Entertaining the Intellect

**This is not a review 

Back in college, I learned in my Humanities subject about the difference between a movie and a film. My kind (she gave me 1.00) professor said that the former is a motion picture created purely for entertainment while the latter (in addition to entertainment) has artistic and technical excellence plus intellectual stimulation. This definition of a film was more appreciated last week after i have seen Christopher Nolan's Inception. 

The film totally gripped me and got me glued to my seat in excitement and anticipation. From start to finish, the film was pure visceral and intellectual entertainment. I honestly think that Inception has brought cinematic experience to a different level for it required its audience a heightened focus/concentration on details without taking away the thrill and fun in following the film's progression.

Basically the film is all about the idea of breaking in through a person's dream to enter the subconscious mind. The access to the subconscious mind  opens the gateway to valuable information which can be stolen for whatever purpose it may serve. Stealing info was initially the only service given by the lead character extractor Cobb (diCaprio). But when Cobb was offered by Saito (Watanabe) a hard-to-refuse proposal  (wiping out his criminal record), Cobb agreed to do more than just stealing - the dangerous planting of an idea inside the mind of Saito's closest business rival Fischer (Murphy). The planting of idea (inception) is meant to convince Fischer to dissolve their empire and pose lesser threat to Saito's business.

The process of inception calls for the induction and penetration of multiple dream sequences. And to achieve this, more potent sedatives must be used and more complex dream architectures must to be built. The extra measures used to achieve getting into lower levels of dreams pose greater risk and danger of getting stucked in 'limbo' where one can remain dreaming for an indefinite amount of time. 

Christopher Nolan is a brilliant director I must say. He was able to stitch all the different fabrics of the movie into a tapestry of various designs and intricacies. I think the real beauty of this film lies in the fact that besides the top notch story, great artistic and technical merits, the film made moviegoers discuss and share intellectual notes long after they have left the cinemas.