Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

[AWA]

I was thinking about going to see this based on some great reviews from friends, so I came here to see what you guys all thought... and of course, now I want to go see the movie just so I can find out what all the black boxes are about. Haven't seen that before here.

So I'll try to get out to see this tonight or tomorrow.

[Kirkinson]

Spoiler

After seeing this film I was talking to my girlfriend about it and she had an interesting theory on the movie that I haven't seen elsewhere. She said that the whole movie is Cobb's dreamscape and that it is Mal trying to save him.

Indeed, I wondered for a while if that's the direction the film was headed. But I ultimately decided against that, as it seemed strange to me that she would enter into his dream and be so blankly vicious and unhinged even if she was trying to sabotage each of his tasks. The film establishes quite well that Cobb thinks both inception and extraction are far more effective if you try to earn the dreamer's trust by appearing to be on their side, and this seems to hold just as well (and perhaps even more so) if the entire film is his dream. I just don't see what she would have to gain, for example, by shooting Cobb's imaginary friend in the leg. It seems an action like that would only serve to turn Cobb against her even further.

I'm not sure what I think about the entire film being a dream -- it seems odd that we should spend as much time away from Cobb as we do if that's the case -- but I do agree that the ending is a dream. I had that impression even before the final shot, given the very indulgent use of slow motion (did we ever see a slow motion shot from the "real world" anywhere else in the film?) and the ridiculously over-the-top triumph implied by the music -- incidentally, the only time I ever felt Hans Zimmer's mostly irritating score ever really engaged with or added to the film instead of cheapening it. But the clincher was seeing the kids. The shot was nearly identical to every other memory we had seen of them, which would have been enough to convince me, and moreover when he talked to them on the phone earlier in the film I thought his daughter had sounded substantially older than she appeared to be at the end. And indeed, as others have mentioned, they hadn't aged at all or even changed clothes. I think I would have been very confused if the top had wobbled to stop before the credits.

Right before I went to see this a friend mentioned an interview with Nolan where he mentioned similarities to Last Year at Marienbad, which I think is an interesting connection. It's difficult (or impossible) to know exactly what constitutes "reality" in that film, or if such a thing as reality is even meant to exist in it. And the concept of inception is a very intriguing one to think about in the context of Marienbad, where it could be said that X is trying to "incept" a particular idea into A's head and has some control over the "dreamscape" (i.e., the film itself) that helps him do this.

Overall, I liked this. The only time I started to get impatient with it was towards the end when the action seemed to be getting stretched longer than the pacing could handle, as if Nolan couldn't quite think of enough plot to fill the amount of time that the rules of the story required. It didn't help that the snow-covered mountain was probably the least interesting dreamscape in the film. And that has something to do with my other substantial issue, which is that Inception seems to suggest people have dreams that are just like reality with a couple of light twists. But as Mr. Sausage wrote:

I've been shot, beaten, eaten, and smashed into concrete in dreams more times than I can count without either dying or waking up.

Indeed, I've had dreams that seemed to be completely devoid of any physical laws, where I or other people could walk through walls, or be stretched or broken or melted in any number of ways. I've had dreams with all manner of fantastic creatures, dreams in which I was a ghost, dreams in which I and everyone I knew were represented as living mutant skeletons, and dreams in which I didn't even seem to be present. I'm not suggesting that the film as a whole should have been more fantastic, since I think it was important to have the audience questioning reality throughout and this would have been harder to do if the possibilities of the dream world were as limitless as I've experienced them. But I still think I would have liked to spend a little more time with scenes like the one where Ariadne is altering the dreamscape as she's walking through it, a little more acknowledgement of just how outlandish the dreamscape could be, even if the main action of the film didn't take place there.

And speaking of Ellen Page, what a refreshing character (and performance). She's already been talked up quite a bit here, but in addition to how inquisitive and strong-willed she was, I also found it very refreshing that she never became anybody's love interest. I feel like any other writer with less clout or integrity than Nolan had here would have tried to shoe-horn some ridiculous romantic subplot into the film for this character ("Cobb, you can't go with Mal, I love you!") but nothing like that is ever suggested. I can't remember the last time I saw such a strong female character in a mainstream "action" film, though admittedly I don't watch many of them.

[swo17]

Spoiler

Ahem...


































Just kidding, I haven't actually seen the movie yet.

