Rights holder / Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Genesis (Inception) is a 2010 American science fiction action thriller film directed and written by Christopher Nolan. It was released in the United States on July 16, 2010.
Dom Cobb is a specialist in extracting information from other people's dreams. Together with his team, he penetrates the subconscious of his victims while they sleep and reaches secrets that would otherwise remain inaccessible. Cobb receives an unusual proposal from Japanese businessman Saito - instead of stealing an idea, he must do the opposite and plant a new idea in a person's mind. A team with different skills is assembled for the task, but the biggest obstacle turns out to be Cobb's own past, which constantly intrudes into the dreams he creates.
Christopher Nolan transforms sleep into a kind of architecture, in which each level has its own rules and a different sense of time. That's what makes Genesis so different from the usual heist movies — here the team does not break into a bank, but into a person's mind, and any mistake can completely change the course of the operation. Nolan gradually superimposes the individual layers of the story, without losing the connection between them, and the practical effects and impressive cinematography of Wally Pfister help make the fantastic situations seem unusually real. The film won four Oscars — for cinematography, sound editing, sound mixing and visual effects.
Leonardo DiCaprio carries much of the emotional weight of the story as Cobb, a man who professionally controls other people's dreams but is unable to escape his own memories. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is precise and restrained like Arthur, while Tom Hardy brings more ease and confidence like Eames. Ellen Page builds Ariadne as the young architect of dreams, who gradually understands how complex the world she has found herself in is. Cillian Murphy gives Robert Fisher human vulnerability, and Marion Cotillard is memorable as Mal, whose appearance turns Cobb's professional task into a personal battle. Ken Watanabe completes the main cast with the presence of Saito, the man who proposes the operation.
The power of Genesis is not only in its complex concept, but in the way Nolan manages to turn this concept into a tense adventure. The viewer has to simultaneously monitor different levels of sleep, different passage of time and the state of the characters, but the film gradually provides the necessary guidelines, instead of simply relying on confusion. Hans Zimmer's music further enhances the feeling of a constantly approaching deadline. The finale leaves enough room for interpretations without making sense of everything that was told before it. Among the science fiction films of the 21st century Genesis remains one of the most ambitious examples of an original idea turned into a large-scale spectacle that does not underestimate the audience.
