SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL TOO
Tightly knit genre films appear to have revitalised Martin Scorsese, last seen reeling under the burden of overblown epics.
JUL 18, 2010 – AMONGST THE MORE SURPRISING and satisfying developments in recent cinema is Martin Scorsese’s self-imposed (or perhaps studio-imposed) confinement into the strictures of genre. Where the director once roamed free and loose inside the minds of memorably flawed men, he’s now submitted to the tightness of the leash – and it’s the best thing that’s happened to him in ages. Working with simpatico writers like Paul Schrader and simpatico performers like Robert De Niro, Scorsese’s films, once, were epic in ambition and achievement, simultaneously heavy and light, sinking under existential weight and soaring on kinetic filmmaking. But his overt stabs at epics, of late, have been frustrating – more spectacle than spirit. Gangs of New York and The Aviator certainly had their fill of memorable moments, but you couldn’t shake off the sense that the only thing propping them up was the frantic filmmaking, and that without Scorsese’s exertions, they would crumble into nothingness.
The Departed gave the feeling that thinking small, within the confines of genre, had revitalised Scorsese. He had found the perfect material to showcase his ever-increasing flamboyance, just heavy enough to warrant a major director’s participation and yet just light enough to accommodate show-offy pyrotechnics. Shutter Island confirms this feeling. This, too, is basically a ballsy B-movie, boxed into a beginning-middle-end arc (though, in the spirit of Godard, not necessarily in that order), and the sturdiness of the underlying structure allows Scorsese to focus his formidable skills solely on narrative propulsion. (And that, of course, is paramount in a plot-driven – as opposed to character-driven – paradigm.)
With The Departed and Shutter Island, it isn’t so much about mental interiors as physical exteriors – both in terms of the terrains that these films are set in as well as the stylistic, genre-specific tropes they deliberately employ to thrilling effect. (Shutter Island, for instance, opens in the 1950s, and the matte visuals, showcased in high-contrast cinematography, are as obvious an homage as the Vertigo-staircase. And like the latter, this too is about the investigation of a woman’s “disappearance,” this time an inmate from a mental asylum.) As with Scorsese’s “lighter” films like Goodfellas and Cape Fear – granted that they can be deemed “light” only in the context of this director – the waters may be shallow, but the surface is scintillating.
The genre (rather, the style) invoked in Shutter Island is noir and, fittingly, the protagonist, Teddy Daniels, is a detective, ridden by guilt and riven by internal demons, arising from a gruesome personal tragedy. Like this character, the plot, too, is pure noir – a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, with suggestions of Manchurian Candidate-like mind experiments, government conspiracies, and the insistently implicit notion that Daniels is, like the classic noir protagonist, in over his head. A character remarks to him, “You’re a rat in a maze.” That Teddy certainly is – and after making considerable inroads into this maze, he confronts actual rats, hundreds of fellow maze-dwellers. Looking back, it’s entirely unsurprising that Teddy’s first words have him speaking to himself while peering into a mirror. “Pull yourself together,” he says, reminding us that he is falling apart.
There are red herrings, early on, suggesting that Shutter Island may actually be a horror movie (or if you’d like, a horror film tinged with elements of noir). As Daniels strides into the asylum, an inmate draws her finger across a throat which bears the marks of a knife wound, perhaps due to a suicide attempt – and she not only appears to be drawing attention to her plight but also pointing to his. He may wind up with his throat sliced. That certainly sounds like horror-worthy material (and it’s certainly tempting to think of Scorsese unleashing his visual bravura on horror-worthy material).
But unlike horror, where every development is geared towards the “boo” moment, noir is more insidious in the ways it discomfits its audience. In a horror film, the stretch where the electrified fences surrounding the asylum are down and the inmates are running amuck would result in scares, like the similar sequence in Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs step beyond their confines and terrorise the unshuttered island. But here, the function of the fence is simply to draw upon Teddy’s memories from a similarly fenced-in community, the concentration camp at Dachau, whose liberation he was part of as an Allied solider. We are discomfited not by horrific attacks by mentally deranged patients, but by the horrors inside Teddy.
