BWOMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPP!!!!! BWOOOOMMMMMMMPPPPPPPP!!!!
Simply realizing the fact that that particular sound effect is the slowed down horn blares from the start of Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Regrette Rien" is enough to have me hooked on Inception peeling away its many layers viewing after viewing (after viewing).
I am a true dyed in the wool Nolan junkie. Admittedly, only since the "cage rattling" Batman Begins. For some odd reason, in 2001 -- the fateful year of Memento and Nolan's MTV Best New Film Maker Award (whatever happened to that category... it was good!) -- I became oddly angry with Nolan. Obviously I don't know the man, have no say in what is nominated for Academy Awards, and my anger actually had nothing to do with him but with, well, ballot categorization. When Nolan's Memento screenplay nomination came in the original category despite countless articles throughout the year saying it was based on a short story written by his brother -- well, I knew that meant Akiva was getting an Oscar and Wes Anderson wasn't. Mr. Nolan took the heat for that during my Award Season frenzy. This is what I do. My prediction, of course, came true. Akiva won. Wes Anderson lost. Ah! But so did Nolan.
Gosford Park took Original Screenplay: frankly, who can argue with that? My anger subsided.
Then came Insomnia and interesting remake. Then came Batman Begins -- excellent. Then the highly under-rated The Prestige -- whose fate was sadly befuddled by the simultaneous release of the far lesser Illusionist. Both films seem to have fused into an odd set of disliked magical siamese twins that have thrown down a hate filled well never to be rescued. But The Prestige is excellent.
The Prestige was not the work of some random director who had been tapped to take over a major comic book franchise. It was an announcement of epic greatness and a career that would be filled with twists and turns -- all of which we could assume would be filmed with the utmost precision, starring Michael Caine, and hopefully the occasional Bowie appearance. Honestly, people, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Hall, Michael Caine, Andy Serkis, David Bowie, and magic? You think I didn't go hog wild?
The Dark Knight will get its own essay at some point -- if only to talk about how Heath Ledger's sexiest moment on film may have been in a nurse's outfit. It needs to be addressed.
And then...
BWOOOMMMMMMMPPPPPPP!!! BWOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPP!!!!
Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio starred in two films this year where he may have been losing his mind due to the fact that his now dead wife had lost hers. Amazingly, the Scorsese film proved the lesser of the two.
Waking on the shores of deep subconscious finding the man you'd lost in dreamland so many psychic years -- but so few minutes ago. Diving directly into a dream within a dream. Marion Cotillard is already dead. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (just give me a break over how much I love this guy) is already skeptical. Lukas Haas is barely keeping it together one layer up as the riotous subconscious battles through the streets, tearing the streets on the way to Ken Watanabe's love den to shreds. And then...
Splash! And in that splash the Stanley Kubrick-ness of this film was immediately revealed. Show me the difference between the torrents of blood pouring from the Overlook's elevator bank and the water sloshing around the betubbed DiCaprio. This was no Kubrick film -- of course not. But the approach to the rattling and shattering was pure Shining. History will prove that any time you use the Jack Nicholson solution to a DiCaprio dilemma, you are making the right choice. Hell, Leo's doing it himself. Why not iron out the film in precisely the same way?
The layers, intricacies, explanations, self-explanatory phenomenon, and ultimate mystery are those of an epic masterpiece. Throw in Tom Hardy (heavens), Cillian Murphy, and perhaps the only woman in the world -- besides Kate Winslet -- who can hold her own against Leo and you've got yourself a deal. What man wouldn't rip his mind to pieces over Marion Cotillard and the possibility that he might -- even if only in a dream -- be able to reunite with her? Oh, and the man is the dream expert? Sold.
It's a hard sell to many: I know. I completely understand those who consider it flimsy, ludicrous, deserving of a "South Park" parody. I'm on the other side of the coin, folks. I think it deserves the Academy Award for best Original Screenplay -- which, as anyone who knows me knows, is what I consider the award.
"I hate trains." You enter the dreamland -- train crashes into you.
"My wife jumped off a ledge." Oh really? I didn't see her hit the ground.
You visited a man who blends the smoothest sleep narcotics in the world -- and I never get to see your totem complete it's spin.
You battle through the tundra better than the greatest episode of G.I. Joe to land at a safe with the world's simplest contents.
Joseph Gordon Levitt dances through zero gravity mayhem neatly tucking The Matrix into the action sequences of yesteryear all while a truck takes an excruciatingly slow Kubrickian tumble from a bridge.
And then the top never topples -- and isn't that Moll's, anyway?
Mr. Nolan -- you had me at bwomp. (Sniff!) You had me at BWOMP!!!!
Nerds and fanboys alike (is there a difference?) will debate forever -- with ample evidence on all sides -- whether DiCaprio was in the dream the whole time. Whether he got stuck in the final dream. Whether he got trapped halfway through the movie. Whether his wife is dead. Whether she was right and is at home waiting for him. It's all possible. All the material is there.
There will be Batman films. We know that. But honestly, folks... what the heck else is this guy going to do? He's just getting started!
- Matthew J. McCue
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