[domino harvey]

I was thinking about going to see this based on some great reviews from friends, so I came here to see what you guys all thought... and of course, now I want to go see the movie just so I can find out what all the black boxes are about. Haven't seen that before here.

For those trying to gauge reaction without unspoilering the posts, the general consensus among members is that the film, while flawed to varying degrees, is very entertaining, well-made, and thought-provoking. Most members have indicated a desire to go back to the theatre for a repeat viewing, if just to gain further evidence for the many differing interpretations proposed in this thread and elsewhere.

[knives]

Spoiler

Ahem...

Just kidding, I haven't actually seen the movie yet.

Spoiler

Damn it, you stole my joke. Guess I have to do something more ridiculous, now.















Can't think of anything so how about a poem.

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

[JMULL222]

Spoiler

My interpretation is that the entire film is a dream, if you want to get really deep into it, call it a whole's night's dream for a man whose wife divorced him and took the kids the night before. Everything's too nameless and "biggest businesses in the world" to be based in any kind of realism. Also, the cross cut of Leo seeing an old Saito at the beginning, when supposedly in reality, was the biggest tip to me. Quality wise, it pandered to the action a bit too much for me, but the ending was perfect, the surreal smiles that I think represent the "dreamer" of the film starting to wake, the music, the kids trapped in time, the top... excellently lyrical.

[perkizitore]

Unfortunately, this doesn't come out in my hometown until August the 24th! [-X

[Svevan]

For those trying to gauge reaction without unspoilering the posts, the general consensus among members is that the film, while flawed to varying degrees, is very entertaining, well-made, and thought-provoking. Most members have indicated a desire to go back to the theatre for a repeat viewing, if just to gain further evidence for the many differing interpretations proposed in this thread and elsewhere.

Speaking of, I'm kind of surprised at Jim Emerson's negative reaction. This is the first Christopher Nolan film I've actually loved (despite it all) as opposed to grudgingly respect (The Prestige and Memento) or outright hate (the Batman shit). Usually I agree with Emerson, especially on the topic of Christopher Nolan. Yet Emerson's comments about Nolan's lack of imagination and literal-mindedness seems better poured out on The Prestige (which I can admit is a good film) than this film, where the un-dreamlike dream world is compelling because of its realism. Emerson seems to be wanting this movie to be a Dr. Parnassus style phantasmagoria, whereas Nolan is more interested in grounding his films in real places, real scenarios, with merely minor fantastic elements (even in those awful Batman movies). In fact, calling this a movie about dreams, and asking it to in some way reflect the subjects or forms of our own dreams, is just misguided. That isn't what it's about. It's more of a virtual reality headspace, a self-created world than a purely passive and completely open-ended dream.

What's finally insulting is how he lists a bunch of other movies, ostensibly part of some "dream" genre, that are better at recreating the essence of dreams than this movie, as if this were quantifiable. If he wanted a movie by Terry Gilliam or Tarsem Singh, then he should go watch one. And I say this as a bigger fan of Jim Emerson than I am of Christopher Nolan.

Spoiler

I also wanted to add that one of the greatest things a movie can do is imbue great meaning into a small visual detail, in this case the spinning top at the end. I was in awe of the entire movie theater gripping their seats, leaning forward, barely breathing, as this top spins and spins. The cut to black, which pissed a few of them off I think, caused all of us to sit back, take one big collective breath, and start giggling. All while staring at a top. I'm appreciative of that. It was a minimalist moment tacked onto the end of a maximalist film, and it practically made the movie for me.

[haga]

Spoiler

I saw this last night and I'm leaning towards the notion of Mal trying to save Cobb as well... What is passing as reality seems to me to be a level of dreamscape that Cobb and Mal shared and that Mal has left by dying. One scene that I keep going back to that I haven't seen discussed here yet is the one in the African city where Cobb is recruiting and gets chased by bounty hunters. They seemed very similar to Fisher's security/projections we see later in the different levels of the inception attempt. So could they be projections of Mal, trying to kill Cobb and bring him back to reality to her? One of the things that doesn't make sense is, if they're Mal's projections, that must mean that what Cobb thinks is reality is in fact Mal's dream, which I'm not sure is even possible since that would mean Mal died in her own dream but Cobb stayed in it. There's something in the very beginning with the first architect that may clarify this, but I don't remember exactly. I'll be seeing this again in a week or two, I think....