Noir lent itself most famously to police procedurals and psychological thrillers, and Shutter Island is a bit of both. (The doctor who presides over the institution describes their efforts as a fusion of law and order and clinical care – and he could be describing the film itself.) The only strain arises from the occasional overreaching. As with Cape Fear, where Scorsese tacked the dimension of a failing marriage onto the story of a couple that’s terrorised by a psychopath (the earlier Gregory Peck version made no such detour), Shutter Island too shows signs of a classy filmmaker trying to class up a seedy joint whose very draw is its seediness.
The metaphor of water, for instance, is ceaselessly invoked – in the relentless rain, in the ocean that cuts the titular island away from civilisation, in the sub-story of a husband who died at the beaches of Normandy and a wife who drowned her kids in a lake, and in the leaking roof that wakens Teddy from a nightmare. (The German word for dream is “traum,” we are told, and Teddy’s traums are derived from his trauma.) No self-respecting forties’ noir would burden itself with such bloat – and with their lean, mean running times, there was never much scope for bloat in the first place – but Shutter Island gets away with its allegorical padding because Scorsese, elsewhere, is in superb form.
Noir is a natural fit for his talents, not just on a personal level (he’s still able to mine the darkness of the human condition amidst the collapse of moral systems) but also stylistically. Even the zig and zag of hardboiled dialogue (though not so much in this film) mirrors the zigzag of his visual verve, and his trademark flamboyance is exquisitely showcased in the astounding dream sequences, where fire, water, snow and blood blend into gorgeous Freudian fantasies. How disappointing, then, that Scorsese’s next project is a 3-D adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, a children’s book whose Wiki description makes it sound like something more suited to Tim Burton. Just as he appeared to be settling wonderfully into the regimen of tightly knit genre pictures, he’s been hijacked by flights of unfettered fantasy.
Copyright ©2010 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
rameshram
July 17, 2010
so what is the twist in the tale. why does scrcese overdo everything in shutter island? do you think it’s deliberate?
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MumbaiRamki
July 17, 2010
Baradwaj , saw inception ? For me , it was a bit less engaging than dark knight , which hada trip in characters over time , space and life ! STill , nolan is nolan !!!
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Arun
July 17, 2010
awesome writeup!
From the very moment the foghorn blares ominously in the opening,I was gleefully hooked.
I remember you writing in an old piece about what brass does to the senses…and this just set the perfect tone…
And for me the fedoras,the clouds and the sea immediately foreshadowed the Hitchcock homage-ry to follow…
I actually liked the Aviator more than Departed though…there’s something quite delectable about the deliberate pacing and style in Aviator and in this film as opposed to his other frenetic gangwar stories…and ah Robert Richardson’s stunning visuals…
amongst all the red herrings in the movie, the biggest was when me and my friend nearly mistook Elias Koteas for a DeNiro cameo.
why do you suppose DiCaprio is landing all these plum projects?Somehow can’t seem to overcome my biased view of him being a limited actor.
(cue Inception review.)
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Just Another Film Buff
July 17, 2010
I’m not reading this piece since I’ve not watched the film (sorry!), but The Aviator is my pick for Scorsese’s best of the decade and one of his very best.
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Ajay
July 18, 2010
Shutter Island was a gr8 viewing experience. What’s remarkable is a sense of “Control” that Scorcese seemed to possess over the script, he was nowhere unsure of how to handle his characters or the plot.
Watching SI finally gave me the answer to what was lacking in Raavanan, a film that I liked but not unequivocally. The word is “Control”.
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dmmd
July 18, 2010
Actually, Hugo Cabret is a lovely novel and may be interesting undertaking for Mr Scorcese, especially as he is such a passionate cinephile. It’d give him the oppurtunity to engage in noir-like elements with a twist of whimsy. That said, the best director for the film adaptation probably would’ve been JP Jeunet, not Tim Burton (despite his own memorable exploration of automatons), but he would’ve had the characters speaking French, instead of speaking in English with a French accent, which would limit the commercial appeal in the American multiplex….
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rameshram
July 18, 2010
i know i sent you this, but for people that dont know my blog yet,
my inception review.
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bran1gan
July 18, 2010
rameshram: I don’t know if I’d use the word “overdo.” It’s all very deliberate, no? Right from those foghorn blasts? Even the cheesy explanation scenarios (with a whiteboard, no less, a touch that had me gaping at its shamelessness) were done tongue-in-cheek, I thought.
