Jordan Young Loves Inception

By Venus Zine Staff
Published: July 22nd, 2010 | 3:05pm

Upon first seeing the trailer for Inception months ago, I felt a quiver of excitement and a draw to see exactly what it was going to be about. It did everything but disappoint. As a lover of philosophy, anthropology, and psychology, this film was right up my alley. The idea of people developing a technology that allows them to share and manipulate dreams generates a plethora of implications, and this film highlights one of the most treacherous ones: inception, planting an idea in someone's mind without his or her knowledge.

From the beginning of the film you're taken on a journey into a dream (at times even a dream within a dream) where the action never stops and literally anything can happen. I love that this film instigates the classic Cartesian thought pattern within the viewer and you begin to question what is reality and what is a dream.

Writer/director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento) definitely did his homework in the 10 years he spent writing the screenplay. He not only explores Jungian ideas about the unconscious, but also does it subtly enough that the movie is action-packed and enjoyable without delivering too much information to follow the plot. To top it off, Inception is sprinkled with a cast of actors (Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page) that possess the innate ability to make you to forget their names, as they genuinely become their characters. I left the theater in a silent awe and harboring the wish that more movies could be this penetrating.

Jordan Young is a Venus Zine intern.