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

On the Emerson note, the more I think about it, the more successful the film is for not indulging in dadaist flights of dream fancy. Dreams make sense when we experience them (dream-logic, &c), but if the audience were to experience a total hyperlinked clutter of symbols and confusion, the film would never be able to achieve any of its goals and would devolve into a boring curio of sensory noise. There is probably nothing more boring than hearing about someone else's dream, which is why the decision to make all the dream states accessible to the viewer is a wise one, and a necessary one for the film's success. Thank God this isn't a Terry Gilliam wankfest!

[Mr Sausage]

Spoiler

What's finally insulting is how he lists a bunch of other movies, ostensibly part of some "dream" genre, that are better at recreating the essence of dreams than this movie, as if this were quantifiable.

Some people just don't seem to understand that the above is not the story Nolan wanted to tell. His interest lies in the layers of possible realities and the way people can increasingly fail to distinguish between them, not in phantasmagoria and creative indulgence. He couldn't even work through the themes mentioned above if the dream worlds were unhinged fantasy lands: everyone in the audience would know immediately what was real and what not.

Did these negative critics even bother going in with an open mind? They all seem disappointed that Nolan would rather create his own dreams than recreate their's.

[domino harvey]

Reading further, Emerson pans Sleuth for no apparent reason, which tells me everything I need to know. So few films are clever, should we really be biting the hands of those films which exhibit the trait? No one in this thread has backed off from criticizing this film's weaknesses. But as any English major can tell you, flawed works are inherently more interesting and open to discussion than closed-off masterpieces-- assuming none of the flaws are critical, of course. And "These dreams aren't like the dreams I dream" is not really a fair flaw, much less a critical one

[Matt]

I can't add much to the above discussions but to say how refreshing it is not only to have a movie set up a world with a fairly elaborate set of rules but also to have it abide by those rules. I never felt cheated or manipulated by this film, and that's extremely rare for a film this complex.

[Kirkinson]

It is misguided and unfair to call this a flaw of the film, but I can understand how someone might have trouble engaging with what they are told are dream sequences if those sequences don't actually read as dreamlike to that particular person. I know I've had the experience in other films where a conscious emphasis on believability has actually hindered my engagement because it only served to highlight by contrast those elements of the film that were not believable. While this isn't the problem I had, it's something I at least feel sympathetic to. But the point stands that a film should not be called flawed for failing to go in the direction one particular viewer would have found more interesting (as the Penny Arcade comic Svevan linked to aptly illustrates). It would also unravel everything Nolan was going for and make his original intentions sort of irrelevant...

Spoiler

Dreams make sense when we experience them (dream-logic, &c), but if the audience were to experience a total hyperlinked clutter of symbols and confusion, the film would never be able to achieve any of its goals and would devolve into a boring curio of sensory noise.

Exactly. And even if I or Jim Emerson or anyone else would have liked that "boring" curio of sensory noise more than Inception, that doesn't imply any flaw on Inception's part, and it doesn't even mean the two movies would be remotely comparable in the first place.

Moreover, not everybody has really elaborate, fantastic dreams. I know my sister is always perplexed when I describe a particularly strange dream of mine, as she says hers are always very ordinary, with only people's behavior sometimes seeming slightly off in retrospect.

Incidentally, I find the couple of comparisons here to Terry Gilliam sort of funny. I'm far more used to seeing Gilliam get criticized for things that are essential to his vision while other directors who are going for something completely different are held up as better models for what these critics think Gilliam should be trying to do. Seeing the same points I try to use to argue against this invoked in Nolan's defense at Gilliam's expense is downright weird, but weirdly refreshing. Almost dreamlike.

...how refreshing it is not only to have a movie set up a world with a fairly elaborate set of rules but also to have it abide by those rules.

Spoiler

What's your take on the demonstration done with Arthur that someone could be woken up from a dream induced by Yusuf's sedatives by being knocked over in a chair, but later none of the extreme jostling experienced in the van wakes up Arthur, who is only one dream level below? That still seems like an oversight to me, but since by and large I agree that the movie stuck to its own rules admirably I keep wondering if I might have missed something.

[knives]

Spoiler

Dreams make sense when we experience them (dream-logic, &c), but if the audience were to experience a total hyperlinked clutter of symbols and confusion, the film would never be able to achieve any of its goals and would devolve into a boring curio of sensory noise.