MumbaiRamki: Not yet. Crummy week to fall sick — even the Bollywood releases look damn good. BTW, not such a great fan of TDK. Wrote about it here. Oh, I’m so proud of that title 🙂
Arun: No review. Hopefully, a BR next weekend. And yeah, I do think Di Caprio’s limitations affected Aviator. He’s good in films like Departed and SI because there’s a shade of character already bestowed on his roles thanks to the archetypes they come from, and his performances need only to fill in the blanks, so to speak. He’s much less successful when ask to embody wholly new people. Also, he came off as way too boyish in Aviator.
And I’ve been enjoying your toons on Zeitgeist. Good stuff man. I think you owe me a drink 😉
dmmd: Ah, yes, Jeunet. A Very Long Engagement is one of the great movie-movies out there, full of show-offy artifice and yet saturated with feeling in every pore. I return to it far more often than I return to Amelie, whose whimsy gets a bit too cloying at parts.
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rameshram
July 18, 2010
rangan,
yes correct very good!
spoiler
I think the key is in the fact that a wet gun fires no bullets.
end spoiler
there is only ne truth in the film.
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Bala
July 18, 2010
@Brangan:I remember agreeing with you on TDK (though not on the same review) but I have found myself admiring it much more in recent times, on repeat viewing …have you tried watching it again ? The very fact that there is so much going on in the movie, seems to work in its favor now.
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Arun
July 18, 2010
…and when you realise that its all done tongue-in-cheek I guess that’s precisely what made SI so thoroughly enjoyable…
*spoiler alert*
but I suppose the script justifies the deliberateness because we’re supposed to be viewing it through Teddy’s eyes,no?
*end spoiler alert*
Quoting from the New Yorker review quoting Umberto Eco : “Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion.” “Shutter Island” is that reunion, and that shrine”
PS: drink…oh anytime 🙂
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Rahul
July 18, 2010
Have you seen After Hours? My favorite Scorsese..
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Shankar
July 18, 2010
Baddy, I feel you are being less charitable towards Di Caprio. Looking over his career until now, he has banked a fairly good arsenal of films in his kitty. Following the Titanic, it would have been easy for this guy to have stuck to romances and made his millions. But throughout his career, he has made some unconventional choices. I recently saw a 1 hour biography (that’s the name of the programme) segment of Leo and came away fairly impressed about his convictions and choices.
And about embodying wholly new characters, I thought his performance in “Blood Diamond” was superb (I know I have said this before)…
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bran1gan
July 18, 2010
David Foster Wallace
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
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bran1gan
July 18, 2010
Someone forwarded me the IWL link. I pasted this post and got “David Foster Wallace.” Just to verify, I pasted the Toy Story 3 review and the Raavan review and the IHLS review, and I got the same result.
The Raavan music piece, however, said I write like Arthur C Clarke. For the Dewar’s piece, I got Raymond Chandler. And for Report from a Rehearsal, I got HP Lovecraft. A bit confusing (maybe I should start calling myself “dus sar waala”) — but at least they didn’t say I write like Dan Brown 🙂
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Krishna
July 18, 2010
“A bit confusing — but at least they didn’t say I write like Dan Brown”
Heh. That reminds me of what Stephen Fry had to say about The Da Vinci Code… “Complete loose-stool-water. Arse-gravy of the very worst kind.”
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bran1gan
July 18, 2010
Bala: Oh, I never thought it was a bad film. Just incredibly over-estimated. Nolan certainly makes very interesting films, and TDK is always involving at some level every time you watch it — just that it never gets to be the kind of profoundly cathartic movie it’s often taken to be (and perhaps wants to be).
Rahul: Yes. But have you seen King of Comedy? Another candidate for favourite there…
Shankar: He’s no doubt made interesting career choices, but of his acting, I remain a relative non-fan — though I have enjoyed his performances in many films.
Krishna: LOL, did he really say that? So true. I have nearly lost friends because of my open dissing of Dan Brown. I’ve since had to remain silent about his subsequent books. Out of vulgar curiosity I picked up Angels and Demons and I swear I raced through it in a couple of hours. The entire text may as well have been in neon.
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rameshram
July 18, 2010
krishna,
apparently, thats like george orwell.
br, i thought you found it on my facebook page.
i got ts eliot, leo tolstoi ( i dont wanna write like tolstoi) wallace lovecroft and joyce.
