Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard Director: Christopher Nolan Category: IIB
'You keep telling yourself what you know - but what do you believe? What do you feel?' So asks Mal (Marion Cotillard) of husband Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, below on bed), as she tries, towards the end of Inception, to convince him to turn his back on harsh reality and embrace a dreamscape where they can be together for near-eternity.
The same question could have been lobbed towards director Christopher Nolan. His latest magnum opus is certainly one of the most original and ambitious Hollywood productions in years and is a masterfully crafted and intensely cerebral thriller. But the intellectual and sensory kicks belie a strange emotional emptiness.
Maybe it's because Inception subverts conventions about the way films are normally interpreted and felt. Usually, most films make a lasting impact by demanding viewers excavate subconscious meanings through a conventional narrative, such as the Oedipal issues in all of Ang Lee's films.
But with Inception Nolan has done the opposite: he puts themes that are normally allusions to the forefront, and uses them to drive the complex plot of a clever, science-fiction heist film.
And cleverness is in abundance here. Rather than comparing this film to Nolan's more recent work - such as the last Batman film or the mind-twisting but more human The Prestige - Inception has its kindred spirit in the British director's breakthrough hit, Memento.
Just as the 2000 film plays with time by unfurling its story backwards, Inception plays with space - or, to be exact, the inner space of the human mind, as industrial espionage agents break into people's dreams to steal ideas.