Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

[FerdinandGriffon]

Yes exactly. It's not that the dreams aren't "dreamy" enough. It's that they're not original or unique enough in their own conception.

Inception's dreams play off of a pre-existing vocabulary of action movie and video game tropes, in exactly the same way that Alain Robbe-Grillet's novel The Erasers was constructed out of the loose ends of serie noir and detective fiction back in 1953. It is a movie whose iconography has been pared down to the bare minimum purposefully and ruthlessly and, in my opinion, to great effect.

[domino harvey]

Justin Bieber gets the Inception score treatment

[Mr Sausage]

Well, who knew 30 minutes of Justin Bieber music could be so haunting and atmospheric.

[Mr. Ned]

End of Inland Empire, anyone? Makes me wanna get a program that will timestetch mp3s and just sift through my record collection lookin' for that perfect cinematic track...

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Great interview with Wally Pfister.

[flyonthewall2983]

Two bonus tracks from the score are available for free download. Click the middle part about the bonus tracks, leave the space where you should enter your email blank and click submit, you get the tracks regardless.

[flyonthewall2983]

Saw it again today. My opinion on it has improved than the first time around. I had less trouble understanding some lines of dialogue than I did the first time (I'll chalk that up to my preference of wanting to see movies at the very back of the theater).

[flyonthewall2983]

From thedigitalbits, a taste of the upcoming DVD/BR releases:

Information is also starting to leak about Warner's DVD and Blu-ray release plans for Christopher Nolan's Inception. Play.com has details for a 12/6 Blu-ray release in the U.K., which indicates that there will be a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy Combo Pack and a Limited Edition Briefcase version that includes art cards, a spinning top replica and a booklet in addition to the discs. There will also be a regular DVD version. There's no word yet on the U.S. release, but it's very likely Warner will officially announce it in the next week or two.

[jbeall]

Finally got around to seeing this, and I'm not sure whether I was more eager to see the film or to unlock all the spoiler boxes in this thread.

I thought it was really, really good, but like others, I think it's far too convoluted to absorb fully in one viewing, so I may try to see it again before it leaves theaters. Something mentioned in this thread, albeit only in passing, was the significance of Ariadne's name. She's the daughter of King Minos of Crete. The myth of the minotaur and the labyrinth is popular enough that I won't recap it in toto, save to say that Ariadne is the one who provides the magical thread that allows Theseus to find his way out of the labyrinth after killing the minotaur. In the myth, she doesn't design the labyrinth--that's Daedalus--but she does help the hero find his way out.

So, all that said, bring on the spoiler tags!

Spoiler

So why does Inception flip things and put Ariadne in the role of architect? Or perhaps it's a misdirection?

My interpretation, which is based on my limited understanding from one viewing (so cut me some slack!), is that this film is inception-therapy for Cobb, not Fischer (Cillian Murphy). Just when Cobb is ready to go off the grid, Saito appears in a helicopter with an offer Cobb can't refuse, and when Cobb meets Eames, he's being followed, but IIRC we never who the thugs' employer is--doesn't the film suggest that Cobb's paranoia is part of his desire for punishment due to his lingering guilt over Mal? Perhaps the thugs, as projections of Cobb's subconscious, are staring at Eames, who's an intruder. By saying that they're following Cobb, Eames could be tricking Cobb so as not to ruin the dream-illusion.

Miles (Michael Caine) introduces Cobb to Ariadne in the first place, which may be significant. Miles doesn't reappear until the very end, and this just after Ariadne exchanges a warm glance with Cobb as they clear customs. This glance was curious for me, as Ariadne wasn't particularly invested with Cobb on an emotional level--after Fischer's subconscious minions stage a shootout in the rain, she says she's only sticking around because the others don't know what they're getting into vis-a-vis Cobb's issues. She's also not invested in the mission: I don't recall her being present at any of the conversations involving why it's important that Fischer break up his father's company. So her stated investment here, aside from a payday, is that she's fascinated by the possibilites inherent in the conscious construction and manipulation of dreams. So where's her emotional tie to the mission?

But she does more than just stick around; she even accompanies Cobb to limbo in order to confront Mal and rescue Fischer. After nearly getting killed multiple times, which earlier led to anger at Cobb's irresponsibility, she shows a completely different emotional investment by smiling warmly at Cobb, as if there's a sense of shared accomplishment. Therapeutic transference, perhaps?

