Inception

[jazzy_dave]

Another film i watched on DVD recently is the mind boggling Inception. This is a tour de force of a film. Although billed as a science fiction heist thriller ,with a slight tinge of film noir, it is much more than that, as it touches very much on the idea of reality,the nature of reality, the certainty of epistemology or lack of, the ontology of the human condition, as well as the Baudrillian sense of simulations and simulacra. It is also about the nature of dreams, and the kind of vivid dreamscapes based on lucid dreaming. It can also act as a metaphor for film making itself. In fact there is neurological evidence that brain activity is strikingly similar during film-watching and sleeping. In both, the visual cortex is highly active and the prefrontal cortex, which deals with logic, deliberate analysis, and self-awareness, is quiet.

Perhaps seeing the movie in a cinema is a kind of exercise in shared dreaming. In a cinema one enters into the space of another's dream, in this case Christopher Nolan's, as with any work of art, one's reading of it is ultimately influenced by one's own subjective desires and subconscious. This is how i felt after re-watching it on DVD.

You can view this film on so many levels, including psychological, philosophical , and in cultural terms. That is why it one of the best films to watch, not just for the pure entertainment value, but the deeper analytical conundrums it poses.