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Bala
July 18, 2010
@Brangan : I got H.P.Lovecraft and David Foster Wallace too 😛 (Cory Doctorow for something I wrote 2 yrs ago and James Joyce for a 5 yr old thing 😀 .Does that mean by writing has gone down or become more comprehensible ? :D).It’s just a random name generator me thinks 😀
Also, abt TDK, yup , I got that you didn’t think it was bad ,(how could I since you were so careful and insistent to state otherwise in the review :D)
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Gradwolf
July 18, 2010
Haha I got H.P. Lovecraft too! And am a huge fan of DFW. No wonder I love your writing 😛
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vidyut
July 19, 2010
BR, to join in the fun (hey, the site has gone viral) I typed in
“One plus one equals two, two plus two equals four and why is this enough to analyze me?! This makes no sense when you realize all the fuss is just to know that you are not you!”
Apparently, I wrote the above text like David Foster Wallace. Tweak a word here, add a punctuation there and you morph into Margaret Atwood. To have some more fun, I typed in the response of one of the finalist’s of Miss Teen USA pageant(2007) to a question about why a fifth of Americans had trouble locating the U.S on a world map :
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future.”
Apparently, if she had written what she pAthified (that is the Tamil word), she would have written like Cory Doctorow. Whatever, … uh, like 🙂
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APALA
July 19, 2010
BR,
I enjoyed Shutter Island but still think Aviator is a much better (than you are giving credit for!) film from Scorsese! Basing it on 20 year life span of Hughes, he did an excellent job telling that story in a spellbinding way. I sincerely think that the spectacle was to show the spirit of the man it’s talking about!
Now since Scorsese is not directing “The Wolf of Wall Street ” (again starring Leonardo), he might have taken up “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” (The wolf of Wall street is now with Ridley Scot, I read!).
BTW, hope the flu flew out of you!!! Hope you are doing fine now!
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rameshram
July 19, 2010
I can see the tolsto(r)y “honey your doctrow and my lovecraft should wallace together sometime in the atwood.”
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arijit
July 19, 2010
ah at last…hey, but no mention of the last line? that sort of is the final noir-ish touch…SI was a very refreshing film, may not be the best of scorsese but very different…at last something from hollywood that leaves the audience some room to ponder over…when is the inception review coming in? btw, i saw that one of your pieces has been found to be stylistically similar to raymond chandler…how about writing reviews in that style? 😉 that would be an interesting exercise especially when reviewing the bollywood trashy kind…
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kamil
July 19, 2010
Rangan – http://sify.com/movies/tamil/fullstory.php?id=14950066
What’s happening?
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Pradyumna M
July 19, 2010
Roger Ebert keeps tweeting about that ‘I write like’ app.! And have you had a chance to watch Inception? I watched it today and still haven’t made up my mind as to whether I like it or not. But right now I think this from your review of TDK would be apt.
“The storytelling is deliberate and laboured, …. ,that the simple emotional beats get lost.”
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munimma
July 19, 2010
Glad to see you back to normal (as normal as that can be).
I am not going to read this one until I catch up on my to-see list.
BTW, that IWL is weird. Or may be it is just me. I get a different one everytime. Go figure!
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Niranjan
July 19, 2010
Hi BR,
Your review of Inception should make for interesting reading! Whatever one might say about this new DiCaprio film per se, one has got to admit: Nolan is among the best story tellers among the current film makers. His story line here is quite original – there are some ‘familiar’ elements but on the whole his conception is spectacularly new and the film wonderfully engaging.
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apala
July 20, 2010
Hey Dude,
I heard that your K2K has re-started and they are canning the final song of the film! Great to know that pal!
So when can we expect the film to hit the screens?
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bran1gan
July 20, 2010
arijit: A Chennai chap channeling Chandler? Nice alliteration there 🙂
Pradyumna M / Niranjan: I found the film entertaining towards the end (that entire action stretch, once it takes off, was awesome). But yes, very laboured build-up. Too much talk for an action movie. And the parts with Ellen Page’s character were very tedious (not to mention ridiculous; she exists simply to function as an audience substitute, asking blindingly obvious questions). I mean, it’s hardly as complex as Nolan keeps making it out to be, especially for anyone who’s seen Matrix or any time-travel film, for that matter.
apala / kamil: No clue. BTW, that sify snippet is full of mistakes. I don’t have story credit for this film (only a co-screenwriter credit). Also, it is not a “jungle set” or whatever.
