INCEPTION - July 2010

[eugimon]

Yup, Mal indeed brought it up during their last dialogue, but after some thought, Cobb came up with an answer that, for me, pretty much closed off that train of thought. For the life of me, I can't remember what he said (and I can't find the quote at IMDB), but I remember thinking to myself, "ok, that's one twist that won't be coming at the end". I'll have to watch it again to remember that line.

eugimon, come on, you almost had me with your first 2 signs, then you suddenly use Saito's travel habits as evidence?

Think about it, every other time we see him, he's being chauffeured in private cars, jets, the whole nine yards. But a guy who is worth billions, who has taken the time to get dream security training, is going to ride in the cheapest seats with no security detail? It doesn't add up. It's not a huge thing but it's just one more sign that points to things not being so simple.

[Mr March]

I'm very happy to say "Inception" appears to be doing well at the box office. Receipts are already nearly $150 million domestic and well over $200 million including foreign, all in just 10 days. At a budget of $160 million, "Inception" is solidly on it's way towards great success.

Inception report at Box Office Mojo

[wolfx]

Actually it's been implied all thru out the movie that it's all a dream. And Mal even vocalizes it at the end. Well... Mal, the one in Cobb's head.

The first thing I told my friend on the way out was it seemed unrealistic that the kids were the same age, but I feel like it was done deliberately for dramatic effect and to keep the audience wondering if it was all a dream. If they showed them as older kids then it would have been too realistic.

How long was Cobb away from the family? Was it mentioned? It might not be a long time.

In any case, the "proof" that the kids were still the same age was when Cobb called home from the hotel room and the spinning top fell. He was ready to shoot himself too.

Think about it, every other time we see him, he's being chauffeured in private cars, jets, the whole nine yards. But a guy who is worth billions, who has taken the time to get dream security training, is going to ride in the cheapest seats with no security detail? It doesn't add up. It's not a huge thing but it's just one more sign that points to things not being so simple.

Shinkansen isn't exactly cheap. And not every prefecture in Japan has an airport. I am assuming they were in Japan though I'm not sure where they were when they were on the train.

[dreamweaver13]

Think about it, every other time we see him, he's being chauffeured in private cars, jets, the whole nine yards. But a guy who is worth billions, who has taken the time to get dream security training, is going to ride in the cheapest seats with no security detail? It doesn't add up. It's not a huge thing but it's just one more sign that points to things not being so simple.

No, I got what you were saying. But what you are referring to as a suggestion of a dream existence could easily be labeled as a "plot device" (simply to place full attention of the viewers into the dream heist, rather than the real-world heist against security guards. For all you know, the employer of Cobb owned the train line, much like Saito owned the airline later on).

In any other film, we would have just dismissed it as an unrealistic move, or, heaven forbid for a Nolan movie, a plot hole. Which is exactly what I said earlier. These things (use of cheesy symbolic names, unrealistic actions of a character, moving from one setting to another without transition, etc.) are completely normal things for any movie. We'd notice them, and we'd snicker. But it just so happened that the movie is about dreams and reality, so we could nitpick on all these things to suggest that they imply either dream or reality. We put the movie to a different standard, and all these little plot devices could be given an additional meaning which was never intended.

Im sum, sure you can say that Saito was an idiot for travelling by train without security detail (although we don't know that for sure; and as wolfx pointed out, it's not at all cheap), but his idiocy doesn't necessarily mean that it's all someone else's dream.

[eugimon]

How long was Cobb away from the family? Was it mentioned? It might not be a long time.

In any case, the "proof" that the kids were still the same age was when Cobb called home from the hotel room and the spinning top fell. He was ready to shoot himself too.

Shinkansen isn't exactly cheap. And not every prefecture in Japan has an airport. I am assuming they were in Japan though I'm not sure where they were when they were on the train.

When the voices of the kids on the phone don't match up with how young they appear to be at the end of the film.

I've ridden on that train, I know it's not cheap but it's also not so expensive that he couldn't afford to have security with him in the booth. (well, not that specific train but I've taken a cross country in a similar booth cabin on a high speed bullet train in Asia and trust me, if I can afford it, a billionaire can afford to book the whole cabin)

The difference here and with other movies is that the things like symbolic names, locations, characters appearing in locations, etc are all pointed at in the movie by the characters as ways to tell you're dreaming, then at the end of the movie the last shot is purposefully ambiguous as to whether Cobb is awake or asleep. The movie obviously invites viewers to have this discussion.