Exactly. And even if I or Jim Emerson or anyone else would have liked that "boring" curio of sensory noise more than Inception, that doesn't imply any flaw on Inception's part, and it doesn't even mean the two movies would be remotely comparable in the first place.

Maybe they should have screened Paprika instead. It honestly sounds like most of these people would've preferred that. Of course those same people would probably complain about it being too confusing.

[Mr Sausage]

Spoiler

What's your take on the demonstration done with Arthur that someone could be woken up from a dream induced by Yusuf's sedatives by being knocked over in a chair, but later none of the extreme jostling experienced in the van wakes up Arthur, who is only one dream level below? That still seems like an oversight to me, but since by and large I agree that the movie stuck to its own rules admirably I keep wondering if I might have missed something.

The point is that the inner ear, the thing by which you judge balance, is left functioning by the sedative. Just as the subject cannot be shaken or slapped awake, so the jostling in the car alone isn't going to disturb the inner ear. Only a sudden upending of balance with the sense of imminent impact would do it. I assume, since he was in so deep, that the subject needed the shock of hitting something in addition to the inner ear imbalace (like how Leo's chair was tipped into water in the beginning), hence the car fall by itself did not wake him, but did when followed by the sudden splash into the river. Much like, according to most people, they can fall for a long time in a dream but only wake up just before the point of impact.

It is misguided and unfair to call this a flaw of the film, but I can understand how someone might have trouble engaging with what they are told are dream sequences if those sequences don't actually read as dreamlike to that particular person.

I find it hard to believe that people have never had a realistic dream. Besides, false awakenings (dreams-within-dreams) and lucid dreaming almost invariably occur during realistic dreams. In fact, I believe one is more likely to become self-aware within a dream and start lucid dreaming if the dream is realistic rather than fantastic. The little divergences from reality begin to niggle in the back of your brain until, at least in my experience, you discover you're dreaming. Whereas, if you've accepted the dream from the beginning, you'll have accepted the rules of a fantasy dream implicitly, leaving you with no effective contrasts to startle your brain into lucidity. This corresponds both to when Watanabe realizes he's still in a dream only because the texture of his childhood rug does not match his memories, and how people judge whether or not they're dreaming by using a simple totem, a known physical property that can be contrasted against representations or projections, rather than evidence of the fantastical. It's only in limbo, the most fantastical and created space, that people are likely to lose their capacity for lucidity.

Not to mention all of this is moot since the whole point of Inception and Extraction is to use an architect to deliberately build a realistic world for the subject's subconscious to people. There is a built in reason for the preponderance of realistic dreaming: all of these dream agents want it this way. Also, if the invaders or architects manipulate the reality too much the subject's subconscious rebels and its projections turn violent.

[Kirkinson]

Spoiler

Thank you for the explanation, it makes more sense to me now.

I find it hard to believe that people have never had a realistic dream. Besides, false awakenings (dreams-within-dreams) and lucid dreaming almost invariably occur during realistic dreams. In fact, I believe one is more likely to become self-aware within a dream and start lucid dreaming if the dream is realistic rather than fantastic.

Good points all around, and this does match up with my own experience as well. The one instance I can recall becoming self-aware within a dream, it was a relatively realistic dream, and the mild strangeness that set it off was realizing that my eyes felt like they were closed even though I was "seeing" things.

[mfunk9786]

I'm surprised to come here and see this film garner such thorough praise, as I was exhausted and overwhelmed throughout. I went in with no predisposed notions about it, I hadn't even seen a trailer.

I can't even begin to explain how much I resent Nolan's signatures - an awful, overwhelming score during action sequences (which the entire first and third acts of this film are); those fucking helicopter flyovers of any new setting introduced; and banal conversation that absolutely fails to engage the viewer in the concept of the film. I'm not asking for some loopy mess, but to militarize dreams into a rigid, shoot-em-up blockbuster is exhausting when a film like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind captured the concept of the subconscious with a breezy simplicity that felt organic without divurging into the nonsensical.

Here we get the wet dreams of a chronic videogamer: slick chases, shiny hotel rooms, even a snowy espionage mission. Heap the bad dialogue and unforgivably Alan Wake-ish "cutscenes" (I mean, really, we're dealing with a videogame here - the father and wife goofiness is just the "press start to skip" hamminess that desperately aims to tie the huge setpieces together and in a lot of ways, fails miserably) on and you've got a pretty difficult sit for anyone expecting anything remotely engaging. Every single role in this film is either thankless (especially Page's - it's all "ask DiCaprio a question, act surprised, give advice, repeat") or majorly expendable (why is Gordon-Levitt here, again?).

