Micro Analysis Inception

Micro Analysis - Inception.

I’ve chosen the three-minute inception scene ‘ Inception Hallway fight ‘, because I found its use of the creation of suspense the most entertaining and frustrating scene out of the 5 films we had to analyse.

Immediately at the start of the scene the use of a soundtrack, being of a mixture of a piano and cello creates the suspense. As a member of the audience, we begin to pay attention to the situation, the character Arthur (Joseph Gordon – Levitt). Now with the use of the soundtrack, scene has been structured, this also symbolises that once the soundtrack is over there will be final conclusion to whether the characters survive or not, during the chase scene.

Interesting, piece of editing for the scene to present suspense even further is the use of cross cuts. Every fifteen to twenty seconds, we as an audience are presented scenes of action of a car chase in the real world and a fighting brawl between Arthur (Joseph Gordon – Levitt) within the dream world. The build up of suspense continues to grow, with the use of constant cross cuts, this is because the audience is visually looking into two different worlds with different scenarios that are happening simultaneously and that danger surrounds the characters, leading to a possible unexpected disaster.

In terms of the mise en scene within the film there is a use of low-key lighting within both worlds. In the dream world the only source of light are from lamps on the wall . While in the real world the colour is dull and grey. With the lack of colours in both worlds, represent a possible chance of death, which continues to hold suspense upon the audience. Furthermore with the main prop, being guns in both worlds increase the chances of death for either characters and continues to maintains the suspense within the action sequence.

Also, there is very little dialogue within the scene, which mean that the audience has very little verbal information to take in, but mainly to concentrate on the visual aspects. The most amazing technique used within the scene is the mixture of both tracking and tilt/rotation, when the scene takes place in the dream worlds. Portrays the fight scene to be more exciting and gripping. This is, because when given a cross cut, half way within the scene the van that holds the main characters crash and flips. Now, because of the situation happening in the real world. Causes effect within the dream world. The dream world begins to spin while the fight continues. This engages with the audience further, as if they were actually there.

Finally the scene ends with humour and the soundtrack fading away with the man driving the van yelling while laughing, ‘WWWWWOOOOOOH, DID YOU SEE THAT’. Now, because the characters in the van are asleep  they were unable to witness and congratulate the driver on his success of escape. This give time for the audience to take in what has just happened and slowly accept the conclusion of the character’s safety.

In conclusion with the use of the micro feature used, along with others the scene ‘Hallway FIGHT’ in Inception maintains its projection of suspense and entertainment for the audience. Without the correct use of editing, sound, camera angles/shots and Mise en Scene then the same reaction and affect may not have occurred as the scene had done


Image of the real world on the (left) and image of the dream world on the (right):