Edited July 26, 2010 by eugimon

[EXO]

How long was Cobb away from the family? Was it mentioned? It might not be a long time.

In any case, the "proof" that the kids were still the same age was when Cobb called home from the hotel room and the spinning top fell. He was ready to shoot himself too.

No, they don't mention on the film. I watched for that specifically on the second viewing. But the events that they mentioned made it seemed like he was gone a long time. He established himself as a the best extractor in the business and it seemed like he's gone thru a couple of architects before he got to Ariadne.

[Zor Primus]

Great flick...worth watching again to chime in on the debates. Too much info for one sitting to digest

[ly000001]

Think about it, every other time we see him, he's being chauffeured in private cars, jets, the whole nine yards. But a guy who is worth billions, who has taken the time to get dream security training, is going to ride in the cheapest seats with no security detail? It doesn't add up. It's not a huge thing but it's just one more sign that points to things not being so simple.

Wasn't Saito intentionally baiting himself, to find someone skilled enough to pull off inception? He said to Cobb (IIRC, in one of the dream levels where Cobb was trying to steal Saito's secrets) that this was his audition.

[kanedaestes]

Wasn't Saito intentionally baiting himself, to find someone skilled enough to pull off inception? He said to Cobb (IIRC, in one of the dream levels where Cobb was trying to steal Saito's secrets) that this was his audition.

Yep that seemed to be story that I picked up. He needed someone to do a job, so he had to do what he could to find someone of that nature.

[Noyhauser]

I enjoyed the movie.

Although, it seems like the "gravity" aspect was not consistent all the way down. When the van goes over the bridge in level 1, there's no gravity in level 2, but level 3 and limbo are unaffected.

I was also kinda disappointed there was no twist ending. There's the ambiguous element to the very end, where the camera cuts away just before the audience knows for certain whether or not Cobb is awake, but that's more of a waggling of eyebrows. From pretty early on you're given enough to piece together Mal's part in the story, so I kinda assumed there would be another level. Someone trying to plant an idea in Cobb or something like that.

I was also kind of disappointed that they didn't do more with the aspect of layered dreams. The element of time, and the idea that stuff continued to happen in the other dreams, both seemed kinda downplayed. Reduced to a car chase and one little zero gravity fight. I suppose that's a matter of time constraints. The movie was fairly long, even though I didn't realize that until it was over. I actually thought the movie had been really short until I checked the time.

I agree with what you've said Radd.

I thought it was a really enjoyable flick but there were a lot of liberties and plot inconsistencies which you kinda needed to overlook. In addition to what you pointed out about gravity, the fact that the subconscious defences have fighting abilities on par with karate black belts and the accuracy of a stormtrooper was a big meh. The ambiguous ending felt somewhat tacked (given everything that was stated about limbo prior to that point.) Oh and the fact that they make out dreamsharing is some sort of exclusive activity, and yet there are "dream junkies" getting high in Third world Mombassa Kenya.... right

Edited July 26, 2010 by Noyhauser

[Fusion]

I think this guy sums it up the best:

http://chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html

This entire article is a major spoiler for Inception. Please do not read it until you've experienced Christopher Nolan's film for yourself.

Every single moment of Inception is a dream. I think that in a couple of years this will become the accepted reading of the film, and differing interpretations will have to be skillfully argued to be even remotely considered. The film makes this clear, and it never holds back the truth from audiences. Some find this idea to be narratively repugnant, since they think that a movie where everything is a dream is a movie without stakes, a movie where the audience is wasting their time.

Except that this is exactly what Nolan is arguing against. The film is a metaphor for the way that Nolan as a director works, and what he's ultimately saying is that the catharsis found in a dream is as real as the catharsis found in a movie is as real as the catharsis found in life. Inception is about making movies, and cinema is the shared dream that truly interests the director.

I believe that Inception is a dream to the point where even the dream-sharing stuff is a dream. Dom Cobb isn't an extractor. He can't go into other people's dreams. He isn't on the run from the Cobol Corporation. At one point he tells himself this, through the voice of Mal, who is a projection of his own subconscious. She asks him how real he thinks his world is, where he's being chased across the globe by faceless corporate goons.

She asks him that in a scene that we all know is a dream, but Inception lets us in on this elsewhere. Michael Caine's character implores Cobb to return to reality, to wake up. During the chase in Mombasa, Cobb tries to escape down an alleyway, and the two buildings between which he's running begin closing in on him - a classic anxiety dream moment. When he finally pulls himself free he finds Ken Watanabe's character waiting for him, against all logic. Except dream logic.

