Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

[tavernier]

Attention haters!

[Mr Sausage]

Spoiler

I wondered why Leo didn't "die" when he was in the van underwater. Even though it was part of a dream, Levitt and Page needed to use the oxygen tank so that they didn't "die" and go into Limbo or whatever. Since Leo didn't wake up when they did, he was still underwater presumably dreaming about being on Hoth and dreaming about being in Limbo when Page and Levitt were coming to the surface for air. There was probably some explanation for that that I didn't catch. I certainly want to see it again. It's all exceedingly clever and fascinating, and even when I was terribly confused, there wasn't a dull moment. Maybe I'll have to take notes next time. It's one that's going to be puzzled over and analyzed for some time, and I look forward to reading the various interpretations that are bound to turn up on the internet.

As the reason no one wanted to die was the fear of going to limbo, my guess is it didn't matter at that point if Leo died since, being already in limbo, there was nothing to prevent.

Sidenote: the whole dying within dreams conceit I don't think has any basis in reality. It didn't bug me, since it was dramatically necessary and was at least based on a real phenomenon, that of waking right before you hit the ground after a long fall; but I've been shot, beaten, eaten, and smashed into concrete in dreams more times than I can count without either dying or waking up. I think the conceit is an invention.

Caine's character seemed like a projection from the beginning, even the earlier sequence with him seemed like something of a fantasy. I know it's possible, but is it common for American students (Page) to take classes from British(?) professors (Caine) in Paris?

Do you think that the whole movie was a dream, then? Structurally it would make sense since the film begins and ends in limbo, and the moment in which Watanabe and Leo exit limbo is hidden within one of those, again, possibly dream-resulting ellipses. The reason I dismissed my own "this whole movie might be a dream" suspicion is that it negates Leo's epiphany with Mal about the limits of representation, and also that, if it were all a dream, why was Leo's 'reality' such a nightmare? If he can control his dreams, why would he need limbo? Why wouldn't his subconscious make his surface dream--what he takes to be reality--more wish-fulfilling? That and the constant reality testing would have told him what was real or not. Unless of course by this point he's caught in so many layers of dreams-within-dreams, like a mental Russian doll, that he's simply lost his bearings, but I am not at all convinced the movie was going for that. Plus, as I said, his reality test, that bauble, seemed to work.

[Jeff]

Spoiler

As the reason no one wanted to die was the fear of going to limbo, my guess is it didn't matter at that point if Leo died since, being already in limbo, there was nothing to prevent.

That makes sense, I think. Wouldn't that create some kind of infinite loop though? Leo makes himself fall in Limbo to wake himself up, but when he wakes up, he has already drowned in the van, sending him back to Limbo again. Or something.

Do you think that the whole movie was a dream, then? Structurally it would make sense since the film begins and ends in limbo, and the moment in which Watanabe and Leo exit limbo is hidden within one of those, again, possibly dream-resulting ellipses.

I'm not sure what to think. I definitely considered it as a possibility -- that everything is actually one level deeper than it appears to be, because the whole thing is a dream that Leo is having -- maybe not even one of those machine-induced dreams, but an honest-to-God, laying-in-his-bed, regular dream.

The reason I dismissed my own "this whole movie might be a dream" suspicion is that it negates Leo's epiphany with Mal about the limits of representation

I don't know if it does negate it though. None of the other characters in the movie besides Leo are fleshed out at all. They are all very limited representations of actual human beings, ciphers of archetypes really. Is it possible that the rest of the team is not actually "sharing" a dream with him, they are just projections of his memories like Mal?

if it were all a dream, why was Leo's 'reality' such a nightmare? If he can control his dreams, why would he need limbo? Why wouldn't his subconscious make his surface dream--what he takes to be reality--more wish-fulfilling?

Isn't it ultimately wish-fulfilling though? He has an exciting adventure in which his dream-invading skills are put to an incredible test, he builds a crack team, succeeds at inception with Murphy, escapes handily and is reunited with his children. The peril, for the dreamer, is ultimately part of the fun.

the constant reality testing would have told him what was real or not. Unless of course by this point he's caught in so many layers of dreams-within-dreams, like a mental Russian doll, that he's simply lost his bearings, but I am not at all convinced the movie was going for that. Plus, as I said, his reality test, that bauble, seemed to work.

