“Art is for keeps.” This turn of phrase, uttered by Willem Dafoe’s character Nemo in Vasilis Katsoupis’ narrative directorial debut “Inside,” is a bedeviling little saying of multi-layered meaning. It rattles around in your brain like a pinball, much in the way Nemo rattles around the luxury apartment where he’s trapped after an art heist gone wrong.
“Art is for keeps.” It speaks to the way we place value on art, and it’s also a cheeky taunt as Nemo helps himself to million-dollar works of modern art in the penthouse apartment of a wealthy art collector. Later, it’s a statement that will haunt and even threaten Nemo, alone, in an increasingly dire survivalist situation, with only art to nourish him.
“Inside,” which is written by Ben Hopkins (from a concept by Katsoupis), pits the most primal elements of humanity against the most advanced in order to tease out the contradictory and alienating nature of our current world. A coolly discerning camera takes in the apartment of this wealthy collector, away in Kazakhstan, as Nemo breaks in, overriding the security panel with codes fed to him by his partner on a walkie-talkie. Unable to locate a specific painting, he’s running out of time and attempts to escape, but the security system malfunctions and he’s trapped inside the apartment, a heavy, ornately carved wooden door sealing the vault.
