Classic Film Review #33: Inception
My relationship with the works of Christopher Nolan has always been interesting. Whilst I enjoy the narrative stylings of some of his films (such as Dunkirk), I often find that I’m not able to immerse myself in a lot of his other work. To me, Nolan has always been more interested in shocking and confusing the viewer than getting them to emotionally resonate with the story at hand.
Enter, Inception. The film I believe perfectly embodies all of his weakest and strongest traits, simultaneously.
The construction of the film’s narrative is often its main talking point, with Nolan constantly cutting between three different layers of dreams whilst three different parts of the plot play out at once. Essentially a huge chunk of the film is like watching the world’s most complicated heist movie. The characters are constantly spouting out exposition whilst we as viewers are barely understanding it.
Perhaps that’s a little harsh. For a film with this much going on at once, I actually feel like Nolan explains the rules fairly well. It’s not insanely difficult to follow and the three layers of dreams having their own unique colour palette does definitely help.
However, despite it not being too hard to follow, that doesn’t change the fact that most of what’s happening is just plain dull. As previously mentioned, this film is packed to the brim with exposition. I think a lot of people forget that the first hour of the movie is mostly comprised of Leo DiCaprio and co sat around tables in grey suits explaining all these ludicrous rules to the audience (the urge to check my phone during these sequences was very strong). And here lies my main problem with the film: It’s not interesting.
Unfortunately, for me this movie has absolutely no character. There are no interesting visuals, everything is that usual Nolan grey, people engage with each other like robots, everyone is talking rather than doing and we are constantly forced to play catch-up. For a film that’s all about dreams, it very rarely feels like we are immersed in one. If you think about any dream you’ve ever had, did they feel anything like this? There is a 2014 Christmas special of Doctor Who that executes this movie’s premise a whole lot better.
This is my main problem with Christopher Nolan. He takes things that should have visual flair (dreams, space exploration, Batman, etc.) and reduces them into feeling devoid of character. But, if you love Christopher Nolan, I really wish I could see what you see.
