Inception fans will....


"Inception" fans will trace the roots to this ambiguous film. It is doubtful that they will be drawn to it, but credit must go to where it is deserving.
I have to have my official opinion of this film. Though I wish I would have just read the transcript, as it was exceedingly boring and proved to be a five minute film stretched to an agonizing limit,yet the idea was great. This is a completely ambiguous yet character-defined literary work. My advice, view it at double speed.
The married woman has a perfectly clear memory of every detail, which she must completely deny to the bitter end. Her guilt forces her to deny every detail, in a cloyingly manner. She does entertain the idea of letting her lover back into her life.
The one-night lover fell in love with her beauty and his desire was based on lust, not love. Having been with many lovers, his recollection is not pure and crisp. Indeed his desire to remember somewhat meaningless details is perhaps only tied to his desire to have her again. If he can accomplish a revival of their passion, then there can be true meaning in their affair, rather than mere selfishness.
The husband is successful in a cold and heartless way, having a very sharp sense of his wife's inner person. He may, as guilt would suggest strongly, be able to determine his wife's lurid actions and respond in that same harsh and cruel manner.
Certainly, there is the chance that real love can be expressed within an affair. The two lovers may reunite once each year, but only as long as it suits them and their individual desires. Is it a heart that longs for passion and excitement? Will it reopen a wound that has only recently healed? Could it become the death of a marriage and love? Is the audience swept into a desire toward writing the ending themselves? And would we watch knowing that the ending is left open, vague, and ambiguous. Ambitious? Yes. Masterfully crafted? Not quite. Did it make Nolan want to recreate this idea in his film?

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whilte watching "inception," i made the same connections to "marienbad," however, i think nolan's intentions were more so to rip off philip k. dick.

(both dick and resnais spent their careers exploring the faultiness of memory, and by-proxy, false realities.)

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[deleted]

That comparison simply doesn't work because Inception is designed as an action film, with chases, zero-gravity fights, shootouts, and moments of general chaos. Chistopher Nolan himself said that Inception was a caper above all. I still love moments like the city exploding in one dream and then the vast crumbling landscapes in limbo.
Last Year at Marienbad is designed more as a melodrama when you remove its disorienting form. The story revolves around whether the characters can remember an event, its development, details, and consequences, and whether it is an elaborate fantasy one of them is creating. The setting and characters are static compared to those in Inception. The plot grows out of subjective details while the viewer objectively navigates these thoughts and desires through Resnais' camera.
Another problem in comparing the two films is that Last Year at Marienbad works by leaving the viewer to absorb the narration and images and make their own plot. Inception, for all of its psychological drama, relies more on feeding concrete details of the plot and explaining the many nuances of the shared-dreaming concept to the viewer as the film builds to the necessary duping of Cobb's target and his simultaneous confrontation with his wife. The presentation of the film is closer to a caper plot rather than the fantasizing of Resnais' film, with the exception of Nolan turning back on us in the very last shot.

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Yea I agree with futuredays.. I'm completely tired of the fuss Inception has occured. It's a terrible film period, and yes it is very tiring to see people comparing it with almost everything. Last Year in Marienbad is something unique, profound. Something Nolan can't even achieve in his wildest dreams.

"I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle"

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When I saw Inception for the first time, I thought it was good entertainment. And because it gave nods to Antonioni and Beksinski, my vanity was satisfied. But when I saw it second time, it felt quite "meh". Well, we know which one of these films will stand the test of time (hint: it already has...)

Last Year in Marienbad is one of the greatest films ever made and if there would be any justice on IMDB ranking, it should take Inception's place... well, one can dream...

Just to be clear, I think Inception is ok, but to compare it to some real masterpieces of cinema is just strange.



"You got to bleed for the dancer!"
-Ronnie James Dio
Rest in Peace, my Hero.

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Agree with gavriloprinciple 100%. (though I could a *beep* abut IMDb film rankings)

"Give up a dollar for Jesus!" Esa Hawks

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[deleted]

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/0,1518,708883,00.html -- Unfortunately, this interview is available in German only, but I'll translate the relevant excerpt:

Question: Do you always know where your ideas come from?

Christopher Nolan: Recently, I watched Alain Resnais' film "L'année dernière à Marienbad" on blu-ray. After a couple of minutes I realised that many critics would write that the film must have influenced me when doing "Inception". The parallels are obvious, but in fact, I didn't even know it! But it's being cited in so many movies I know, it sneaked off to my film behind my back.

Question: Does the awareness that you're sometimes not as original as you think disillusion you?

