For all who were gob-smacked by Christopher Nolan's Inception that opened last week, let it be known that movies exploring the mindscape have been around since forever. Looking at the past decade itself, there are umpteen brilliant mind-bending films.
In Inception in the incredible shot when the young architect folds the dream city upon itself, the scene calls to mind, Dark City . This 1998 film, written and directed by Alex Proyas, tells the story of John Murdoch who wakes up in a bathtub with a bloody, mutilated corpse for company. With no memory of how he got there, Murdoch is on the run from dark, shadowy people called The Strangers in a nightmare city where it is always night.
The movie with its extraordinary production design and killer concept of The Strangers being alien parasites using human beings as hosts and studying memories in order to save their race was the ultimate mind-bender. The film was a perfect amalgamation of philosophy and pop culture drawing inspiration as it did from a variety of influences ranging from the television show, “Twilight Zone”, and Freud to Greek philosophy.
Dark City was, however, swept away by a tsunami that went by the name of The Matrix . Directed by the Wachowski brothers, The Matrix came out in 1999 and addressed particular millennial anxieties. The fear of being in a programme of viruses and rogue elements were all manifestations of the very real fears of Y2K.
The colour scheme of black and green, melting codes and nothing being what it seemed fed on our anxieties. There was serendipity in the casting. Keanu Reeves as Neo was suitably blank-faced, while Laurence Fishburne had the necessary gravitas to deliver preposterous lines about choosing between red and blue pills.
In Carrie Ann Moss we thought the Wachowskis had created an apt successor to the Amazonian heroines of science fiction movies of yore, namely Sarah Connor ( Terminator ) and Ellen Ripley ( Alien ). However, after her early promise, she soon disintegrated into standard issue second lead standing around looking moist-eyed and giving the kiss of life to the dying hero.
The other two films in The Matrix trilogy were inflated with their own importance exploded with a muddled mixture of terrible French accents and mumblings about maya and karma .
The nervous Nineties also saw the release of Peter Wier's prophetic The Truman Show (1998). Jim Carrey stars as Truman Burbank, who unknown to himself is starring in a reality show watched by millions across the globe. Truman's world is created and peopled by the all-powerful channel boss.
The new millennium saw the release of Nolan's Memento. Starring Guy Pierce as Leonard Shelby, a man suffering from anterograde amnesia — yes, Ghajini is inspired by the film, Polaroid pictures and all. The film operated on two timelines using black and white and colour to differentiate between the two.
The theme of amnesia and alternate worlds created as a negation of the present circumstances continued to be a dominant thread in Hollywood. David Lynch, the master of twisty little movies, created the ultimate mind-altering film in Mulholland Drive (2001). The film with the tagline of “a love story in the city of dreams” has had critics and cinema buffs endlessly dissecting and reconstructing its plot to figure what is real and what is not.
The DVD has 10 clues to look out for to crack the film, but there is every possibility that they are just red herrings. The fact that the DVD has no chapter divisions meant watching the film over and over again trying to make sense of it and finally just surrendering to the beauty of the film and accepting it to be a Moebius Strip.
Alternate universes
The lyrically weird Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) also explored the alternate universes in the mind. The movie starred Carrey and Kate Winslet as lovers in a time when it is possible to erase memories. In Inception during Ariadne's first excursion into the dream world as the city collapses, one is reminded of Carrey's character trying to save his memories even as they are being erased.
Ten years into the new millennium we have Inception , which is very much a movie of its time. If The Matrix addressed millennial anxieties, The Truman Show looked at an intrusive camera or Memento and Eternal Sunshine preferred to take the amnesiac route to cope, Inception presents a cynical world view.
It almost seems as if Nolan has lost faith in the magic of the movies. That is a pity as Nolan is the master mindbender who has given us new ways of looking at the super hero film and magic with The Prestige (2006). Since Nolan apparently had the idea for Inception for the past ten years, it is quite possible that this was a movie he needed to make. Now with it out of his system, hopefully he would go back to making the real deal — stunning spectacular movies which push various envelopes in countless creative ways.