Much is made in the film about totems, items unique to dreamers that can be used to tell when someone is actually awake or asleep. Cobb's totem is a top, which spins endlessly when he's asleep, and the fact that the top stops spinning at many points in the film is claimed by some to be evidence that Cobb is awake during those scenes. The problem here is that the top wasn't always Cobb's totem - he got it from his wife, who killed herself because she believed that they were still living in a dream. There's more than a slim chance that she's right - note that when Cobb remembers her suicide she is, bizarrely, sitting on a ledge opposite the room they rented. You could do the logical gymnastics required to claim that Mal simply rented another room across the alleyway, but the more realistic notion here is that it's a dream, with the gap between the two lovers being a metaphorical one made literal. When Mal jumps she leaves behind the top, and if she was right about the world being a dream, the fact that it spins or doesn't spin is meaningless. It's a dream construct anyway. There's no way to use the top as a proof of reality.

Watching the film with this eye you can see the dream logic unfolding. As is said in the movie, dreams seem real in the moment and it's only when you've woken up that things seem strange. The film's 'reality' sequences are filled with moments that, on retrospect, seem strange or unlikely or unexplained. Even the basics of the dream sharing technology is unbelievably vague, and I don't think that's just because Nolan wants to keep things streamlined. It's because Cobb's unconscious mind is filling it in as he goes along.

There's more, but I would have to watch the film again with a notebook to get all the evidence (all of it in plain sight). The end seems without a doubt to be a dream - from the dreamy way the film is shot and edited once Cobb wakes up on the plane all the way through to him coming home to find his two kids in the exact position and in the exact same clothes that he kept remembering them, it doesn't matter if the top falls, Cobb is dreaming.

That Cobb is dreaming and still finds his catharsis (that he can now look at the face of his kids) is the point. It's important to realize that Inception is a not very thinly-veiled autobiographical look at how Nolan works. In a recent red carpet interview, Leonardo DiCaprio - who was important in helping Nolan get the script to the final stages - compares the movie not to The Matrix or some other mindfart movie but Fellini's 8 1/2. This is probably the second most telling thing DiCaprio said during the publicity tour for the film, with the first being that he based Cobb on Nolan. 8 1/2 is totally autobiographical for Fellini, and it's all about an Italian director trying to overcome his block and make a movie (a science fiction movie, even). It's a film about filmmaking, and so is Inception.

The heist team quite neatly maps to major players in a film production. Cobb is the director while Arthur, the guy who does the research and who sets up the places to sleep, is the producer. Ariadne, the dream architect, is the screenwriter - she creates the world that will be entered. Eames is the actor (this is so obvious that the character sits at an old fashioned mirrored vanity, the type which stage actors would use). Yusuf is the technical guy; remember, the Oscar come from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and it requires a good number of technically minded people to get a movie off the ground. Nolan himself more or less explains this in the latest issue of Film Comment, saying 'There are a lot of striking similarities [between what the team does and the putting on of a major Hollywood movie]. When for instance the team is out on the street they've created, surveying it, that's really identical with what we do on tech scouts before we shoot.'

That leaves two key figures. Saito is the money guy, the big corporate suit who fancies himself a part of the game. And Fischer, the mark, is the audience. Cobb, as a director, takes Fischer through an engaging, stimulating and exciting journey, one that leads him to an understanding about himself. Cobb is the big time movie director (or rather the best version of that - certainly not a Michael Bay) who brings the action, who brings the spectacle, but who also brings the meaning and the humanity and the emotion.

The movies-as-dreams aspect is part of why Inception keeps the dreams so grounded. In the film it's explained that playing with the dream too much alerts the dreamer to the falseness around him; this is just another version of the suspension of disbelief upon which all films hinge. As soon as the audience is pulled out of the movie by some element - an implausible scene, a ludicrous line, a poor performance - it's possible that the cinematic dream spell is broken completely, and they're lost.

As a great director, Cobb is also a great artist, which means that even when he's creating a dream about snowmobile chases, he's bringing something of himself into it. That's Mal. It's the auterist impulse, the need to bring your own interests, obsessions and issues into a movie. It's what the best directors do. It's very telling that Nolan sees this as kind of a problem; I suspect another filmmaker might have cast Mal as the special element that makes Cobb so successful.

