped out of a two-and-a-half-hour multileveled shared dream designed by Christopher Nolan, a true architect of the mind if ever I’ve seen one. And like any other dream that is particularly good and exciting, it’s one I imagine most people who’ve seen it will want to have again. I know I do. Next time, though, I won’t bother with the chocolates. Endorphin rush? The film, masterful and mind-blowing, already has that covered.

[image via Pelikula Tumblr]

The Prestige is a film set in Victorian era London, where performing magicians enjoy a certain prestige that matches that of the sex symbols of our time. But that prestige is not where the film took its title. The eponymous “prestige” is the Prestige: the third part of every magic trick. As stated in the movie’s theatrical trailer, “Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called “The Pledge”; The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”; The magician makes his ordinary something do something extraordinary. Now if you’re looking for the secret… you won’t find it, that’s why there’s a third act called, “The Prestige”; this is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.” You’d think this is just a popcorn movie where the magicians do their magic and the audience, the ones in the movie and the ones that are not, are left dumbfounded and wondering how the tricks could have possibly been done, and something goes wrong along the way just to give rise to a conflict to be resolved in the end. But, as the National Geographic Channel would advise, think again. In fact, that’s exactly what a discriminating viewer would do for the minutes and hours and days to come after watching the movie. Think and think again. The film really is as cerebral as it is movie-magical. With Memento and Batman Begins mastermind Christopher Nolan at the helm and with extraordinary performances from Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and the inimitable David Bowie, the film itself makes for a great magic trick to behold, with its heart-pounding climax making for a powerful prestige. Watch closely.

The Prestige is a film set in Victorian era London, where performing magicians enjoy a certain prestige that matches that of the sex symbols of our time. But that prestige is not where the film took its title. The eponymous “prestige” is the Prestige: the third part of every magic trick.

As stated in the movie’s theatrical trailer, “Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called “The Pledge”; The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”; The magician makes his ordinary something do something extraordinary. Now if you’re looking for the secret… you won’t find it, that’s why there’s a third act called, “The Prestige”; this is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.”

You’d think this is just a popcorn movie where the magicians do their magic and the audience, the ones in the movie and the ones that are not, are left dumbfounded and wondering how the tricks could have possibly been done, and something goes wrong along the way just to give rise to a conflict to be resolved in the end. But, as the National Geographic Channel would advise, think again. In fact, that’s exactly what a discriminating viewer would do for the minutes and hours and days to come after watching the movie. Think and think again. The film really is as cerebral as it is movie-magical.

With Memento and Batman Begins mastermind Christopher Nolan at the helm and with extraordinary performances from Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and the inimitable David Bowie, the film itself makes for a great magic trick to behold, with its heart-pounding climax making for a powerful prestige.

Watch closely.