That's the bit I'm struggling to recall. Did the reality testing ever "work?" Did he ever spin the bauble and see it stop spinning? That's not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don't remember it, but that's something I think I would notice. I know that during the opening sequence, where they were trying to invade Watanabe's dream, the dreaming Leo ran to the bathroom to splash water on his face and dropped the bauble before he could spin it. Was there a point in what he considered reality in the film where he spun it and it stopped?

It's stuff like this that makes me already anxious to see it again despite its weaknesses. I think the pieces are all there if only I were sharp enough to put them together, and I may be making some stupid assumptions. Rex Reed would say that I have scrambled eggs for brains.

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

He rushes over to a table and spins it to stopping after one of the dream trips with Ellen Page, maybe the last one with the elevator?

Maybe the last scene is just an act of inception implemented on the audience to doubt everything they just saw

[knives]

Everyone, especially Mr. Sausage, seems to have taken everything I've thought up to say so far. I'll try to add something, but it probably won't.

Spoiler

Stepping back from the story and acting a bit, I think the structure is really the best thing going for the film. It's split and orchestrated in as careful a way as anything since Kurosawa. The movie really seem to begin with the introduction of Murphy's character, but the first hour is as essential as a prolouge can be. It's already been mentioned, but I love how Nolan managed this very exposition heavy opening mostly through visuals. An other thing I loved is how they managed to make that whole sequence essentially in real time. It's almost funny that five real world minutes play out as an hour. The only real complaint I can muster is that they never seemed bothered to get the essence of a dream right. In the very similar Paprika the dream sequences felt like they belonged to dreams and I wish they were presented more like that.

I guess I'm just glad that this big hulking blockbuster manages to do something unique and be relatively smart and unmanipulative. When was the last time Hollywood did that, Heaven's Gate?

Edit:

Shutter Island

Just thought of something else, Isn't it odd that DiCaprio has basically played the same character twice this year? Both films hit basically all of the same notes with his character.

[Foam]

Spoiler

I would have to see this scene again to be sure (and I'm not sure at all) but it appeared to me in the airport scene that Ariadne was working behind the desk when Cobb is given reentry, possibly suggesting that everything we just witnessed was a dream constructed by the crew as a kind of gift to him.

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

Pretty sure she's just dealing with a customs agent like DiCaprio

[Mr Sausage]

Spoiler

That makes sense, I think. Wouldn't that create some kind of infinite loop though? Leo makes himself fall in Limbo to wake himself up, but when he wakes up, he has already drowned in the van, sending him back to Limbo again. Or something

No, once the drug wore off he would simply wake-up out of the dream like any normal person, provided he wasn't still in limbo, which seems to be some kind of cerebrally-active coma.

I don't know if it does negate it though. None of the other characters in the movie besides Leo are fleshed out at all. They are all very limited representations of actual human beings, ciphers of archetypes really. Is it possible that the rest of the team is not actually "sharing" a dream with him, they are just projections of his memories like Mal?

I think Ellen Page's Ariadne (apt name, as Ariadne in Greek myth was a spinner or weaver) is somewhat fleshed out, and we discover most of the movie's surprises through her (how dream sharing works, the true source of Leo's trauma, ect.). Unless this was an accident, I think it complicates this theory somewhat.

Isn't it ultimately wish-fulfilling though? He has an exciting adventure in which his dream-invading skills are put to an incredible test, he builds a crack team, succeeds at inception with Murphy, escapes handily and is reunited with his children. The peril, for the dreamer, is ultimately part of the fun.

Heh. Amusing thought, but I think the movie is more fun to watch than live through. I can't imagine anyone wanting to dream themselves through such depths of guilt and trauma.

That's the bit I'm struggling to recall. Did the reality testing ever "work?"

Now that you mention it, I don't remember myself. Domino seems to think so. I really do have to watch this again.

[HistoryProf]

hoping to see this this weekend...came in to see the tenor of response so far here but it's like trying to read a Bush era FBI information request response

[matrixschmatrix]

Edit:

Shutter Island

Just thought of something else, Isn't it odd that DiCaprio has basically played the same character twice this year? Both films hit basically all of the same notes with his character.

Spoiler

I noticed that, and there's a few other pretty noticeable references to the actors' other movies- the most clear being the choice of wake-up song, which seems like one for Cotillard.