Christopher Nolan: It's confusing. You have a picture in your head which seems completely new, transfer it to the big screen and later on, you find out that it's already been in another film that came out decades ago.
Of course people would like to have control over the influences on their work. But maybe the influences wouldn't be as strong if we could control them.

I trust Nolan on this one. The stories are not that similar and I think that he failed at creating a dream-like atmosphere in "Inception". If he'd seen "L'année dernière à Marienbad" earlier, he would've known how to get it right.

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Agreed. The problem with Inception is that there's too much explaining in the film. I think this really kills much of its replay value.

Marienbad is one of a kind because it leaves everything up to us the viewer.

cinemapedant.blogspot.com

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"Agreed. The problem with Inception is that there's too much explaining in the film. I think this really kills much of its replay value.

Marienbad is one of a kind because it leaves everything up to us the viewer. "

The audience of today would never go for something like that. If there is just too much ambiguity people would hate it. It's ok to leave some things a mystery but to make an entire movie ambiguous in itself would be idiotic. Whats with all this snooty pretentious crap people like to spew against new movies now a days? It must be so fun to attack huge successful movies like Inception and praise these old movies as something more than they really are.

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Spoken like a ture ignoramus. You do realize that cinema has a history for over century and it peaked decades ago, as an artform, I mean?

So according to you, nowadays it is idiocy to do something audience don't want. Lowest common denominator, allright.

Hey, it hasn't been even a two years and Inception is already forgotten. Marienbad, however, will be talked and analyzed in 2060s and onward. This is not a battle it is just the fact of history.

Success doesn't mean a thing, especially when it is some fad of some year. Do you really think that one soul is interested about Inception in 2062?

Sorry if this sounded mean, but you have to realize that this medium wasn't born yesterday. No matter what your personal preferences are.



"Very well, then. I shall say no more. Just... tinkerty-tonk!"

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[deleted]

"Agreed. The problem with Inception is that there's too much explaining in the film. I think this really kills much of its replay value.

Marienbad is one of a kind because it leaves everything up to us the viewer. "



You do realise that Marienbad inspiration is just a small part of Inception: the Cobb and Mal storyline......


I think Inception for better or worse will be talked about in 2062, from which people like me will connect to Marienbad. Inception i believe is still top 15 or so on IMDB, and the concepts in inception are universal ("the idea like a virus")

Marienbad is the better film BUT it s still black and white, and the lack of colors and clarity (and language) will put it at a disadvantage to the modern cinema.

Yes people in this day and age want to be entertained, BUT like Nolan's other film "The Prestige" the audience wants to be fooled as well.









http://myimpressionz.tk

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[deleted]

Marienbad is the better film BUT it s still black and white, and the lack of colors and clarity (and language) will put it at a disadvantage to the modern cinema.

B&W shouldn't matter. If someone doesn't watch a film because it's not in color that's not the film's (or Resnais') fault - it's the viewers' fault for not being open minded. B&W, like color, is an art form. When used well they can heighten the experience.

Marienbad is best as B&W just as a film like The Red Shoes is a color film and would not be as effective in B&W.

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You do realise that Marienbad inspiration is just a small part of Inception: the Cobb and Mal storyline......

Yes, I do. The OP had made the assertion that the root of Inception is Marienbad. Somewhere along the line this thread devolved into comparing the two films. The only real comparison is both films are puzzles - although one is solvable and one is not (in my opinion).

Also, I think you value Inception too highly but that's my opinion. I saw the film in theaters when it was released (enjoyed it) then again on blu-ray. The 2nd viewing left me cold.

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I love Marienbad, but I wouldn't say it is the root of Inception. It is mentioned because there is a general ignorance of writers and books among film fans. They always trace influences to other films and totally forget about the books and the writers. It wasn't Spielberg that wrote Duel or Minority Report, Riddley Scott didn't write Blade Runner. But how many people knows that?

The source of Inception is a potpourri of popular sci-fi ideas from famous writers such as Philip K. Dick, Thomas Pynchon and Jorge Luis Borges. Of them Philip K. Dick is the most obvious. To start with Nolan's favorite film is Blade Runner (1982) which is an adaptation of a Philip K.Dick novel.

But read Ubik from 1969 and you will notice some super obvious similarities that borders to rip-off. In Ubik the main character works at a firm that tries to prevent others from going into peoples minds and steal their ideas. His boss has a wife in "limbo". Hell, the twist is the same. It is just a coin instead of a spinning top...



Antiparanoia is the eerie feeling that nothing is connected to anything else

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"Inception fans will trace the roots to this ambiguous film.

Well most of the good stuff seems to have gone missing along the way then if that is the case.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

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