The Inception

2010_7_16 Inception
Cathy and I saw “Inception” today, deciding to see it, a movie that needed to be seen on the big screen, rather than “I Am Love,” with Tilda Swinton, a film that would be fine to see on DVD. “’Inception” throws so much at you so quickly and unrelentingly for two and a half hours that I was so busy just coping with all the words and material coming at me, sometime in pell-mell fashion, that I had little time to reflect on what I was taking in. There was plenty of violence in the movie but it was incongruous, that is, it was dream-like: there were a lots of noise and bullets flying hither and yon, but rarely was anyone hit and if they are you needed worry because almost everybody wakes up alive. In fact, on the lower levels of dream-work, you wake up by being shot or otherwise shocked. Many of the dying people in the movie are someone else’s projection. There is little blood and it is all dream action, a grinding away with no real harm done. The only exception to this rule is Moll (Marion Cotillard) who is the wifely-succubae who haunts Don Cobb (Leonardo DeCaprio.) She is a specter who taunts and prods him with guilt and a hungry love and longing that won’t quit. He has a few helpers and a man he works for (Ken Watanabe) who wants Cobb to use the ‘inception technique’ to undermine a corporation gaining too much power, which sounds like typical industrial espionage as far as I can see. He means to plant the seed of an idea in someone’s mind which gives an “extractor,” an opportunity to share the dream space and the secret coves in the mind now penetrable and available to outsiders. Ellen Page is the architect, someone who structures the dream context who develops insight into Cobb and his travail with his dead wife. He goes to dream depths, which is risky business, because he wants to get back to his two kids. The industrialist who encounters his dead father in a dream comes out of it saying “He wanted me to do my own thing,” which is not exactly a startling insight. In fact, I thought it was terribly feeble and flat.
As for the technical aspect of the film, it is dazzling and totally gripping. Shit is flying all over the place, via explosions of various sorts, gravity is suspended, people float and fight, streets fold up and fold over other streets, and the human beings in the scenes sit calmly in cafes, as if none of this minute dematerialization of matter and flying shrapnel has anything to do with their sipping of coffee. Much of the illusionary power of the film resides in the skill and convincibility of those scenes, despite their obvious dream character, as the actual dreamer’s silent participation as an acolyte of the “extractor”-- at moments as a partner in crime. The scenarios invented and memories reinvented are large scale and spectacular: two dreamers out run an avalanche, a van plunging toward the river off a bridge and it takes 10 minutes for the vehicle to hit the water and many other risk-laden dream fantasies.
So all and all the movie is fun and quite diverting, but I would question the depth of its message. All the chatter about their dream-travel, understanding, and visitations, and believe me, there is a lot of chatter about confusing ideas, that eventually sounded like sophomoric prattle to me. It made my head swim and my head ache. There is a proliferation of ideas in the narrative and a kind of crossfire format with ideas about time and memory bouncing off each other with only a promise of being something beyond articulated Grand Fantasy.

Charles Krauthammer surprised me today by warning Republicans Obama has accomplished quite a bit in 18 months, including a Health Care Bill that can be built on, which makes his presidency historic right off the bat, which has initiated a massive redistribution of wealth; passed a major financial reform bill which has given the government unprecedented power in the market place; the third biggie is the stimulus bill which neared $1 trillion dollars, which he calls the largest stimulus bill in American history; and a number of smaller scale changes that were the president agenda. He has many critical comments to make to but he does say that Obama “is underappreciated by his own side.” He calls the past 18 months the end of Act One
Act Two will hinge on massive regulation of energy economy, Federalizing higher education, and comprehensive immigration reform. Krauthammer thinks the president doesn’t care about the congressional outcome in November because even if the Republicans gain massively it would help his reelection in 2012. And it is true that Democrats are peeved at Obama because he hasn’t done much to aid democrat’s reelection. I find it hard to believe he would slough off Congress, as if they are not his partners when it comes to passing bills.
Chris Cillizza of the Wash. Post thinks the Republicans could possibly pick up 8 states in contested states. The sure bets are North Dakota and Delaware; and Indiana and Arkansas are in a strong position. The states considered in play are Illinois, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Those hard to wrest from the Demos would be California, Connecticut, Washington and Wisconsin, although some GOP prognosticators imagine winning all 12 states, which hasn’t happened since 1980 and Ronald Reagan. But they are dreaming about that. For example, just today indications are that Harry Reid is now 7 points up on Sharon Angle in the Nevada race for the senate. The general public is beginning to understand where her head is at and they aren’t impressed. I think the GOP is overly optimistic about the off-year election. They will make gains but not as many as they think. They are engaging in a lot of wishful thinking.