The film inception is based around the idea of exploring the layers of the subconscious mind. The main character Cob has found the ability to do this by creating a world in someones mind whilst they sleep to complete a mission be it changing their mind about something or figuring out a secret. The film provokes intriguing thoughts about how the mind works and the ways in which emotions can effect us when focusing on something inparticular
Inception uses crime as the main theme of the thriller by trying to enter Fisher's son's mind to convince him to give up the business and not follow in his father's footsteps. Inception is then used here to plant an idea into his mind whilst on a ten hour flight to LA and achieve, within this time period, to change his mind.This film is a modernistic thriller which draws you in to feel on edge within the next part of their adventure through the layers of his subconscious mind. The thriller is violent and gory in the ways some thrillers are, instead it focuses more on the intriguing, clever, thought provoking element which hold the interest of the viewer due to its unpredictability and excitement of the film.
The protagonist in the film inception clearly has an Achilles heel which is exploited by the antagonist. This weakness is exposed through the thoughts that he has of the fond memories with his dead wife Mol and his two young children. Throughout the film he is faced with the thoughts of the subconscious world he created with his wife who he first tested the inception experiment on. She believed in this theory of falling into the subconscious layers of another world but did not listen to Cob when he told her they had come back into reality, and she took her life thinking she could fall back into the loop and stay with him in the world they created. His children are something he yearns for and therefore the antagonist uses them against him to draw his mind to thinking they are really there in the layers of subconsciousness when really they are only projections, which he has to fight his weakness to believe. The title of the Thriller 'inception' could relate to this protagonist and antagonist relationship because the word inception means the beginning of something and the antagonist was the first person to have been subconsciously built into a world and therefore she was the start of this life he created for himself.
The protagonist in the film Inception, was definitely seen in danger at many moments throughout the film. He shows himself to be the most vulnerable at points especially when Mol makes an appearance and he is an egg she is easily able to crack because she has a past and children with him. And so knows his weaknesses and strengths. The world he builds in his mind is so extreme and sometimes proves to be impossible and presents to us his fear and the danger which surrounds him. He takes risks to help those he is in the layers with, as well as covering his own back from approaching danger. The camera angles show his fear in this film as the are quick swift shots which representing the panic experienced. A particular scene where the protagonist is seen in peril is near the end where he is sitting in the house with Mol and she is pleading for him to stay and share a life with her in the subconscious world, but she becomes work up and anxious and takes a knife to his stomach. Here he is then wounded but had to find strength within his mind to know it isn't real and that he will be fine once he awakes.
The antagonist (Mol) in Inception is very controlling over Cob's mind and thoughts and at points suffocates any other thought he may have so that he cannot stop thinking about her and whether what he is doing is the right this to do. At the end She isolates him within a world that himself and her created together and uses words to draw him in so he is vulnerable and becomes an easy target for her to invade his mind with thoughts of her. In the very beginning she was so fixated on this thought that she wasn't living in the real world and that she should take 'a leap of faith' to reality so they could be with their real children. Here she tried to convince Cob that she was right and that he should jump with her and they'd be able to live "happily ever after" and here it proved to take a lot for Cob to know she wasn't right and not to listen to this complicated theory that she had thought up. When she jumped and fell from her window this left him feeling helpless and isolated in his world because he hadn't understood what she had been talking about and this is then where the whole idea of inception started making him then live an isolated world within people's subconsciousness.
The narrative of inception is all set in the world where things look ordinary and normal, settings including; Lifts, board rooms, houses, streets, the ski slopes. But then within these settings nothing actually proved to be real. It was all a figure of the protagonists imagination which had been thought up like a huge puzzle which had to be resolved as the pieces fitted together progressing through the film. Inception includes the people who are around the protagonist and they are all joined together within the layer of someones subconscious mind through sleeping and drifting deep through the layers. As he discover that after all of the dramas and events have happened the cast all return to consciousness on the plane where they've been sitting the whole time, unbeknownst to anyone else that they have gone on this extraordinary adventure to change someones conscious state of mind.
