Inception(2010)

Cast : Leonardo Di Caprio, Joseph Gordon Lewitt, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page, Dilleep Rao, Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine.

Plot and Summary:

Inception(2010) is a Sci-Fi Heist thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan. It is about corporate espionage and infiltration and extraction of the subconscious within dreams.The film begins with Cobb crashing into a sea shore , he is taken inside a mansion where he meets an old man who is presumably Sato and the flashback begins.

Dominic  Cobb(played by Leonardo) and Arthur(played by Joseph) play agents who commit corporate espionage by infiltrating and extracting information  from the subconscious by shared dreaming with the subjects. Their current target is Sato( played by  Ken Watanabe), a Japanese business men. They put him through many levels of dream to extract information but he finally finds out he is dreaming and they fail the mission, during their dream Cobb is haunted by many scenes from his past and he meets a projection of his wife. Cobb and their team flee from sato and they plan to scatter for sometime . Sato finds them and gives Cobb an offer to go home , in return he asked for inception to be performed  to his competitor - Robert Fischer( played by Cillian Murphy). Cobb agrees and the plot begins to unravel.

Cobb assembles his team of Arthur and Eames( played by Tom Hardy) a conman and a identity forger. He travels to France to meet his father (played by Michael Caine) and to recruit a new architect  Ariadne( played by Ellen Page) . Cobb and Eames meet Yusuf to formulate a sedative for the multi leveled dreams. Cobb meets many people who dream for 40 hrs each day, the guard there, an old man says to Cobb " They come here to be woken up!, their dream has become their reality, who are you to say otherwise, sir ". Cobb the tries the sedative and starts to dream, we see a glimpse of his dreams and he wakes up confused trying to believe that he has stopped to dream.

Cobb has a troubled past, his character is as such very complex. Though Cobb tries to control himself in many occasions in the dreams he sees his children and his wife the reason for which we see in the later part of the film. Cobb and Mal were struck in a dream world together for decades and  to get his wife out of this states, Cobb plants an idea " your world is not real" in her mind but when they wake up  Mal is still possessed by the idea and she thinks that she has to kill herself to get back to reality. She finally commits suicide in front of Cobb. Cobb is framed for her murder and he flees his country after that. Even though Cobb is not affected by the idea, the years he spent in the dream leads to question his reality. The concept of a totem is introduced in the film,  " an elegant solution to keep track of reality"He desperately tries to bring his mind to reality, he tries to reassure himself from the Todem

Satio also joins the team along with Yusuf, the date of the plan gets sets when Maurice Fischer passes away . Tom Hardy's character is pivotal in planting the idea into Robert's mind. He breaks down the idea into a simple emotional concept -" I will break down my fathers empire - my father wants to be my own mam" . The way they plant this idea is also very realistic, although the concept is in the future it is the most possible way anyone would do it. " the idea will only grow if it seems self generated". They way the implement the concept of planting an idea into a subject's mind is very logical, At the end, the idea seems to be generated by fisher himself, sheer brilliance!

Christopher Nolan's true brilliance in this film is making the sci-fi movie close to reality. They is lot of science involved in this movie, not just scientific concepts but the way they are logically explained is what makes it interesting to watch. The interconnection between the different dreams is beautifully shot, the three dreams are shown in parallel. The first level is Arthur's abduction and the second is hotel room where he himself breaks into his subconscious the the third is a milliary set out in the artic. The scenes when the Van umps and the subsequent levels are in free fall are true genius!

Mal is one of the important characters in the film. Without her I would say the film would just be an intelligent heist. Mal defines Cobb's character in the film, though what we see in the film is just a projection of her. At the last dream when Cobb is struck with Mal he finally realizes the reality and the dream and admits she is just a projection but he cannot forget her.

Cobb and Satio gets struck in Limbo and all others escape, The first scene comes back again and we get the meaning of Satio- Cobb's conversations which takes places many times in the beginning

"I am old man filled with regret, waiting to die alone, you have to come here to remind me of something "your world is not real",to convince me to honor our arrangement, to take a leap of faith so that we could be young men again,Come back".

At the end of the film when Cobb meets his kids at home. He spins the top for one last time, just to check if he is really in the real world. The scene cuts out before it topples (May be the ending was just part of the limbo who knows!)

Verdict:

2015 marks 5 years of inception. When it for released in 2010 it was considered as on of the best Sci-Fi movies of all times. Christopher Nolan went on to make many more afterwards - Interstellar which was a blockbuster.The film is based on Lucid dreaming and most of the scientist agree with the concepts in the film are really possible .
The music is one of the reason for the success of the film. Done by Hans Zimmer, it is one of his best . the film won many academy awards for sound mixing, visual effects and background score.The action sequences are another highlight in the film. Mainly the ones which happens in zero gravity. The conception is so real,
Hope Nolan gives much more like this one in the future!