Dafoe had a certain sex appeal back in the 80s and 90s and has a very long and varied list of film credits from The Loveless and Mississippi Burning to The French Dispatch. He tends to lean toward darker themes. But he is part of the cornerstone of films over the last few decades. Some have been abysmal but he made a big name for himself. So when I look at Inside, I try to understand what the film wants to tell me. I try to approach every film this way (not always successfully). From there, I can usually rate a film on its actual content rather than a knee-jerk reaction. If nothing else, Inside has garnered some in-depth reviews from both ends of the spectrum.
Dafoe is no longer a sexy guy here. In fact, his 67 years seem very apparent and in contrast to someone who would try pull off an art heist. There are some difficult moments in this film as well as some downright disgusting ones (but kudos to his decent ability to hop up on a counter with a bum leg even at that age). And yes, this film seems to have some huge plot holes, most obvious are the facts that 1. A wealthy art collector has left the country for an indefinite period and has left no one to come and check on the place; 2. The alarm seemed to be self contained and had not notified any security team (very unlikely from the 60s onward); 3. The sprinkler system also garnered no attention despite being in a highly secure building and housing millions of dollars worth of painting (since the 80s sprinklers are attached to some form of response team, especially in a multi-resident property). To nit pick further, it is highly unlikely any setting that houses such art would have water as the anti-flame medium of choice. The owner of the suite clearly had the ability to install the proper clean-agent system. In fact, this would have made for a very intense ending to our dear art thief (a clean-agent system removes all oxygen from the environment to extinguish the fire). There were actually so many holes I would ruin my own review if I kept going on them, such as destroying the pool water despite that the facets had stopped working (you can survive on chlorinated water indefinitely) (and most people know you can still flush a toilet by dumping water into the bowl). But the final and most damaging plot hole is that inverted skylights still have another layer of glass to go through since otherwise water would collect in the inverted bottom, but let me not get ahead of myself.
I disagree with another review that claims the film is about schizophrenia - and that entire review made me feel I was reading the ramblings of one. I will appreciate the intricate attempt to explain it as such. But as intelligent as it tried to sound, the writer didn't even know where the quote "all the time that will come after this moment" is from and, so, misunderstands the meaning, which could be said to be the actual meaning of the film itself. The full quote is: all the time that came before this moment, all the time that will come after this moment. (David Horvitz 1982) The quote is said to ask the reader to ponder each moment in time and its meaning in the larger arena of past and future. The fact that Nemo was stuck in one moment was in direct contrast to the vastness of the quote and of the art the apartment contained.
As well, I think the Nemo in this film is a nod to Victor Nemo Colesnicenco, a Mural artist in present day, not a little-known comic strip from the 1900s.
For me, this is the story of a man with nothing amidst a collection of greatness and how futile the material meaning was compared to his despair and imprisonment. It is not a survival film like Cast Away or Open Water, although both have the psychological and mental elements and are well-done (Nowhere is also not a bad watch). We do see Nemo go through some interesting attempts to entertain himself as well as moments of warping into hallucinations due to extreme dehydration and starvation.
I would venture to guess this film was written in a time when such 'traps' were very common - now illegal in in the US and most countries. In the 90s, where this film is likely set (no cell phones, wired earbuds, internet but no wireless capability...) wealthy people and even moderately well-to-dos were implementing traps that would often kill or maim the thief. I felt this film was endeavoring to imagine what might happen to someone who falls victim to such a trap.
On a side note, I see many reviews confused about why the water, internet etc are off -- this is part of the trap, not some obscenely rich guy wanting to save money by shutting off his services while he was away. When the wrong code is entered, the building traps the thief inside and turns off all utilities (fashioned after a SWAT raid style); it was not a malfunction of the security device. In this case, the owner opted to leave on the filters for the aquariums and sprinklers for the plants (someone asked who fed the fish but if you notice, there are no longer any small fish as time goes by and before Nemo decides to eat the larger ones). In the 90s, a code system was invented - now commonly called OTP - where a new code is generated when requested and is only good for 5 to 15 minutes; once it has time out, the code is no longer good and, in the case of this art heist, resulted in the alarm sounding and locking the thief in.
Our character, Nemo, did not strike me as an artist although he could draw at a passable level, and his mural was a reflection of the limited stimuli he had in his environment combined with how the stars came through the skylight and, perhaps, how he seemed to be trapped in a black hole.
Someone said the last chat with #3 was "you're on your own." I don't recall hearing that, but I do think the helicopter the first few days were his partner trying to see if he got back to the roof. There's no other explanation -- most high rise apartments don't deal with frequent helicopter traffic even in NY.
In the end, he makes it up to the roof, but now we've seen that on the picture of the passengers on a stairway leading to open air rather than an airplane is what he now perceives as the World - a place he would rather be. We are to assume he made it to the roof and lept (my spell checker seems to think Lept is spelled Leapt - welcome to the world of popular opinion) off the top rather than continue that abysmal existence.