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Harish S Ram
July 20, 2010
very true … Ariadne’s and most of the other dialogues seems to be explanatory rather that conversational … but thats just when we start to analyse the film. i felt their main concentration was on making people debate over what is real & wat not than the diff levels of dreams; for those dreams inside dreams were very simplistic for us to take in than we might expect it to be.
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bran1gan
July 20, 2010
Harish S Ram: But is there really all that much to “analyse” in the film beyond following the serpentine trails of the plot? Even the end, does it really matter if it’s a dream or not? The thing that matters is that he doesn’t care, no?
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rameshram
July 20, 2010
nolan’s middle name should be “labored”
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anamika
July 20, 2010
Cinema , with all cliches fully intended ,speakes a universal language.And this was brought home when I happened to treat my maid to a viewing of Inception.And without understanding a word of the screenplay(was straining myself to catch that caricature ofthe obligatory oriental…reminded me of master teach me kungfudays)…her one line review of th movie made my day…”Vazhkai oru kanuve…yellam poi… nijamavum poi..”,basically saying…”life is but a dream…everything is a lie…even the truth”
Now can the new york times beat that…!
liked the fim on some levels….but they could have worked on less explanations in the form of caine and that perky pesky little disney cartoon!-she just sounded like one of those voicovers drumming it in…just in case we did not get it
cant have a confused multiplex audience can we now…!!
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Niranjan
July 20, 2010
I thought Nolan’s latest film scores best at engaging the audience in watching what is a kind of convoluted plot. Yes, the disturbed past of the DiCaprio character was not the ‘pull’ of the film as much as the overall MI-type plot, not to mention the time-enhancing nature of dreams!
But I felt that there were quite a few nuances in the whole script that I possibly missed and you surely latch onto those!
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Shalini
July 20, 2010
To me, the most interesting (and admirable) thing about Scorsese is the film restoration work he’s doing via The Film Foundation. Saw the restored version of Renoir’s “The River” recently and found it indescribably beautiful.
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KPV balaji
July 20, 2010
@BRangan : With a 200 million budget at stake i guess Nolan had to play it safe and went all out to coax up the audience before the finale. Despite its simplification of the plot there are several reviews suggesting people scratching their heads in confusion. And there is the criticism of lack of emotional content ( guess you would also be joining that bandwagon) while i found the whole subplot of Cobbs guilt with Mal had its heart at the right place. It definitely worked for me. Inception may not be as Kubrickian as suggested or path breaking as its being hyped, but its one of those movies which has several of those terrific set action pieces and all the grandeur of your blockbuster, also engages you on a different level constantly and makes you think back on it, which itself is an achievement. After the Matrix this is the closest you could get for a Cerebral blockbuster.
Just in case if you are interested ( spoilers warning)
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/An-Illustrated-Guide-To-The-5-Levels-Of-Inception-19643.html
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Inception-Explained-Unraveling-The-Dream-Within-The-Dream-19615.html
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Harish S Ram
July 20, 2010
borrowing a line from my blog on inception: ” Is it peer pressure wanting to know it all – like a challenge to prove that they are intelligent enough to be esoteric; which is becoming the order of the day.” i think with the blunt end he is making us (at least my generation) re visit all the scenes to get what he really wants to say. he has made an impression that he is saying a lot more that wat we see. and there comes the indulgence to break down the movie into pieces. sure i want to leave it like u said – after all he gets peace of mind n all that… but the restless mind of ours dont take simplicity for an ans 😀 and hence we as a lot are more into scrutiny – like if Ariadne was intentionally gay n all … lol
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milo minderbinder
July 21, 2010
BR,
“But is there really all that much to “analyse” in the film beyond following the serpentine trails of the plot? Even the end, does it really matter if it’s a dream or not? The thing that matters is that he doesn’t care, no?” – I am not so sure.
***SPOILER ALERT***
It does get established fairly early that Cobb uniting with his children and how that happens would be the main thread – but it is not the only thread that matters in the movie. The details of Cobb’s relationship with Mal and the event(s) leading up to her death and its effect on Cobb’s mind are equally important aspects within the movie’s context, even if they don’t directly contribute towards the ending(especially since Cobb’s character (or his mind) is the only thing that is depicted with any depth).
