Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Inception is EASILY the best movie of the summer. If Tron ends up being a dud, Inception could claim best movie of the year. I personally wasn’t that excited about the film at first. The trailers reminded me of movies that I’d seen before. The first movie that popped into mind was Dark City. When I heard the premise of the film, The Matrix, Total Recall, Vanilla Sky and 12 Monkeys in that I could never really tell what was the real timeline or all if it was in his head. The fact that this movie reminds everyone of The Matrix isn’t accidental. Nolan said that he was inspired by The Matrix and submitted this movie to be made around that time.
Christopher Nolan, known for The Dark Knight and The Prestige, lured mainstream audiences to this movie by disguising it as a heist film… that and Leonardo DiCaprio. (He and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be on my annual Sci-Fi Man Fest list this year!) DiCaprio is our man character Cobb, The Extractor. All of his team have fancy heist titles which not only reflects their role in the team but can be also seen as different parts of Cobb. This is if you see the movie as all a dream of Cobb’s and no one is real. I’m fascinated with the teams designations. Arthur is The Pointman, Saito is The Overseer, Fischer is The Mark, Ariandne is The Architect, Eames is the Forger, Yusuf is The Chemist and Mal is The Shade. This team is put together because Saito needs Fischer to not take over the family business. Because some organization will be able to tell if the idea is implanted in Fischer’s mind, the team has to arrange an elaborate scheme to make it seem like Fischer came up with the idea himself. This is the faux inception that needs to be planted in order for the job to be a success. As the film progresses, I got the feeling that the inception job wasn’t the job at all. It became clear that the actual desired inception was for Cobb to let go of his wife and do whatever it takes to get back to his kids so that he can get closure and redemption.
I loved the layers of the movie. It enjoyed picking apart and differentiating the different dream layers. My circle of friends named these levels ourselves: Level 1: “Reality” or Plane Level, Level 2: Van Level, Level 3: Hotel Level, Level 4: Hoth Level and Level 5: Limbo Level. Some people who believe that the Plane Level is reality will think there are only 4 levels. I believe it was all a dream so there are 5. There is also something about time travelling slower the based on what level of dream state you are in. These layers of dreams are very Dante’s Inferno. I even entertained the thought that everyone was dead and this reality was their way out of purgatory. That thought reminded me too much of the Lost finale and I wanted to punch someone so I let it thought go.
Mal, Cobb’s wife was one of the most interesting characters. She was dead and her appearance was always a manifestation of Cobb’s imagination; an shade or ghost of guilt. As a manifestation of his wife, she was a bit unreasonable and quite crazy. When we learned of how she died and heard her plea for Cobb to kill himself because he was still in a dream, something about it made sense. It felt true. Another thing that stood out to me is that when she was making this plea, she showed Cobb their children in the same sitting, face turned away position as they were in when he left them for the first time. At the end of the movie, the children were in that same position waiting on him so that he could see their faces when they turned around. This, coupled with the totem spinning at fade-to-black made me believe that the whole movie was a dream. Speaking of the totem. Why didn’t Cobb have his own? If he was a dreamer before she died and no one was supposed to ever touch another person’s totem, why did he have hers instead of his?
I’m sure I can go on forever. Carl of Robotcast, Eric of Doctor Who: Mostly Harmless Cutaway and I had a lengthy discussion on Inception. We threw caution to the wind, opened our minds and nitpicked at Inception until our hearts were content. It makes for great listening.
Check it out here: Sci-Fi Party Line #74 Inception
This movie has generated a lot of thought and raised a lot of questions. I’ve put a few links below for further reading. Enjoy.
Inception: Official Website
Spoilerific new infographic explains the 4 ‘kicks’ of Inception
‘Inception’ Ending and Theories: What Just Happened?
The Neuroscience of Inception
Inception proves good sci-fi movies can make money. More please!
Hans Zimmer Extracts the Secrets of the ‘Inception’ Score
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