For many times now, the writer of these lines has had to swallow a bit of her pride and write about something that she might usually consider as trash. Movies made nowadays tend to reduce many of us to just numbers or pairs of eyes in a theatre…disconsidering the brain behind all this. For too much time now, Hollywood and others imitating life have taken their audience as mere fools, mere clapping hands with only a capacity of responding to gunshots and Angelina Jolie. And this is how the term blockbuster was born, a word that, in my opinion has been plummeting human race to popcorn eaters. A blockbuster is, in a way, that thing which benefits the filmmakers from a naïve misunderstood viewers’ desire to continuously have their brains washed…until, well, there is not much left. A long line of such dim entertainment attempts can be put here, some of them executed with respect and decency, others just cash holders and box-office numbers. A humbling 90 percent of these will end up in the bin of cinema history if not for anything else but for the fact that they have been all repetitions of the same pattern. Now, it would be quite too much to ask from any filmmaker living today to actually reinvent himself and his movie formation to such an extent as to produce something highly original. What is original anyway, and how can one create such a thing anymore? It would be absurd to ask from any filmmaker today to ‘out of the blue’ create something that hasn’t been done before, something that is not reminiscent of any blueprints in nowadays blockbuster culture. But, if there were such a filmmaker, Christopher Nolan is as close and as good as it gets. This is a director who has started low key but brilliantly with a film that remains well written in cinema history, “Memento” and went through a series of high-profile movies, including one of the best rated, most expensive and best reviewed ever films, last year’s “The Dark Knight”, just to safely arrive to the reason we are writing this today: “Inception.”

Well, finally a film that can please both the brainless and the brainiacs as it can be read on several levels of intelligence and understanding. So, for many this will be “that thing with the dream thieves” while for others, sadly not too many, it is going to remain something more, deeper and more philosophical, something they can revisit for the times to come, the same manner one revisits a classical book or a Beethoven symphony, hoping to find and more usually finding different meanings.

On the surface, it remains a blockbuster and the time of its release, full ‘buster’ season helps to categorize for those who still haven’t understood, and perhaps never will that it is probably the smartest Trojan horse that has ever been planted in recent art history.

If one had to sum up what “Inception” is about, perhaps the safest way to put it is “a team of specialists whose aim is to plant an idea into someone else’s mind by means of accessing his dreams.”

On a meta-text level this is exactly what Nolan achieves to each and anyone of us: he has planted an idea into cinema dreamers’ minds, and the idea is merely that there is life beyond the blue screen and in order to see life, one must look beyond the surface. This is what art does, right? Ask Oscar Wilde, who, in the preface to his brilliant novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” says “All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

To still keep it to the surface of things, it’s hard to think of a denser or more complex blockbuster than “Inception,” especially one that so consistently refuses to abate from challenging those who watch it. From the opening frames it is a dizzying rollercoaster that relentlessly manipulates one’s senses, intellect, and emotions, not letting up for some two and a half hours. Cobb, Leonardo Di Caprio, is, by his own claim, the world’s most skilled extractor, able to steal ideas and secrets from the minds of his targets by entering their dreams. Cobb is hired by wealthy Japanese businessman Saito, who wants him to plant an idea in the brain of Robert Fischer Jr., Cillian Murphy, the heir to a rival business empire; for this ‘inception’, Cobb assembles a team that includes his regular assistant Arthur, Joseph Gordon-Levitt; Eames, a British shape-shifter, Tom Hardy; scientist Yusuf, Dileep Rao and a brilliant young woman Ariadne, Ellen Page.

As space is running fast, a small mention here about the cast, wonderfully put together and with perfect chemistry between one another, two particular mentions in Murphy and Hardy representing some of the finest young artists on screens.

At first viewing, Christopher Nolan’s dazzlingly complex ride is not easy to comprehend fully it is one of those films, like “Blade Runner” or “2001 A Space Odyssey” that will repay many viewings in order to grasp all the intricate details of multi-layered trips into the dreams and nightmares of the central characters. At a time when the vast majority of Hollywood films have no ideas whatsoever, it’s quite inspiring to let yourself invited inside a film over-burdened with ideas, and visual excitement. Driven by Wally Pfister’s superb cinematography, Hans Zimmer’s powerful music score and some amazing CGI effects, this is a truly unforgettable movie experience. Christopher Nolan has clearly established himself as the heir of Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock. Like those great filmmakers he has succeeded in doing his work right in the middle of the big-budget Hollywood mainstream that merely produces monsters, but with the kind of creative vivacity, philosophical intensity, and love for experiment. What “Inception” succeeds is reminding us that blockbusters don’t have to be soulless cash grabs and that, when great artists are given the resources, results can be transcendent. Brilliant, unique and fit for multiple viewing.

Inception (USA 2010)

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

With: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph-Gordon Levitt, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Marillion Cotillard

Showing at: CinemaPro, The Light, Movieplex, Hollywood Multiplex, Cinema City Cotroceni