The whole film is a self-serious masturbatory fantasy for any director who dreams of wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on what amounts to a predictable Twilight Zone episode, and the thought of ever having to sit through it again is far more terrifying than any cinematic torture that I can imagine. Sorry, folks. I just can't see the appeal of this film, whatsoever, but I'm glad you all enjoyed it.

[domino harvey]

But, other than that, you'd agree that it's the best film ever made, right?

[knives]

banal conversation that absolutely fails to engage the viewer in the concept of the film. I'm not asking for some loopy mess, but to militarize dreams into a rigid, shoot-em-up blockbuster is exhausting when a film like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind captured the concept of the subconscious with a breezy simplicity that felt organic without divurging into the nonsensical.

To be fair, you have to admit your view on the conversations is more of an opinion thing than a semi-objective criticism. Personally I think that is one area where Nolan really excels. He can turn almost any dialouge scene, even the overly expository ones, into something interesting for me as an example.

Spoiler

I'm not sure how much of the thread you've read, but there's already been much discussion on why the dreams are presented as they are. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by breezy simplicity so maybe clarification of that could help out. Beyond that, and getting away from your point slightly, the dreams are being designed be the architects to fulfill the role of a believable unreality. In that sense I think the video game nature is a positive. It really only becomes an action movie at the end, while I remember espionage stuff I can't think of any real action scenes in the opening, when they are going against someone who has been properly trained to combat invasions. At this point by becoming a videogame (seemingly never ending similar looking bad guys, levels, and the like) it begins to question the morality of action tropes. It doesn't do so perfectly, but it does it in a way that manages to allow for those tropes to be played straight while also being examined.
Ultimately that's a small part to the movie. Where Nolan's interest seemingly lies is in how thought and dreams affect who we are and that's where I think he tackles those things very well.

[Svevan]

Funky man: I like the idea of militarizing dreams and your references to videogames. To me, the film is much less about my dreams (though I've certainly had some quite like these) and more about virtual reality, videogames, layers of experience, etc. In fact, the whole movie is an excuse to

Spoiler

layer four different action sequences over atop one another that would, in a normal movie, have far more mundane causalities between them and be occupied by different actors.

So what you said about cutscenes and slick hotel rooms actually jived with me. Videogames, to me at least, are not a poor-man's anything, and the storytelling capability in videogames is often worthy of mimicry.

[mfunk9786]

But Knives, is what you described really worth seeing in a movie? Why is this film given a pass for shallow videogame archetypes when other modern blockbusters are blasted for them? Because these ones take place in dreams?

Trust me, Svev, I enjoy a good Call of Duty session as much as the next guy, but it's one thing to be playing it and another to pay $11 to be the guy sitting at the other end of the couch watching his buddy play it.

[John Cope]

This one goes out especially to you, mfunk. Matt Zoller Seitz describes Steven Boone's review as 'the most original and passionate pan of "Inception" I've read, and definitely the only one that moved me'. I have yet to see the film though so I can't personally testify to this review's accuracy. Still, he nails some of Nolan's shall-we-say characteristic idiosyncrasies.

[mfunk9786]

Thanks for sharing that - it hits the nail on the head far better than I attempted to.

[knives]

Firstly I'd like to make to points against myself. While the film is amazingly engrossing it is far from perfect and I feel as if Nolan has tread this ground better before. Secondly, this aspect of things is for me really minor to the whole of the film. While the exercises are interesting to examine they're not the reason, nor should they ever be, to watch the film.

As to the main defense, I don't think the characters are shallow archetypes of any sort. Yes they are archetypes, but I think Nolan manages to with a mixture of casting and a green thumb for dialouge to lift most of them into interesting archetypes for the essence of the plot. Especially with the interpretation I'm standing on, with the exception of Mal and DiCaprio none of the characters should be better than an archetype. I realize that's not much of a defense, but it's just the way I'm feeling right now. Nolan seems to have made a perfect excuse. That's the difference between this and a Bay movie for instance. It's aware of it's own usage, gives possible reason for it, and there are other issues being tackled. The characters may be cogs for the machine, but the machine is impressive to the degree that those cogs can be cogs rather than imbedcomps.