For the movie as a whole, I thought one of the interesting accomplishments was creating an action movie environment where there could be characters running around shooting people with no moral impact whatsoever- it seemed like something the Matrix had tried to do, and at which it had not succeeded. There's a beat suggests their might be meaningful consequences- where Page asks if you're eradicating parts of people's psyches by killing their projections, but we never get any reason to think that might be case. Certainly, it doesn't seem like Cotillard's death in DiCaprio's subconscious is the reason he's able to exorcise her.

I was never actually too taken with Nolan's other puzzle box movies- I liked the Prestige and the Memento, but they both felt a bit gimmicky and thin beyond the twisty plots. I'm happy to have him as someone who directs puzzle box action movies, though, and he's improved immensely as an action director since Batman Begins.

[knives]

Spoiler

How come the kids haven't aged, or changed clothes, in a year? I guess that guarantees the ending as a dream, but to what degree the whole film is a dream obviously still should be debated.

[Foam]

Spoiler

I'd have to watch it again to point to specific signposts, but I think the final scene just flat out felt more dreamlike than any of the scenes we knew for sure weren't real. The music was over-the-top romantic even by Nolan-Zimmer standards, reminding me of how Lynch sometimes employs saccharinity as a distinguishing mark between the unreal and the real. If I'm not mistaken it also seemed to move a little slower than usual, the walk through the airport striking me as particularly alien and otherworldly. It's entirely possible though that this was just Nolan's attempt at handling the sentiment, leading to an ambiguity I'm sure was intentional.

As for the film as a whole, I think it's admirable in its audacity, but only fascinating to a point and really not close to any number of classic high-concept sci-fi films. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to walk away from it with other than awe at the technical achievements.

[Mr. Ned]

Just got back from this, so I figure I'll throw my scraps into the den...

Spoiler

Knives' mention of Shutter Island may be the easiest way to dive into exegesis. Both films, albeit through different genres and different manipulations of formal techniques, are fine demonstrations in their directors' looking at the very fragile oscillations cinema has between art and artifice. The similarities of both plots lends itself to this easily: there is a guilt-ridden, mentally unstable protagonist whose labyrinthine journey into the created topographies inner world acts as a way for more distanced travelers--the audience--to survey the limits and boundaries of cinematic formalism. The tenseness of the protagonists, with their instability perpetuating both momentum and balance, keeps the audience more alert to everything on the screen and able to scrutinize everything from genre mechanics to film language. The only qualm I have with this idea is its tendency to fall back on the basic emotive foundations of the genres involved (even with all its cheeky fooling around with s/rs and continuity, I don't think Shutter Island ever escapes from the more heavy-handed aspects of its main genre influences: film noir, melodrama and the haunted house.), but that may actually work to Inception's advantage. Being a psychological synthesis of an action film and a heist movie, most of emotive implications of Inception vanish in the amoral techniques of the genre. We don't have to worry about all the cronies getting shot and all the building getting blown up because: a. this is an action movie! and, b. it's all a dream! In this sense, Inception surpasses Shutter Island in its questioning of dreams and reality because its genre devices reinforce to the audience the audacity of what is being watched; Scorsese's film became entrapped in emotional connection and sentimentality, keeping it from delving very deeply into cinema's dreamscapes, while Nolan's almost immediately throws sentimentality out the window (or, more appropriately, Nolan makes Cobb's senimentality [Mal getting out of the chair at the beginning and then holding him at gunpoint] immediately unreliable) so the audience can focus on the cinematic trip they're taking. Unlike Teddy's guilt, which permeates the role-playing of Shutter Island's characters as well as Scorsese's directorial decisions, Cobb's guilt is just another cog in the machine, no bigger a piece to the puzzle than anything else. Now that's good writing.

