Inception- What an idea Sirji!!

"Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange." - Cobb

Imagine you were the director of blockbusters like "Batman Begins", "Prestige", "The Dark Knight" and had reinvented the way people saw cinema through "Memento", would you have it in you to deliver time and again? would you have it in you to do an encore? would you have it in you to live up to the expectations? But thankfully, you and I are not Christopher Nolan, for people expect so much from a movie director. Especially when you have directed the above mentioned movies. Christopher Nolan delivers once again, and how! during the pre production stages, Nolan had given a short brief of his project stating that "Inception" was a sci-fi action thriller "set within the architecture of the mind." We had no idea what he was talking about, and after having witnessed his idea unfold in the big screen we could only exclaim "What an idea sirji!".

"Inception" has the essentials of your just- another- heist- story, where the protagonist is looking for a way out so that he could lead a normal life. But he is lured into the trap for one final job, on a successful completion of which he could go back to live the life he wanted to. He then assembles a team of pioneers in their own specialties and sets about plotting and planning the heist, followed with a large doze of eye-popping action and chase sequences. And here is where the similarity ends, the catch in "Inception" is that the team is not robbing a bank or a casino, or stealing jewels, or a document from a Z-security armed vault. The catch is that they are entering the most secured vaults of all known to man, something impenetrable- The mind. And deep within the recesses of the mind, they leave an idea, an idea that could in Cobb's own words "transform the world and rewrite all the rules". Sounds bizarre does it not? wait till you watch the whole movie.

The movie is set at a time when man has the technology to enter the minds of individuals and steal an idea. Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio) is a mind raider who along with his long time associate Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works for corporations by stealing ideas from the minds of their rivals. For his final job, he is given a proposition by a rich billionaire, Saito (Ken Watanabe) to enter the mind of his rival Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), and do the opposite, to plant an idea in his head that will go on to bring the fall of his Father's empire. In return, Saito would make all the arrangements necessary for Cobb to lead a peaceful retirement with his family. How Cobb goes about forming a team of Eames the Forger (Tom Hardy), Ariadne the Architect (Ellen Page) and Yusuf the Chemist (Dileep Rao), and sets up the bait forms the rest of the story. 

When a mind can be penetrated, it could also be trained to protect itself from these attacks. Within Fischer's mind are his gun totting bodyguards who prevent any sort of break-in and lead to some of the best action sequences choreographed since The Matrix. There are many terms thrown up that make the concept of "mind heist" more meaningful. For example: A "totem" is your own personalized object that acts as an anchor to guide you through your dreamscape, a "kick" is that freefall which wakes you up from your dream, a "limbo" is that state or place of confinement within the dream which is more like a coma in the real world.

Nolan's cast gives a stellar performance, Dicaprio is ably supported by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao and the seasoned Ken Watanabe. Marion Cottilard plays Dicaprio's deceased wife and gives a powerhouse performance, at times bringing out the best in Dicaprio. Michael Caine makes an appearance as Cobb's father-in-law, the man who taught him all, and brings in along with him a sense of a sage like calm and serenity. In recent times, one cannot expect a Christopher Nolan movie without the presence of the wise Mr.Caine. Hans Zimmer's score adds more thrill to the proceedings, an entity in its own right, it keeps you on the edge of your seat. 

But the real star of the show is Christopher Nolan himself, if his debut feature "Following" showcased his potential and the sign of things to come, then a decade and five movies later "Inception" shows that he has only lived upto and has delivered more than what he promised. "Inception" took ten years in the making, what "The Matrix" was to the last decade, "Inception" will be to this era. If Nolan does not win an Oscar for either the screenplay (which he should have for Memento) or the best director next year, the senility of the Academy would only be confirmed.

Nolan engages you as a viewer, he makes you think, he challenges you to come up with a better conclusion. Yes you will find the movie complex, you will find it hard to understand, it will leave you with a lot of questions unanswered. But once you come out of the cinema hall, you cannot help but wonder who planted this idea within Christopher Nolan's mind.

