Posts tagged as "movie"
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]
21 July 2010 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/840425286
![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]](http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5pmcsxMNo1qzz7axo1_500.jpg)
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]
18 July 2010 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/824346862
This might be the only time I’ll ever reblog something I wrote for Pelikula (although I sure hope not), so I beg you indulge me in this rare instance of self-aggrandizement. I just love this film so much that I cannot not have my thoughts on it recorded on my own blog as well. I’m not sure if that even makes sense. But what I’m trying to say is, I really love this film. Did I mention that I love this film?
Anyway, it may be of interest for you to know that I took the title of my rave review from one of John Keats’s letters to Fanny Brawne:
I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me up. But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, ‘twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures.
Bedewed with Pleasures
by Aldrin Calimlim
Bright Star (2009)
D: Jane Campion
S: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider
I’m not particularly good with poetry. My attempts at understanding poems (the supposedly great ones, at least), let alone composing them, have invariably ended with me scratching my head, exhausted and plagued with prosodic perplexities. Those I did understand, although very remotely, were either explained to me by reading guides or by my uncle who used to read poems, such as William Cullen Bryant’s Thanatopsis and William Earnest Henley’s Invictus, to me when I was only a curious little sponge. Something about the restrictive nature of poems, the significance of their rhymes (or absence thereof), and their tendency towards abrupt diversions makes them a particularly tough nut to crack, so tough in fact that once upon a time I indefinitely swore off making a stab at a poem that is more than four verses long. However, after watching Jane Campion’s biopic of John Keats, one of the most celebrated poets in history, at least twice, I see that pact I made with myself finally has to be broken.Like one of Keats’s most famous compositions, Endymion, which begins with the statement, “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” Campion’s film, Bright Star, opens with a sequence that evokes the same sentiments contained in that famous line and also serves to portend the allurement of the rest of the film: a needle, a piece of thread, and a hand delicately making stitches, not unlike the way a poet weaves words. The hand belongs to Frances “Fanny” Brawne (Abbie Cornish), a fashion student, the girl next door who falls deeply in love with John Keats (Ben Whishaw), resulting in an ill-fated romance that is the focus of the film.
Admittedly, there’s not much of a plot to speak of. It’s just John and Fanny being smitten with each other and all these forces trying to keep them apart both in distance and affection. There’s the cynical Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider), John’s closest friend and colleague who disapproves of their relationship, arguing that it will no doubt take away his freedom and get in the way of his writing. There’s the times they live in, amongst people who deem John, who lives in penury on account of his indebtedness and his books selling very poorly, unsuited to marry Fanny. And then there’s John’s growing illness, a bad case of tuberculosis that would later claim his life at the young age of 25, leaving Fanny utterly devastated. Granted, it’s a plain story, but the manner in which it is told is anything but.
What Campion, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director of The Piano, and her troupe managed to come up with here is a masterpiece so richly acted it almost plays out like an enactment of a lengthy poem based on the last three years of John Keats. She makes the pre-Victorian era characters in her film recite odes and sonnets every ten minutes or so, but in the more dominant instances when they don’t, they speak so impeccably it’s as though they’re composing dialogical poems as they go along. More than anything, it’s a tribute to the talents at work that their acting and delivery appear to come as naturally as “leaves to a tree.” Cornish and Whishaw are especially commendable, one complementing the other as they, through conversations, poems, letters, dances, kisses, and stares, deal with the longing and exhilaration that are rooted in an obsessive, but nonetheless real, romantic relationship.
On a more technical level, not since Joe Wright’s Atonement caught me enamored in its grandeur have I seen such attention to detail as in Bright Star. Greig Fraser’s breathtaking cinematography, Janet Patterson’s dazzling production and costume design, and Mark Bradshaw’s unobtrusive score work together to augment the film’s poetic quality. To give you an idea as to how subtly beautiful, lyrical even, Bright Star is, I cite a couple of scenes that I think stand out above the rest: the scene where the lovers enjoy an afternoon stroll by the river park (a splendid recreation of George Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte if I ever saw one) and the scene where Fanny sits and reads one of John’s letters in the middle of a meadow filled with bluebells (shown above, it later became part of the cover art for the Vintage Classics collection of some of the best poems and letters by the poet, a book that I will no doubt grab the first chance I get). Campion, in telling the story of a great Romantic poet, ended up being a Romantic artist herself.
Bright Star took its title from John’s sonnet about Fanny, which begins with those two words, a fitting description of the former for the latter. I remember having encountered that poem in the distant past and, it being more than four verses long, I didn’t give it much thought, because as I have said in the beginning of this review and like Fanny in the beginning of the film, I was, is, not very bright with poetry. So during the scene when Fanny asked John how to properly understand a poem, I just had to pay attention to his answer: “A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.” Surely, we all could use a bit of mystery in our lives. And John Keats could very well have been talking to me.
30 January 2010 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/361262590
27 January 2010 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/356266254
This poor but awesome guy’s latest film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which stars the late and great Heath Ledger, who died two years ago today, screening in 3… 2… 1… Gah.
22 January 2010 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/347263294
© 2009-2010
Written by Aldrin Calimlim
Published by Tumblr, Inc.
