Surreal Realism (the prose)

The quintessence of abstraction: "A research paper underlying the facets of Realism, evading any form of detailing on Surrealism”

Well it had been quite sometime where a recent release could leave off such a daunting impact in the movie experience front.. Fair enough there have been some great releases in recent past, deserving to be acclaimed, perhaps, as best of the times too (Avataar, 3 idiots bracketed); but the haunting metaphorical effect I have been subjected to in movies like "the tenant", “8 and 1/2", “the Seventh Seal”, "Fight Club" or "Cries and Whispers" had surely eluded the movie spectrum for a while now (Well at least for me).

Then along came a flick - dubbed now as a phenomenon of sorts - from an eccentric and maverick film-maker called 'Christopher Nolan'. If "Memento" had redefined the physics of story telling, "The Dark Knight" created new-found waves all along the commercial movie circle. Next on the pipeline was Nolan's dream project titled "Inception" - a script evolving through 10 long years (perhaps his next idea right after Memento, 2000) - an extravaganza, touted to be a sci-fi in the lines of movies like "Matrix". Well however it was not to be just that (a mere sci-fi bandwagon), not realized until I embarked on one of the most shattering epiphanies of my life (a record 3rd so far).

‘Inception’ is a maze, a labyrinth – way too personal on all accounts of our very existence and the understanding of life. Those who’ve captured this basic essence of the movie would agree Inception isn’t a science fiction after all. This is about venturing on to the closets of our minds we all are oblivious to laying a peek on. The conscious and the subconscious realms of the human mindset have been attempted to be blended with a very mystique yet engaging story line. Because of its complex levels and fast paced action package there have been numerous interpretations and explanations of the movie doing the rounds in the internet, trying to decipher the actual answer to the story. Well to me, the movie doesn’t provide one – it has been designed and made in that respect – to put every viewer in a spectrum where there isn’t a ‘black is black’ and ‘white is white’ answer. That seemed to leave everyone perplexed, vying for answers in an uncanny analogy to that of mankind’s eternal quest for the truth of life, death and space. The movie imprints a basic idea and leaves for everyone to ponder over it - “Is reality a relative concept?” It doesn’t make an assertion; well it can not. Like all of us possessed with some men-fed incomplete knowledge house of tenets of truth and reality, the protagonist (diCaprio) of the film undergoes a similar concoction – in the pretext of one of our most basic undertakings – our dreams and the state of the surreal realism within …!

‘Inception’ is a personal experience because of the fact we all encounter the dream space while asleep. Seldom do we care giving a more serious re-think on those ‘surreal’ mirages visiting us every single night. At times grotesque, bizarre and haunted sequences would often wake us up in a considerable amount of shock, only to be forgotten as a bad nightmare moments later. Could those sequences have deeper implications, coming out of our subdued subconscious? The intellectuals would say things portrayed in the dream domain are nothing but reflections of our own subconscious thoughts in response to every day’s undertaking, liking, desire, emotion and pain. Well studying the ‘half-remembered’ dreams would conform to the fact our dreams mostly tend to hover around the feelings of our ‘awakened’ subsistence. But can’t this very statement be held in an entire opposite perspective? What is after all an awakened state? The state where we believe we have been for years since our birth..? And hence believe we remember everything (mind it only since the birth point) unlike in the dream domain? The state where we believe we know the rules of the nature and possess capability of questioning the essence of our existence? But then we’ve all believed to be true what we know. Aren’t we making the rules ourselves and defining the perimeters of truth? Aren’t the laws, formulas and assertions of science and nature mere observations of our finite ‘conscious’ mind power? Isn’t after all ‘Reality’ a man made terminology in an ‘assumed’ logical anointment to the incomplete human rule book?

Coming back to dreams being reflections of the subconscious, where they say - “your dreams have a direct resonance thru the subconscious, of the deepest thoughts encountered in the conscious”. Fair enough, as most would agree with this version. Like right after my brother’s death my dream domain predominantly staged cryptic and obscure sequences involving him in the center part. It was obvious as the grandeur impact of shock and disbelief engrossing the mind then (both conscious and subconscious) had deeper repercussions thru the dream sphere and which in a way explained the general reasoning covering dreams. However do all dreams follow this basic ‘hypothetical’ principle of dreams being the mind’s subconscious reactions to the conscious impulses? From where do the grotesque, bizarre and haunted mirages emanate, which often end up as ‘forgotten’ nightmares? When you dream something totally paradoxical to what your prudent ‘moral’ ideology sermonizes, I say it, in a way, overturns few un-heeded darker traits of the real self within. Might sound controversial but without going into detailing of such dreams, I guess most of us do undergo an ideological conflict at some point or the other (thru some dream or the other). And then there are those prevalent dreams of ‘snakes’, ‘self-death’ and ‘half-dreamed limbos’ – plain metaphors beyond the usual conscious stimuli and thus much deeper implications outside the overall human comprehension…!

Whatever be the ‘Inception’s’ storyline and its conclusion, for me the kicking aspect of it, all thru 3 viewings, been the hapless bid on Cobb’s (diCaprio) part to convince himself into reality. In the course of it he would have skepticism surrounding the true state of realism (surrealism?) and have inclination towards repeated POAs (proof of actions) in the form of his totem. That is so much of a directive to our inadvertent course of the life journey wherein each one of us trying to convince ourselves into a custom made framework of universal ‘truth’ and ‘reality’. At the end of the day Cobb’s totem would behave, in its veracity of ‘presumed’ behavior (ie. to rotate endlessly in dreams and vice versa), only the way he has believed it to be. The reality behind realism, dreams and life perhaps transcends the finiteness of human intelligence and I’d leave for any attempted hypothesis on it to the dedicated intellectuals, researchers and oneirologists (dream scientists). The intriguing fascination for me (made even more ardent post ‘Inception’) has been the abstractness of my endless dreams and the interspersed cryptic connotations within… And then there’s that haunting ‘idea’ of relativity of realism! After all an idea of ‘Realism’ has had all of us obsessed with the crux of ‘Reality’ itself.. the idea long planted.. since our births…

Surreal Realism

Feels like the flight into a cosmic territory - beyond the stars, the universe and the space. Into a black hole may be. The traces of an unknown paranoia seem to be lingering alongside; yet this voyage is so ecstatic. The sparks are everywhere that in a way rolling a few familiar pictures upside down. Soon you see these are the reels being linked so closely on part of your flight, traveled thus far. The scenes unify into a full-fledged motion picture which the critics would surely be balking at. Even you’re not gonna interpret it the way it should be... Now the movie unfolds with the shades of your Grand father who long died when you were a kid. Surely a conundrum - where the first face you should’ve seen was that of your most beloved materialistic living entity (whoever fits in!). Perplexed and a touch agitated, you strive to break the labyrinth. The old school stairs suddenly come up yet they don’t lead up to the same school premises. A handful of beer bottles, the most conjured up non-family flicks, the burnt paper sticks and many such queer sequences follow suit. The same old barber in the backyards of your room, who still is there, also seems to have bagged a role in it. The hot-wheels, the He-Mans and the Mario cassettes coupled with the hidden magazines make things much the more nostalgic yet equally mystique… The bid is on, still, to decipher this confusing, metaphoric script…