Inception is such a big deal because it's what great movies strive to do. You walk out of a great film changed, with new ideas planted in your head, with your neural networks subtly rewired by what you've just seen. On a meta level Inception itself does this, with audiences leaving the theater buzzing about the way it made them feel and perceive. New ideas, new thoughts, new points of view are more lasting a souvenir of a great movie than a ticket stub.

It's possible to view Fischer, the mark, as not the audience but just as the character that is being put through the movie that is the dream. To be honest, I haven't quite solidified my thought on Fischer's place in the allegorical web, but what's important is that the breakthrough that Fischer has in the ski fortress is real. Despite the fact that his father is not there, despite the fact that the pinwheel was never by his father's bedside, the emotions that Fischer experiences are 100 percent genuine. It doesn't matter that the movie you're watching isn't a real story, that it's just highly paid people putting on a show - when a movie moves you, it truly moves you. The tears you cry during Up are totally real, even if absolutely nothing that you see on screen has ever existed in the physical world.

For Cobb there's a deeper meaning to it all. While Cobb doesn't have daddy issues (that we know of), he, like Fischer, is dealing with a loss. He's trying to come to grips with the death of his wife*; Fischer's journey reflects Cobb's while not being a complete point for point reflection. That's important for Nolan, who is making films that have personal components - that talk about things that obviously interest or concern him - but that aren't actually about him. Other filmmakers (Fellini) may make movies that are thinly veiled autobiography, but that's not what Nolan or Cobb are doing. The movies (or dreams) they're putting together reflect what they're going through but aren't easily mapped on to them. Talking to Film Comment, Nolan says he has never been to psychoanalysis. 'I think I use filmmaking for that purpose. I have a passionate relationship to what I do.'

In a lot of ways Inception is a bookend to last summer's Inglorious Basterds. In that film Quentin Tarantino celebrated the ways that cinema could change the world, while in Inception Nolan is examining the ways that cinema, the ultimate shared dream, can change an individual. The entire film is a dream, within the confines of the movie itself, but in a more meta sense it's Nolan's dream. He's dreaming Cobb, and finding his own moments of revelation and resolution, just as Cobb is dreaming Fischer and finding his own catharsis and change.

The whole film being a dream isn't a cop out or a waste of time, but an ultimate expression of the film's themes and meaning. It's all fake. But it's all very, very real. And that's something every single movie lover understands implicitly and completely.

* it's really worth noting that if you accept that the whole movie is a dream that Mal may not be dead. She could have just left Cobb. The mourning that he is experiencing deep inside his mind is no less real if she's alive or dead - he has still lost her.

[Mr March]

I'm a fan of Faraci and am really glad he helped contextualize some of the same thoughts I had about "Inception". The film as a metaphor for the filmmaking process came to me following discussions with friends. I love that reading of the movie and it's also very strongly supported by the film itself. It was great to see a filmgeek site like CHUD not only get as excited as I was about Nolan's latest but really provide an intelligent, inspired analysis of the film. My usual hang outs at both IFC.com and slashfilm.com found the staff of each site guardedly enthusiastic and patronizingly extolling about the film. But take the good with the bad I suppose

[Noyhauser]

I'm a fan of Faraci and am really glad he helped contextualize some of the same thoughts I had about "Inception". The film as a metaphor for the filmmaking process came to me following discussions with friends. I love that reading of the movie and it's also very strongly supported by the film itself. It was great to see a filmgeek site like CHUD not only get as excited as I was about Nolan's latest but really provide an intelligent, inspired analysis of the film. My usual hang outs at both IFC.com and slashfilm.com found the staff of each site guardedly enthusiastic and patronizingly extolling about the film. But take the good with the bad I suppose

The article was good, considering it all a dream does change my perspective on the movie. I guess it comes down to whether you consider the "real world" real, or whether it was all a dream. I'm going to geek out here for a second... Would it be accurate to consider Inception an film adaptation of the post-modernist writing style of authors like Paul Auster?

[ae_productions]

Good story. Great acting. Good directing. If all films were half this good, going to the movies would be world's favorite pass time.

[EXO]

http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2010/07/inception_score_also_read_the.php

I did not know that..

[ae_productions]

http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2010/07/inception_score_also_read_the.php

I did not know that..

That's insane!

The effort that was put into making every nuisance of this film distorted dream scape is just amazing.

A+ to Chris Nolan.