On a Friday

There is something about a Friday that it makes you feel like letting your hair down, you tend to take your own sweet time while doing your work. After the days that have gone by in the week, which often leaves you gasping for breath, Friday Saturday and Sunday is spent recovering from the madness. And you do not want your weekend to be spent worrying about the coming week. You enter office on a Friday hoping that it goes by "accident free" so that you can pass the weekend patting yourself on the back for a job well done. You make plans for calling that old friend whom you always wanted to speak with, but never could because something often comes up. You plan to read that book you always wanted to but you somehow don't, you plan to study for that part-time course you had enrolled yourself into, but you somehow don't. You plan to watch that movie you always wanted to, but you somehow don't. You plan to clean your room, but you somehow don't.

I entered Friday morning at work with a spring in my steps, trying to stifle down that yawn. The whole week to my pleasant surprise had gone incident free, no screw-ups, no escalations, so much so that I had even booked tickets for "Inception" for the coming Sunday, which was another reason for me to do an Irish Tap Dance within my head.. Monday had gone by like a dream, but the unwritten corporate law states : "If Monday goes like a dream, expect your Friday to end like a nightmare". Little did I know that calamities occur even on a Friday.

An hour had gone by since I had logged into my system, it was all working like a charm, I was humming along, listening to Radiohead's "Everything in it's Right Place" the song seemed to fit the occasion when an E-mail pulled me back to Earth with a thud! It was as if someone had knocked the winds out of my sail. The subject of the mail had frightened me enough to not go through the contents of the mail. It was going to be a long Friday. I could hear all my plans for the weekend being flushed down the drain. To know that you are doing a crappy job is something which you would not like to hear at all, especially on a Friday. Shit was falling from the sky and I had no place to take cover.

My world seemed to come crashing down on me, for this is not the first time this was happening. It was deja-vu all over again. I wanted to grab my backpack and run away dodging the security guards, the prying eyes of the spy cam, avoiding the lift and taking the stairs three at a time not caring about whatever was left behind- Job, friends, secret crushes, dreams, ambitions, mobile charger. "Hell I could have new ones!" I told myself. But who the hell was I kidding? Its my mess and I had to clean it up, again. When in trouble you can only do two things, look up to the heavens and ask God on why this is happening? or run through your contact list and call up that good ol' friend and ask him "Why is this happening?". And more often than not, its our friends who come up with the right answer. Right now, I needed someone to talk to. A friend who would say "Chal yaar, chill maar!", someone who would put an arm around my shoulder and say "You need that gilma dvd I was talking about to raise your spirits and what-not?". I pinged an offline friend of mine in G-talk "S.O.S!! Where are you!!?", "They never are there when you need them the most" I declared ruefully. I was looking for any sort of Tibetan Philosophy that would make me feel better, and sometimes its our friends who say these random pearls of nonsensical wisdom that gives us the steel to take the bull by the horns.

The whole of Friday was spent searching for answers, explanations and a water tight process to "arrest" the human errors, and I left office hoping that the storm would die down soon. I was at the station, breathing normally at last going through my contact list in the phone, searching for someone to talk to. But strangely enough, the only people whom I felt would listen to me were the ones whom I had never bothered to call when things were going good. Yet when I called them, I felt like the connection was never broken, that inspite of having not called them all this while, there was something that said that being best of friends does not mean that we had to be in constant touch with each other. It is taking the liberty to not be in touch with them, and yet calling them up one day from out of the blue and picking up from where we had left off. They poked fun at my plight like only the best of friends could do, they advised to hang on tight and fight it out, they came up with pop philosophy that made no sense yet felt good, they poured out their problems which made me take my mind off the ones that I had, they made me believe in myself, and they answered my questions like only a friend can. They were no wise sages nor where they motivational speakers nor were they evangelists. They were bigger than all of these, they were my friends. By the time my call had ended after a good two hours, I could not help but think that would I have really called them had my Friday not been a mess? or would I have just postponed them to yet another date in the calendar?


On a Friday, I had given up all hope. On a Friday, I felt resurrected again. On a Friday I felt all was lost, and yet on a Friday I felt that I had gained a lot more. I may not have read that book which I had always wanted to, I may not have cleaned my room, I may not have gone through the subject books for my part time course, yet I did something which I should have done a long time back. On a Friday I called up my friends.