As for the parts with Page’s character, they could be explained away within the context of the movie – that Ariadne, despite being introduced as a brilliant architect, is still a novice when it comes to working in an actual “job/real world scenario” like this, hence the questions. Just my 2 cents 🙂
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bran1gan
July 21, 2010
Niranjan: Oh, it’s definitely quite engaging. I was just talking about the “look ma, I’m so clever, so complex” attitude in the film that becomes annoying after a while, especially because it isn’t really all that complex in the first place. It’s a multi-tier storyline that requires you to watch keenly (and probably watch it a second time), but then many films, these days, are like that. It’s only when the action stretch began that my jaw began to drop.
From my BR this week: “…And once we get past the gassy setup – a truly testing tract of tedium – we get the thrilling payoff, the real reason for the film’s being, a mind-bending third-act stretch that instantly slots itself among the great action-adventure sequences of all time.
This is when we realise that, despite the portentous stabs at profundity, Inception is essentially a glorified B-movie, an assembled-team heist movie, and that it could have been a great heist movie had Nolan not allowed himself to be bogged down by self-aggrandising minutiae (or allowed himself a bit of amusement).”
Shalini: Also his documentaries. If you have eight-odd hours, his journeys through American and Italian cinemas are a must-see.
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Krishna
July 21, 2010
Haven’t seen Inception yet. Entirely off topic… Happened to watch a two episode BBC docu called Bombay Railways… thought the first episode was loads better than Slumdog Millionaire. Do give it a try people. Torrent available me thinks.
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rameshram
July 21, 2010
“a truly testing tract of tedium – ….thrilling payoff,”
auuugh! pulavare!
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Rachit
July 22, 2010
That little excerpt from your BR sounded more like a light reading of the film and one trying too hard to be contrarian. Hope the entire article presents a more thought provoking analysis, either good or bad, but fitting for this movie. There is a reason this movie has already inspired a large cult following and it is certainly not because of the jaw dropping sequences.
It is important to remember that this is a sci-fi movie at its core. And there haven’t been ‘many’ movies of this kind in the last few years, the genre is dying a slow death. Of the good ones that I remember most of them are minor movies like Moon, District 9 which haven’t been widely seen or appreciated (they couldn’t even manage a release in India!!). Big summer movies like Avatar, Star Trek, War of the Worlds and Matrix (except the first part) are essentially no brainers. Nolan clearly tries to blend these two sensibilities through inception. He could have easily followed up Dark Knight with another typical summer blockbuster that would have actually earned him a few more bucks, but he chose to make it original and intellectually stimulating. The narrative might be a put off for the remaining audience, but it is rewarding for the fans of the genre. I believe the ‘truly testing tract of tedium’ is what makes the latter half watchable, at least for the audience who is willing to trust Nolan’s vision. It makes complete sense in the second if not the first viewing. And it stays with you after the movie, inspiring further discussions and theories, isn’t that what cinema should be about? Inception might not be a masterpiece, but it is a genuine attempt to revive the Summer Blockbuster.
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Snorter
July 22, 2010
OFF TOPIC :
What do you think BR?
“It’s only when the action stretch began that my jaw began to drop.”
Are you talking about the gravity defying action in the lobby? THAT was mind-blowing!
Btw,Niranjan,Is your full name Niranjan Sathyamurthy?
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bran1gan
July 22, 2010
Rachit: I guess, then, that you and I have very different definitions of what an “intellectually stimulating” film is.
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Gradwolf
July 22, 2010
@Snorter:
I have a strong feeling that Dabaang is Saamy!
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Rachit
July 22, 2010
Probably.. However that doesn’t neccessarily mean only one of us is right.
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rameshram
July 22, 2010
“It makes complete sense in the second if not the first viewing. ”
The film is never illucid. in fact sometimes its vice is its extreme obviousness.
no I agree with branigan. as an attempt to revive the warner brothers b movie caper, the film fails because it **neither** wants to be a joyous caper film , ** nor** a high on tricks scifi film secure in its audience’s ability to understand the genre and the gee whiz. and yet it comes across as self important and smug. reminded one of the john woo film “face off”, for its smugness.
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Niranjan
July 22, 2010
Hi Snorter,
No, I am Niranjan Balachandran.