This lack of emotional base, which in any other movie I probably would have hated, is Inception's greatest strength. Jeff mentions that the majority of the characters, sans Ariadne, are basically action movie archetypes that become more and more ciphered the deeper into the dreamscape they go. However, since genre expectations lend an action audience not to expect the guys they're following to become riddled with guilt or regret for all the people they kill or buildings they blow up (We don't watch Die Hard to watch John McClane feel remorse, we want him to shoot german bank robbers and make bad Roy Rogers puns), we're allowed to examine what effects Cobb's guilt has on the structure of the film's spectacle instead of how emotionally torturous it is on him while also accepting the one-dimensional aspects of the rest of the cast. This is Cobb's story, first and foremost, but we can stomach everyone else's simplicity because they all have equal causality to the film's continuation. With no emotional attachment, the audience can examine just how interrelated all this plural dream dimensions and the characters inside them are. Look no further than the last hour, which felt like a never-ending climax, as the crew dives deeper into the dream levels. All the different levels, and the objectives sustained by those levels (Cobb's catharsis, the crumbling of the Fischer empire for world safety, saving Saito from Limbo), are on the same interlocking axis; the personal objective of each character (Yusuf's van plummet, Hewitt's elevator free-fall, Cobb's Theseus-ian removal of Mal's influence) are all integral to the success of the collective objectives, as well as Nolan's success an, er, successful director. Again, even if Cobb's subjectivity takes precedence over everyone else's, Nolan's attribution of the action genre keeps it a narrative tool instead of a narrative encapsulation. The movie's main goal is, above all else, to purify Cobb's subjectivity, but Nolan persistently keeps Cobb's fragility just another obstacle in the movie's narrative instead of the main formal device, and that's what makes the movie work.

I'll have more later, but one thing that did irk me was Nolan's continuation to add simplistic glossing overs of contemporary political fervor in his already complicated narratives. Was it really necessary to place the first dream heist scenario in the midst of a riot in what appeared to be a third world country? Cobb's hiring of Eames in...I forget where...was also an obvious addition of this with little plausible purpose. The inception of the idea into Fischer's mind also stems from some element of global power shifts besides Saito's competition with him, but my mind was racing too much from everything else to catch what it was. Anyone have anything to add with this?

The poetics of the movie were also outstanding. The "discovery" sequence in Paris beginning with Cobb drawing his perceptive diagram for Ariadne (the perception/creation revolution with the stable plane sustained in the middle) that leads to Ariadne's first manipulations of the subconscious environment was an ingenious look at the synaptic topographies of the creative mind and was easily the brightest of many bright points in the film. Instead of grieving over the conflict between dreams and reality, of the inherent difference between subjective perception and objective reality, this sequence was first and foremost a celebration of what both cinema and the human mind can do instead of worrying about where it does it, and gets at something so fundamental to cinema's integrity as an art form: the bombastic guiltlessness of an artist in their manipulation of the order of things, and the shifts such manipulations provide to identity, to culture, to history and whatever else....oh, to be a dreamer!


Edit: I notice Domino mentioned Solaris earlier, a film that also popped in my head during viewing, as well as La Jetée. It feels as if the Fischer empire sub-plot, with the generational tensions between father and son and the implication of an artificial idea/environment easing said tension, was lifted directly from Solaris' climax. Also, how could La Jetée not pop in your mind every time the group "tapped" into another subconscious dimension? The relationship between Cobb and Mal feels like a kind of inversion of the couple from Marker's short. I don't think Marker's short is very romantic (his protagonist is a cold extension of Scotty in Vertigo, so painfully "marked by an image" that he needs to resuscitate it over and over, and Nolan appears to extend the grotesqueness of that situation even further. Cobb's resuscitations of Mal are not romantic at all, but teetering towards obsessive mental illness. Cobb's confession to Mal that he needs to let her go was the most resonant part of Inception for me for many reasons. Speaking out of personal catharsis, that scene hit home for me, but it also appeared to be an evolution of Marker's analysis of cinema's utility as an image projector, not just as cinematic apparatus but for personal desires as well, and how unhealthy being marked by an image can be. It may feel like love, this devotion to an image that affected one so deeply, but is it true inspiration, as Cobb mentions a few times, or are those persistent memories things that inhibit true creative flows? That being said, this kind of made the ending a cop-out for me, but an unavoidable one. Cinema is a world of dreams, and the world of a dreamer is always teetering on uncertainity...but after such a densely layered spectacle, it felt silly for Nolan to reinforce that with what was resemblant of a cinematic parlor trick.