I think the filmmakers tried too hard to show the disaster the apartment became, not only from someone living there in survival mode but because Nemo was not concerned about neatness whatsoever from the get-go. So in the end, we are left with something beautiful, important, and priceless now in ruins and mirroring what Nemo's existence had become. Is it a remark about how trapping someone might not end the way you thought? I don't know. Perhaps. But mainly, it's about becoming that nothing when a single moment fails to end and begin another.
Dafoe is no longer a sexy guy here. In fact, his 67 years seem very apparent and in contrast to someone who would try pull off an art heist. There are some difficult moments in this film as well as some downright disgusting ones (but kudos to his decent ability to hop up on a counter with a bum leg even at that age). And yes, this film seems to have some huge plot holes, most obvious are the facts that 1. A wealthy art collector has left the country for an indefinite period and has left no one to come and check on the place; 2. The alarm seemed to be self contained and had not notified any security team (very unlikely from the 60s onward); 3. The sprinkler system also garnered no attention despite being in a highly secure building and housing millions of dollars worth of painting (since the 80s sprinklers are attached to some form of response team, especially in a multi-resident property). To nit pick further, it is highly unlikely any setting that houses such art would have water as the anti-flame medium of choice. The owner of the suite clearly had the ability to install the proper clean-agent system. In fact, this would have made for a very intense ending to our dear art thief (a clean-agent system removes all oxygen from the environment to extinguish the fire). There were actually so many holes I would ruin my own review if I kept going on them, such as destroying the pool water despite that the facets had stopped working (you can survive on chlorinated water indefinitely) (and most people know you can still flush a toilet by dumping water into the bowl). But the final and most damaging plot hole is that inverted skylights still have another layer of glass to go through since otherwise water would collect in the inverted bottom, but let me not get ahead of myself.
I disagree with another review that claims the film is about schizophrenia - and that entire review made me feel I was reading the ramblings of one. I will appreciate the intricate attempt to explain it as such. But as intelligent as it tried to sound, the writer didn't even know where the quote "all the time that will come after this moment" is from and, so, misunderstands the meaning, which could be said to be the actual meaning of the film itself. The full quote is: all the time that came before this moment, all the time that will come after this moment. (David Horvitz 1982) The quote is said to ask the reader to ponder each moment in time and its meaning in the larger arena of past and future. The fact that Nemo was stuck in one moment was in direct contrast to the vastness of the quote and of the art the apartment contained.
As well, I think the Nemo in this film is a nod to Victor Nemo Colesnicenco, a Mural artist in present day, not a little-known comic strip from the 1900s.
For me, this is the story of a man with nothing amidst a collection of greatness and how futile the material meaning was compared to his despair and imprisonment. It is not a survival film like Cast Away or Open Water, although both have the psychological and mental elements and are well-done (Nowhere is also not a bad watch). We do see Nemo go through some interesting attempts to entertain himself as well as moments of warping into hallucinations due to extreme dehydration and starvation.
I would venture to guess this film was written in a time when such 'traps' were very common - now illegal in in the US and most countries. In the 90s, where this film is likely set (no cell phones, wired earbuds, internet but no wireless capability...) wealthy people and even moderately well-to-dos were implementing traps that would often kill or maim the thief. I felt this film was endeavoring to imagine what might happen to someone who falls victim to such a trap.
On a side note, I see many reviews confused about why the water, internet etc are off -- this is part of the trap, not some obscenely rich guy wanting to save money by shutting off his services while he was away. When the wrong code is entered, the building traps the thief inside and turns off all utilities (fashioned after a SWAT raid style); it was not a malfunction of the security device. In this case, the owner opted to leave on the filters for the aquariums and sprinklers for the plants (someone asked who fed the fish but if you notice, there are no longer any small fish as time goes by and before Nemo decides to eat the larger ones). In the 90s, a code system was invented - now commonly called OTP - where a new code is generated when requested and is only good for 5 to 15 minutes; once it has time out, the code is no longer good and, in the case of this art heist, resulted in the alarm sounding and locking the thief in.
Our character, Nemo, did not strike me as an artist although he could draw at a passable level, and his mural was a reflection of the limited stimuli he had in his environment combined with how the stars came through the skylight and, perhaps, how he seemed to be trapped in a black hole.
Someone said the last chat with #3 was "you're on your own." I don't recall hearing that, but I do think the helicopter the first few days were his partner trying to see if he got back to the roof. There's no other explanation -- most high rise apartments don't deal with frequent helicopter traffic even in NY.
In the end, he makes it up to the roof, but now we've seen that on the picture of the passengers on a stairway leading to open air rather than an airplane is what he now perceives as the World - a place he would rather be. We are to assume he made it to the roof and lept (my spell checker seems to think Lept is spelled Leapt - welcome to the world of popular opinion) off the top rather than continue that abysmal existence.
I think the filmmakers tried too hard to show the disaster the apartment became, not only from someone living there in survival mode but because Nemo was not concerned about neatness whatsoever from the get-go. So in the end, we are left with something beautiful, important, and priceless now in ruins and mirroring what Nemo's existence had become. Is it a remark about how trapping someone might not end the way you thought? I don't know. Perhaps. But mainly, it's about becoming that nothing when a single moment fails to end and begin another.