Camera Work: The camera work within the thriller inception is actually reasonably mild in terms of eccentric shots. The camera angles were generally either point of view shots, showing the perspective and view from the character in action at that time such as when Cob was looking from the window across to Mol when she was at on the window ledge, or long shots of the action such as the floating scene down corridor, and when the snow came tumbling down the mountain towards them. There were a few over the shoulder conversation shots between Mol and Cob to intensify the scne and create a more personal effect.
Sound:The majority of the sound in Inception were diegetic and either consisted of speech, gun shots, machinery, or the music which was played into the ears of the person experiencing inception to bring them out of the subconscious world. The sounds heard by the audience were all heard by the characters as they were mostly just the surrounding sounds of their environment. THere wasnt any non diegetic music or sounds used to create an atmosphere or certain mood. However the sounds of the gun shots and explosions may have been enhanced non diegetic sounds to create a more realistic sound and atmosphere.
Mise en Scene:The costume in the film was mainly normal everyday clothing and suited the according situation that they were put into through the layers of the mind. For example they wore skiing clothing when they were placed into the snow mountains, business attire when they were on the plane, casual clothing when walking along the beach and were in the truck which proceeded to fall into the river. The clothing all suited the situation and did not look out of place and therefore they blended into their surrounding considering their very unusual circumstances. The settings in whihc the characters found themselves in were all very different, ranging from skiing in the mountains to swimming up from the bottom of the ocean escaping from their sunken truck.The props they used in this film were all very normal everyday things, nothing which significantly related to the film bein a thriller; guns, ski's, home life objects (chairs, tables, children's toys etc)were all used to create the scenes, but one prop in particular they used which had a significant meaning throughout the film was the tiny spinning top which related to the idea of inception. This one prop remained throughout the film.
Editing:Inception has many edits to make it the film that it is. Bits of film which were shot such as the truck falling into the ocean was slowed right down so it barely moved so it then could be slotted between scenes to show the time they had left to complete this task before it hit the water. The film has edited in fire and explosions creating fear and panic for the characters, crumbling buildings and scenery around them as they drifted into the subconscious world and discovered what it was like and how everything they thought of could happen because their minds had created the world they were in, and a green screen was used for some of the scenes to create an extraordinary scene and setting for the character to play in. Therfore when combining all of these microelements together we get a very unpredictable world of normality yet misunderstanding. Where the world to look at is normal and how it should be but when thought about by the characters involved it is clear that through the events which take place it proves to be completely not normal.
The key theme for this thriller included all three of these elements to a certain degree throughout the film, however the main theme was probably amnesia as at the end of the film we clearly see at the air port when Fisher's son sees Cob he doe not recognize him and recollect the events which have just taken place in the layers of his sub conscious mind. All of the work they do in the minds of these people is forgotten apart from the main objective which is to change the victims mind about something or make them want to do something. Although it proves that when Cob meets Mol again it is clear that he can soon suffer amnesia about his task in hand and can soon slip away to forgetting she is dead and is only a projection in his mind.
Within the film Inception there are many elements which show all of these themes. The main part of the film is about seeing things through the mind and how illusions can appear and trick you into thinking its the truth when really its just a projection your mind has created and stored.In Inception the manipulation of perspectives is focused on in the fact of that Cob sees the world in a different perspective to everyone else around him and so it comes apparent that he then analyses these things and goes deeper quite literally into the layers of people's mind and thoughts. Through the characters minds they see the world change beneath their feet in order to solve their task and so the way they see each other within their minds determines that person to them in reality. Knowing they've been able to change someones mind through the manipulation of their thoughts, is a big key moment in this film which creates the amazing adventure they go on together.
In the thriller Inception I wouldn't say there was a particular event of voyeurism and the objectification of a female character as there are no particular events within this film which show an occurance of people watching them and finding pleasure in doing so.
At the very beginning of the film Inception we see Cob lying in the water at the edge of the sea as if he had just been washed up there, this moment carried on to show him in a board room type of place, showing him sitting at the opposite end of the table to an old man who had discovered him and was trying to manipulate words from him to discover something to do with the spinning top. This moment then was carried on to create the rest of the film, but then at the very end we only then find out how cob became to be washed up on the sea edge and went back to the same room
which then resolved the film and the task they had been working to complete. This is when all the pieces of the film come together and Inception is completed successfully.
No comments:
Post a Comment