[Mr Sausage]

Digression:

I was never actually too taken with Nolan's other puzzle box movies- I liked the Prestige and the Memento, but they both felt a bit gimmicky and thin beyond the twisty plots. I'm happy to have him as someone who directs puzzle box action movies,

When exactly did telling original stories using unique, tightly crafted structures become a "gimmick?" And what is the gimmick, exactly? If there were no plot or characters at all and the whole thing hinged on a single, disposable trick, that I would accept as a gimmick. But I do not accept the idea that a fully functioning cinematic structure so integrated into the plot that to remove it would destroy the narrative thrust and the character arcs and rob the film of its surprises is a gimmick. As an example of how well integrated Memento's structure is, consider Carrie-Anne Moss' character arc as the femme fatale. Memento is partly a film noir/detective movie allusion, and the femme fatale often starts the movie on the side of the lead and ends it having become darker and more complicated, sometimes switching allegiances to the point of becoming the lead's antagonist (think: Mary Astor in Maltese Falcon). Carrie-Anne Moss goes through exactly this arc, beginning Memento as a friend and sympathizer and ending it having rather coldly manipulated the lead character. The relationship between the two begins warmly and by the end has grown cold (since they are, chronologically, strangers). Not only would we lose the femme fatale motif if Memento were chronological, but we would lose the ingenuity by which Nolan has created a complicated but ultimately sympathetic portrait of this woman--chronologically, she manipulated Leonard when she barely knew him, but came to genuinely care for him and attempted to repay him for the favour she knows he doesn't even remember doing--while at the same time making her fit an archetype she otherwise would not have fit. It's ingenious the way Nolan puts this character through the regular paces of this archetype through purely structural means. The structure expands possible meaning, something a gimmick cannot do, else it ceases to be a gimmick and becomes part of the essential texture of the tale.

As for The Prestige, if a novel took that particular structure no one would consider calling it a gimmick; but a film does it, despite being as much a narrative form as a novel, and it's a gimmick? Is this not bias? Who decreed that films must only deal in strictly chronological plots? I can understand someone saying this of plays: their tradition insists on that kind of unity. But films are not as limited as plays, and this should be one of the major things to prove it.

Spoiler

Being a psychological synthesis of an action film and a heist movie, most of emotive implications of Inception vanish in the amoral techniques of the genre.

Is this the only heist movie where the goal is not to extract something but implant it? In- rather than ex-, fill rather than empty? It also changes the whole game from manipulating physical circumstances to manipulating mental ones. Great post, by the way.

[Mr. Ned]

Spoiler

Being a psychological synthesis of an action film and a heist movie, most of emotive implications of Inception vanish in the amoral techniques of the genre.

Is this the only heist movie where the goal is not to extract something but implant it, in rather than ex, fuill rther than empty? It also changes the whole game from manipulating physical circumstances to manipulating mental ones.

Spoiler

I'm drawing a blank on any heist movies that involve implantation of something rather than an extraction....I suppose given the exotic locales of some of the dreamscapes, one could argue Inception also integrates the spy sub-genre in its narrative too, and James Bond has been known to do various, um, implantations during his double-0 objectives. All snarkiness aside, I mean that in the sense of Bond sneaking into compounds under espionage like Cobb and crew sneak into the realms of Fischer's mind under similar pretenses. All heist movies involve the manipulation of the physical environment, but it's been a recent development in the sub-genre for directors to extend that manipulation to environments more metaphysical than physical...the twist in Spike Lee's The Inside Man has a certain "implantation" element to it, and Soderbergh's Ocean's 13 side-plot of the brothers causing a worker's strike in the dice factory is a manipulation of national relations and class consciousness, albeit on a general level. These aren't as internally motivated as Inception obviously, since neither example actually penetrates mental depths, but the "heisters" do fool around with more than just their physical surroundings.

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

Dying in the extended purgatory stage initially seems to send you back to the previous stage-- for DiCaprio and Cotillard originally it was reality, because they only went one-deep. But Page was sent back to the van (which is three-deep, right-- does it show her in the elevator or the snow world?). DiCaprio is sent back to his previous state, but it isn't the snow reality, the hotel reality, or the van reality, but something approaching the assumed base reality. Assuming DiCaprio is living "reality" in the final stage of the film, that's being sent back four-deep. The results don't match. So could the twin smash cuts that bookend the film, with the elder Watanabe leading right into the attempted extraction at the beginning and the elder Watanabe again leading into another shift of reality by seemingly shooting DiCaprio, possibly be there not to mess with linearity but to clue the viewer in to the entire narrative existing on the same plane of dream-reality? And if so, to what purpose?

