Sulphur on 24/7/2010 at 06:32

---

Oh, definitely a spammer if the thread he/she's created is anything to go by. Clever way to phrase a shill as a question, but a shill is a shill. Also, lalaguide? I mean, what the fuck.

demagogue on 24/7/2010 at 15:26

---

Ok, we finally watched this last night. In the grand scheme, I still think The Prestige is my favorite Nolan movie because the plot was woven tighter and it carried its motif better (e.g., the movie itself structured like a magic act, the way it played with the idea of "doubles", etc), whereas Inception was looser and seemed all it could do to get all the plot bits in; the elevator motif being the closest I think it got to paralleling the plot structure with a concrete element in the story, which is still something. But this was still a very fun movie. Still falling....

If you run with the architect is the screenwriter theory, then it is a nice self-referential touch for at the same time, needing plot holes, needing to cover them up, AND sometimes needing to screw covering them up because holy shit we only have 20 minutes left before we lose him, fuck it, cut to the chase, plot holes be damned, or we'll never get there; which scene of course itself is also covering over the nested-awakenings plot device, where they had to arrange them all very quickly at the end to tie it all up. A nice self-referential touch to recognize that's what Nolan had to do, too.

More specifically on the awakenings device, too, and this is sort of a nerdpick just for fun: the fun thing about nested-dreaming that makes it work is that your experience is going to be re-manufactured for each level, *except* for the "global" senses that aren't deadened by the anesthesia, which is hearing the music and the feeling of falling. So when you feel like falling, that and the music uniquely aren't dreamed (manufactured) feelings, but there's only the one global feeling your real body is having (in the airplane)... At least, that's how they're sold to us as how the device works. They have to be somehow global (unable to be re-manufactured) or one level can never "communicate with" another level. But if they're global and can't be remanufactured, for it to work, than how is it that one dream-level (1, the music and falling in the van) can manufacture it for just its daughter-levels (2, 3, 4)... I guess the way the movie handled it is you *could* manufacture music and falling at one level that applies to lower levels, but each level you went deadened the feeling a little more (so you still got just the avalanche in 3 from the van falling in 1 but nothing more, but you got weightlessness in 2 from freefall in 1). But now it doesn't matter that the anesthetic doesn't deaden the "real" falling feeling, because after all it's a manufactured falling feeling that's actually doing the work *as if* it were real for its level, so it's actually good that the anesthetic didn't work so we can manufacture falling-feelings and not all globally feel only what's in the plane. A related (possible) glitch is the fact you have to re-use the dream machine in each level to get to a deeper one; it's not clear what the machine is "doing" in the dream, unless it's like a token the machine puts inside itself to operate itself from in there.... Or something. Anyway, because it is such a good plot device (and it was such a good idea to have to keep a character at each level so it wasn't "lost" when you went a level deeper, e.g., as in Existenz), and because of the self-referential kicks, these were at least plot-holes done well and for the right reasons, so you want not only to forgive them but cheer them on.

There's more to say about the Freudian sub-conscious shtick, how each layer deeper gets you closer to your core self and primary motivations, and each layer higher buries it with whatever trappings of civilization and respectability so you can hide your true self even from yourself, and tapping deeper into those motivations has a deeper impact. Might have to rewatch it and think about how that plays out. Obviously Moll is part of that for Cobb's character, and Fischer's relationship with his father for him. It's part of it, but I'd have to think about how (or if at all) the layers above relate to the deeper ones in that respect.

Food for thought ... Basically what one could hope for from a Nolan movie. I liked it.

Stitch on 25/7/2010 at 07:47

---

I'm pretty convinced at this point that Nolan has never spent a weekend in a foreign city falling in love with a girl he barely knew.

Bet he's good at logic puzzles, though!

Angel Dust on 25/7/2010 at 09:40

---

Saw it last night and phew, looks like Stitch beat me to the killjoy punch :p

I liked it well enough as a spectacle, and there were some fantastic scenes individual scenes in it, but it suffered from the problem that almost all of Nolan's films have; they are all head and no heart. That in itself is not a bad thing but unlike say Kubrick (a similar director in that focus if not execution) he doesn't choose or write material completely suited to that. Nolan is, quite frankly, a bit clueless when it comes to creating believably human characters and this meant their plights in this film just became pieces of the mechanical puzzle rather than the emotional heft for all the action.

The dreamscapes of the film where a little bit disappointing too. Initially it was great with little subtle touches of weirdness (the narrowing passage - yeah I'm thinking most of it was a dream) and the outright 'what the hells?' (train) but I expected things to get 'messier' as they delved deeper. Instead it almost went the other way with the 3rd level involving nothing more than a protracted, slightly dull (especially compared to the hallway scene) Bond-like snow assault on a military stronghold. The 4th level was more interesting but still far too neat and literal minded (look it's memory lane) for a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream (?):p

It's interesting reading everyone's theories though. However without an emotional context, or perhaps more accurately with an unconvincing emotional context, it's an empty exercise for me. I would have preferred it if Nolan had ditched the whole guilt-ridden widower plot and just went for a straight heist film, albeit one playing torturous head games with the audience, populated with characters like Eames.

Stitch on 25/7/2010 at 17:48

---

Angel Dust basically nailed it. The movie was consistently watchable and interesting but I didn't really care, I was never sucked in. It was an impressive technical exercise but without any emotional investment in the characters it all just passed by in a blur of exposition and boring gunplay.

And seriously, what was up with all the guns? Dudes are duking it out in dreams and their weapon of choice is the same thing Bluegrime stashes under his bed for protection? There were entire scenes in that movie that could pass as clips from a recent James Bond film, except the James Bond shootouts are probably staged and directed more effectively.

And on that topic: Nolan is a talented guy, but I'm really beginning to think that the language of good direction is not one in which he is comfortably fluent. He's not bad by any stretch, but there's an ease of emotionally manipulating an audience that simply isn't there, the ability to wrap us around his little finger and make us dance is oddly absent. His movies all work, but generally because the ideas and performances are stellar enough to poke through. He's not a hack by any stretch, but something just feels consistently off.

I didn't hate Inception, or even dislike it, really. The movie does a lot of things incredibly well, and the concept--guys performing a heist in dreams within dreams as demons from their subconscious interfere--is cool as hell. But that concept was all but squandered, and other films have mined this territory far more effectively already (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, The Matrix). For a movie that took place largely in dreams, it just seems unforgivable that the sum total of cool weird shit that goes down during the heist is the appearance of the train and the (admittedly awesome) zero G hijinks.

It sounds like I'm ripping this movie a new one and I suppose I am, even though I would give it a (limp) thumbs up overall. But I walked out of the theater oddly unengaged, having spent almost three hours watching a movie that consistently entertained but never really connected. Nolan held me at arm's length throughout and his fantastic ideas flew by, spinning off nothingness.