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dmmd
July 23, 2010
I enjoyed Inception and appreciate some of the semi-esoteric decisions in the storytelling that made the film-watching more puzzle-like and maybe even puzzling. SPOILER:
For example, I enjoyed his use of Ediath Piaf as the song of “awakening” and paralleling that to Mal (played by Marion Cotillard)’s own desire to wake up, which may or may not be fatal.
BUT when making a film about dreams, the semi-coherence of an action film a la James Bond is not what I think about. Even if it was entertaining and impressive and definitely stylish.
I enjoyed the Royal-Wedding-like fight scene in the movie, but still, I feel there was so much Nolan could’ve done, without pandering to an adolescent idea of dreams and the subconcious. Especially with this haunting memory of a lost wife—-that hotel room, why does it have to be the same hotel room, why couldn’t it borrow from 18th century literature and adopt this notion of architecture being a representation of the soul, where the room itself be a representation of her, like the billowing curtains recalling the hem of her wedding dress, instead an exact replica of a specific incident ( because if anything, our minds warp our experiences in a way that could never allow it be an exact replica)? In some ways, Nolan touches on this idea a little—having Cobb and Mal reconstruct a city made of old relics from their past and dreams of skyscrapers, Cobb’s own fixed perception of his faceless children, and even this concept of a (doll)house-within-a-house parelleling the levels of dream-existence/soul that whittles down to a spinning top….. but I don’t think he adequately articulates this idea.
But maybe I’m looking for a different film. Maybe I’m wishing Terrence Mallick or Ingmar Bergman directed it…who knows.
That said, the film was absorbing; not perfect but I enjoy the conversation it stimulates, even if it is a far cry from what a film exploring the medium of dreams/the subconcious could really be…..
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bran1gan
July 23, 2010
Gradwolf: Oh, that’s a film trailer? I didn’t see it and thought it was an ad, like his ice-cream-from-cows ad. Even the name sounded like some epang-opang-jhapang stuff 🙂
Rachit: “that doesn’t neccessarily mean only one of us is right.” Of course not. We both are, in our own ways. I cannot speak for your enjoyment of the film just as you cannot speak for my (relative) frustrations with it 🙂
rameshram: I kinda enjoyed the all-out preposterousness of Face-Off. For all its swagger, it has an intense emotionality. It was like watching Bollywood on steroids. BTW, read your writeup on Inception and enjoyed the deliberate misdirection.
dmmd: “I enjoyed his use of Ediath Piaf…” For me this was very distracting, what with Piaf herself playing Mal, and especially with Non je ne regrette rien being the signature song in La Vie En Rose too. It seemed like an in-joke more than anything else. This is not the kind of film you want in-jokes in.
“BUT when making a film about dreams…” See, but this is not a movie about dreams. That’s exactly what my piece is about, what a dream-movie is (or should be) versus what Inception is. Though I’m sure the piece will get mistaken (as usual) for an actual review and much bashing will happen 🙂
I do agree with you about Nolan not having fun with his dream worlds. Even within the confines of an actiony B-movie, he could have had visual touches that added to the dream-as-a-manifestation-of-the-subconscious feel. Instead, his dream worlds are so… sterile. And I also agree that talking about the film seems to be more rewarding than watching it 🙂
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rameshram
July 23, 2010
” enjoyed the deliberate misdirection.”
Thanks, Any misdirection in my writeup was entirely incidental to my intentions 😀
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Mambazha Manidhan
July 23, 2010
For an elaborately constructed heist movie, I very much wanted to see the aftermath of the heist. And, there is no surprise outcome.They say they are going to plant the idea and they accomplish it the same way they set out do although there are some very interesting conflicts along the way.
About his dream worlds being so sterile, first of all this is not a dream movie as you said.I think that was a conscious decision to remove any surreal minfduck touches a la Mullholland Drive and concentrate more on the thriller,action and emotional aspects.And,if he had done that,no doubt some would have screamed masterpiece, but there would have been double the number of WTFs around.
Btw did you like Madrasapattinam? Write up coming up ?
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Shankar
July 23, 2010
Baddy, before you watch Khatta Meeta, make sure you watch the original “Vellanakalude Naadu” (Land of White Elephants)…it still remains one of my favorite films.
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Snorter
July 24, 2010
“Oh, that’s a film trailer?” Yes!! directed by anurag kashkyaps brother.
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The real Niranjan
October 17, 2010
Who is this?
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