Some thirteen hours later and I'm still thinking about this freaking film

EDIT: And now I see there's this, which is just making my head hurt

[knives]

Some thirteen hours later and I'm still thinking about this freaking film

Terrible huh. It probably doesn't even merit this much thought, but damn if it doesn't force you. I also feel completely out of water talking about the film when every one else is doing me a few better.

Spoiler

One thing already seems to have changed from my initial viewing and that's on the characters. While he really only works on four, maybe five, characters this is nonetheless a more character motivated piece than I first thought. Page and DiCaprio have already been talked about better than I can put it so I figured I'd bring up the other three. Mal, the business man and Murphy admittedly aren't the most developed characters ever, but as alternatives and aspects for Dicaprio I think they manage to be at the very least rather interesting. Murphy, probably because it is Murphy, is the most interesting of these for me. We don't see him until well into the movie and outside of the bar scene and the hospital shack he never really gets a moment, but there still is a decent portion of of things about and from the character that I find rather interesting. Going with the assumption DiCaprio is in a dream level the whole time Murphy could be a projection of DiCaprio's insecurities with regards to his own children. Has he caused such a complex mess as the Murphy character. If that's the case than maybe Mal isn't a projection and was right from the beginning. Could she be dragging him out of his sleep rather than the other way around. What would this make of the business man, the first side character we see. Maybe he's working as an architect. That's one of the few explanations for why they would let him into the dream world during the mission. To think, I wanted to step away from conspiracy theory for a second to talk about the character subtleties. For such a straight forward movie it really has a near comical amount of interpretations.

[matrixschmatrix]

Digression:

I was never actually too taken with Nolan's other puzzle box movies- I liked the Prestige and the Memento, but they both felt a bit gimmicky and thin beyond the twisty plots. I'm happy to have him as someone who directs puzzle box action movies,

When exactly did telling original stories using unique, tightly crafted structures become a "gimmick?" And what is the gimmick, exactly? If there were no plot or characters at all and the whole thing hinged on a single, disposable trick, that I would accept as a gimmick. But I do not accept the idea that a fully functioning cinematic structure so integrated into the plot that to remove it would destroy the narrative thrust and the character arcs and rob the film of its surprises is a gimmick. As an example of how well integrated Memento's structure is, consider Carrie-Anne Moss' character arc as the femme fatale. Memento is partly a film noir/detective movie allusion, and the femme fatale often starts the movie on the side of the lead and ends it having become darker and more complicated, sometimes switching allegiances to the point of becoming the lead's antagonist (think: Mary Astor in Maltese Falcon). Carrie-Anne Moss goes through exactly this arc, beginning Memento as a friend and sympathizer and ending it having rather coldly manipulated the lead character. The relationship between the two begins warmly and by the end has grown cold (since they are, chronologically, strangers). Not only would we lose the femme fatale motif if Memento were chronological, but we would lose the ingenuity by which Nolan has created a complicated but ultimately sympathetic portrait of this woman--chronologically, she manipulated Leonard when she barely knew him, but came to genuinely care for him and attempted to repay him for the favour she knows he doesn't even remember doing--while at the same time making her fit an archetype she otherwise would not have fit. It's ingenious the way Nolan puts this character through the regular paces of this archetype through purely structural means. The structure expands possible meaning, something a gimmick cannot do, else it ceases to be a gimmick and becomes part of the essential texture of the tale.

As for The Prestige, if a novel took that particular structure no one would consider calling it a gimmick; but a film does it, despite being as much a narrative form as a novel, and it's a gimmick? Is this not bias? Who decreed that films must only deal in strictly chronological plots? I can understand someone saying this of plays: their tradition insists on that kind of unity. But films are not as limited as plays, and this should be one of the major things to prove it.

It isn't so much that I object to the structures themselves as that I, personally, found the movies less satisfying once I unlocked the structural kinkiness- 'gimmick' may not be the best word, but to me the puzzle box aspects hid a story that simply didn't do that much for me in either case.

I appreciate both Nolan's awareness of film history, which comes up in the movies throughout his career, and his ability to keep the balls up in the air while juggling hugely complicated plots, but while I don't object to the hugely complicated plots their successful execution doesn't automatically make a movie work for me- and in both the Prestige and Memento, I didn't find the actual character drama that lay under them strongly moving.

Back on topic:

Spoiler

Along with La Jetée, Solaris, Shutter Island, and the unmentioned but elephant in the roomish Matrix, one of the major influences I felt was Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man- the corporate father and son plot, the intricacies of playing in someone's mind, the need to into deeper and deeper levels of the unconscious, and the addictiveness of the realms of pure mind all seemed to harmonize well with it.

