Inception! Fascinating! (No spoilers)

Have you ever been out wandering around the country, with lush green pastures and a cool blue sky to keep you company? Have you been so engrossed while watching the trees and birds and flowers that you lost your way but still did not panic, as you were simply happy taking in the calmness of your surroundings? After a long long while, has the feeling of being lost registered finally? Have you craved to get back, only to see a thunderstorm approaching you with all its ferocity? Have you hidden in the first hut you laid your eyes on, and breathed a sigh of relief? Have you then realized that the hut has several animal skins and skulls spread around it? And then have you heard strong rapping on the door and been frightened to death? And have you tried to scream, only to realize that…..

Your mom is trying to wake you up in the morning by banging on your bedroom door!!!

Yes, you guessed right. Welcome to the world of dreams, my friends. A world so charming, yet deceptive, so alive, yet unreal, or at least that’s what we are made to believe.

The movie, Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan, professes otherwise. It says, rather convincingly, that our dreams represent our sub-conscious, and our sub-conscious does affect our conscious decisions all the time! All the main characters in the movie are, so to speak, ‘dream merchants’, meant most literally. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, brilliant) and his gang specialize in entering people’s dreams to ‘extract’ information that is otherwise impossible to obtain. They do make good money out of it, but also face the dire consequences of meddling with the human subconscious. Cobb especially, has had to pay a very heavy price, rendering unfit his capabilities of designing the places in dreams.

Yes, so advanced is this occupation of extraction via dreams is that it needs an architect to design imaginary places wherein the dream will take place (you can’t use real places because then, your memories will meddle with your dreams), a chemist to appropriately sedate the one whose dreams are to be explored, a researcher and a few helpers, if any. The film is about Cobb, leading one such team, and trying not to extract but to plant an idea into a target’s mind – in return for his own redemption.

Christopher Nolan definitely does succeed in weaving an intricate yarn of a story, with threads spooling in multiple layers – yes, the extractors, or should I say inceptors, also generate dreams within dreams, so as to buy more time, or change some things in the dreams, and so on. Although it sounds confusing, not for one moment do you get bored, and you are always glued to the seat trying to put two and two together.

The most creditable thing about the movie is that, although it’s about dreams and inception, and stuff that mostly fits into the science fiction category, it does not waver from logic, or create situations just because it is science fiction!

Certain ideas are absolutely brilliant, such as having to carry a totem, or a self-made object while entering a dream, to help you distinguish between dreams and reality. Not only that, the totem has been brilliantly used in the climax sequence as well.

The direction is awesome, and the editing is crisp. The cast have supported the script extremely well. There is really nothing to complain about the movie!

If you are itching for an intelligent, well-made movie that will make you think, go for Inception.

If you are not, go for it nevertheless, it will provide some very good entertainment!

Signal: Green all the way! Go explore your dreams!!!