I can't wait to see what he does with this third and final Batman film, and the Superman reboot he is co-writing and producing. DC comic fans have some good times ahead...why let the Marvel boys have all the fun?

[wolfx]

I liked that interpretation about film making.

And as for the sound track thing....that's just pure genius.

[hutch]

Wow. Thanks for posting that bit about the soundtrack. Great stuff.

[Marzan]

Really like this movie. Rarely do blockbuster movies also challenge you like this one does.

I don't know if anyone else has commented on this, but some aspects of the storyline reminded me of Satoshi Kon's work, specially "Paprika".

[Snail00]

saw this movie in the theater last night. I was thoroughly impressed. Intelligent, had just the right amount of action sequences. For me the best movie of 010 so far. It was matrix with brains!

[mechaban]

My wife hated this theory, but I am sticking to it: I believe this is all just a plain-old dream that the Cobb character was having. EVERYTHING- all of the rules, the technology, all of that, is just some of the crazy stuff we have in dreams. It is all a fiction of a single, strange, dream.

Totems, projections, architects, everything- all a dream.

I heard the theory that the whole thing is Ariadne doing an inception on Cobb to get him out of limbo. And take note of her totem "chess piece" and the marks name Robert "Bobby" Fisher.

[taksraven]

What I like about Nolan is that even though he isn't Kubrick, he probably is the nearest thing that we have to Kubrick in this day and age. Pretty much all of his films are challenging and thought-provoking despite the flaws that they may have.

The Prestige is a great example. By no means a perfect film, lots of flaws but still fascinating to watch.

Inception was great, well thought out and executed. I like it how the dream sequences were pretty much reality, except for limbo.

Great stuff.

Taksraven

[hutch]

Is there a way to embed an image in a spoiler tag?

Edited August 2, 2010 by hutch

[EXO]

You can have it hosted somewhere else and then put a spoiler tag on the img tag.

[wolfx]

evangelion meets Inception

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIir5OT8sAQ

Edited August 2, 2010 by wolfx

[ruskiiVFaussie]

Great movie, i hope they keep going with it somehow, the ending was perhaps leaving a door open?

Can imagine sh^t getting out of hand real quick if someone was a deranged or un-hinged architect and there was a few nightmarish elements induced. Scary!

Edited August 2, 2010 by ruskiiVFaussie

[VT 1010]

Can imagine sh^t getting out of hand real quick if someone was a deranged or un-hinged architect and there was a few nightmarish elements induced. Scary!

Despite how much I think this movie doesn't need a sequel, it could be interesting if done right. Like the comment above, there are lots of different and fascinating avenues to explore...

[Marzan]

Despite how much I think this movie doesn't need a sequel, it could be interesting if done right. Like the comment above, there are lots of different and fascinating avenues to explore...

Basically they could go almost anywhere with it if they chose too. But I hope they don't make a sequel. Nolan has gotten to that stage were he can pick what he wants to do and not give in to producers.

[hutch]

Thanks EXO. I couldn't get it to work earlier.

Here's a fun JPG of Inception's plot as a graphic

Edited August 2, 2010 by hutch

[taksraven]

Thanks EXO. I couldn't get it to work earlier.

Here's a fun JPG of Inception's plot as a graphic

Brilliant Hutch. Where did that come from? Once again, more evidence of why this was such a great film.....

[David Hingtgen]

Is there a bigger version? Hard to follow some of the lines.

[hutch]

Sorry that's the only version I've found thus far. If I find something bigger I'll post it.

[hutch]

Bigger version for David and others...

Edited August 3, 2010 by hutch

[VT 1010]

Bigger version for David and others...

I just noticed, but shouldn't it be Fischer's dream instead of Eames?

BTW, should we still be using spoiler tags?

[EXO]

nah!

It was Eames's dream. Fischer was constantly the mark that filled (with his secret and projections) each of their dreams but the architect constructs the world in the assigned dreamer's dream.

Remember, it was Yusuf that drank a glass of water before they fell asleep in the airplane, that's why it was raining. He's the one wearing the headphones so he can hear the kick signal.

In Yusuf's dream, arthur gets the the headphones in the van... Yusuf is the only one awake to drive the van.

In Arthur's Dream, Eames gets the headphones. Arthur stays awake to collect the crew.

In Eames Dream... Saito and Ficher die to enter limbo. Cobb and Ariadne follow. Eames stays awake to detonate the charges. Was there headphones? What was the signal for the kick? Must go see again.