[lady wakasa]

I also feel completely out of water talking about the film when every one else is doing me a few better.

I feel like this, too - I'm still getting the "facts" down at this point. I just saw it last night, and I need to see it again to check a few things. Overall, though, I enjoyed it, even if the "song" seemed a little forced.

If more Hollywood films took these sorts of risks, I'd probably go back to seeing more of them. (Of course, YMMV.)

But am I the only one who wonders about

Spoiler

all the ramifications if the implantation in Robert Fischer's mind is as disastrous as it was with Mal?

...well, unless it *was* all a dream...

That's why I have to see it again.

(I think I checked all the comments, but I might've missed something somewhere.)

[knives]

Spoiler

That one hasn't been seriously brought up yet. To take that as a separate part I am curious how something as small as be your own man will change Fischer, also the change in feelings with the bodyguard. Could an inception ever have positive effects? If so I think this one is a case, but it also seems to be making fun of that moral which is so popular to use nowadays, I'm looking at you every cartoon of the past ten years. By 'being his own man' will Fischer ruin himself, not just financially but also on a personal level? Hell that sort of idea if taken to an extreme could turn him psychotic. It's very interesting how Nolan sees the power of just one word, let alone complete if abstract ideas. How greatly does the smallest event alter or make our identities. This goes back to Following and really seems to tie those first two films and this one together. He's always talked about identity of course, and I think The Prestige is his most powerful discussion of it, but these three seem to be examining identity more in how fleeting it is than in how it defines some one like in his other three pictures. Will we be the same person tomorrow? Despite, or maybe because of, the warts that are more apparent today my estimation of this movie is somehow increasing.

[Mr Sausage]

Spoiler

So could the twin smash cuts that bookend the film, with the elder Watanabe leading right into the attempted extraction at the beginning and the elder Watanabe again leading into another shift of reality by seemingly shooting DiCaprio, possibly be there not to mess with linearity but to clue the viewer in to the entire narrative existing on the same plane of dream-reality? And if so, to what purpose?

It may very well be doing just that. Remember that the last thing Leo and the elder Watanabe say to each other is that train speech that Leo told Mal right before they left limbo that first time, something Watanabe shouldn't have known, or if he had, shouldn't have understood its significance. If he is one of Leo's projections, the speech makes sense since he is communing with his own sub-conscious.

[perkizitore]

I think you should move this to the major spoilers thread! \:D/

[Deoxsys]

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. When Cobb talks about his wife and how they experimented with the dream world they would go deeper and deeper until they got lost and spent 50 years of dream time in there. If you follow the logic of the entire heist section then you need a kick to go up a level until finally you are awake. Thus, if Cobb and Mal were deep enough their first kick was the train. And Mal's second kick was the suicide. Cobb never had a second kick. To reinforce this idea, why else would Mal set up the blackmail on Cobb? If they were in the real world how would she have the state of mind to pull something that intricate off? Also with the idea of inception it fits with the movie if Mal is using inception on Cobb to get him to come out, but since there is no catharsis it hasn't worked. It is just filled with guilt and pain. Also, the heists could be seen as Cobb trying to protect himself from Mal and letting him go deeper into himself. This theory really works for me because it explains Mal showing up so often extremely well especially with her actions. She is constantly assaulting Cobb's subconscious in order to kick him out. It comes accross as desperation for her to get her husband back.

[Zumpano]

I haven't seen Following, but I understand that one of its main characters is a thief named Cobb. Can anyone make some relations between that film's character and Inception's?

[Svevan]

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.

Spoiler

I think this goes against some major tonal elements of the film, especially the climactic moment where Cobb confronts the imagined version of Mal and says that, since she is a memory, she has never been as fully developed as the actual Mal. Mal seems to consent to that idea, and it is treated (musically and thematically) as a major moment of triumph. Further, Cobb never commits suicide in the same world that Mal did, so if that was indeed Mal's goal, she failed terribly. The film's ending is an accomplishment for Cobb, whether he's in a dream world or not, because he has conquered the memory of his dead wife. If Mal was actually doing something GOOD, and was more than just a projection of Cobb's subconscious, I don't think the movie would have treated either of these two scenes the way it did.