As it's portrayed in the film, limbo is a super-super deep level of the subconscious, at least four (five?) levels down. Ergo, it's a really deep and primal level for Cobb to finally let go of Mal. And that's where he finally does, and not in a "you're causing problems for me" way, but in a deeply emotional way--this is the most poignant scene in the film for me, and DiCaprio does an excellent job here. So the mission isn't to build a three-tiered dream in order to create a deeply subconscious change of heart for Fischer, but rather a five-tiered dream (if we consider the "surface" narrative itself to be a dream) constructed in order for Cobb, who's obviously developed a serious guilt complex around Mal, to have a super-deep change-of-heart. That is to say, they're not in limbo at all, but just another level of the constructed dream.

So once Cobb's finally let go, and they come out, how come Fischer doesn't immediately recognize everybody else in the first-class cabin from his dream? After all, the team is doing nothing but exchanging meaningful glances! And Fischer is allegedly aware of dream-invasion, as his militarized subconscious shows, so were he to simply look around the cabin, he'd probably recognize his fellow passengers as the same people who tried to abduct him in that freaky dream he just had!

Saito clears Cobb's name, and combined with Miles' sudden reappearance, this suggests to me that Cobb has just unknowingly gone through inception-therapy, designed to free him from his crippling guilt, led by a team of, at minimum, Miles, Ariadne, and Saito (who provides the first motivation not only to stick around, but to go even deeper in the first place). If the entire movie is to be read as Cobb's dream, then we don't have independent confirmation that any of the characters exist outside of Cobb's subcs. projections (although it's entirely possible that the rest of the team is in on the "real" mission as well). And of course, the character of Eames complicates this further, since he can change his appearance.

This all begs the question: what happens when Cobb wakes up? Is Mal really dead? Has he been in the US all along? What's his current relationship to his children? Etc. But the film has no interest in answering those questions.

I don't know how well my reading of Inception will hold up under a second viewing, but it's worth remembering that the 19th-20th century interest in dreams stems precisely from their therapeutic value.

[Mr Sausage]

Spoiler

So why does Inception flip things and put Ariadne in the role of architect? Or perhaps it's a misdirection?

It's not a flip. Ariadne might not be a maker like Daedalus, but she is a weaver and thread spinner, which has the same 'designer' connotation. Not to mention that, after saving Theseus from the labyrinth, she's abandoned by him.

[jbeall]

Spoiler

So why does Inception flip things and put Ariadne in the role of architect? Or perhaps it's a misdirection?

It's not a flip. Ariadne might not be a maker like Daedalus, but she is a weaver and thread spinner, which has the same 'designer' connotation. Not to mention that, after saving Theseus from the labyrinth, she's abandoned by him.

Spoiler

Ah. For some reason, I keep forgetting her weaving associations, probably b/c I equate that to Arachne instead.

Thanks for pointing out that Theseus abandons her in the myth. Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus seems to support my "therapeutic" reading of the film, since in psychoanalysis, the analysand is eventually supposed to take responsibility for his own desire and "abandon" the analyst, casting him aside like a used rag. To the film's credit, Cobb and Ariadne don't begin a romantic relationship, but he does "leave" her behind at customs and go back to his family.

[zedz]

Okay, I liked this film well enough, and I've enjoyed the foregoing discussion for the most part. Here's my two cents:

PROS:

It's good to see a Hollywood blockbuster with this level of visual and structural invention and, as a few people have pointed out, narrative discipline.

The layering of action sequences was a neat trick and Nolan also found ways of making some (not all) of the film's rote generic reflexes unexpectedly meaningful.

Spoiler

That final shot of the kids, for example, could be nearly identical to its dream version because it's just another dream version, or because Hollywood films regularly do this kind of lowest-common-denominator shot-rhyming for big emotional moments)

A number of good performances made the most of fairly stock characters (specifically Ellen Page and Tom Hardy, and I wish Gordon-Levitt had been given more to do acting-, rather than sky-swimming-, wise).

CONS:

Beneath the game playing, the emotional content is extremely thin and extremely familiar.

Spoiler

There's been a lot of comment on whether or not Leo's angsting works, and how well it does, but the framing of his personal issues in terms of such hackneyed images and ideas - the golden-hued, undifferentiated angelic babes; the beach memory - completely dissipates their significance for me, and the ideas Nolan was playing with here were actually much more interesting than this execution. Even more irksome for me was how much huffing and puffing was done about the need to be incredibly subtle and devious about implanting The Idea into whatsisname's mind, but what we ultimately get is pat soap opera psychodrama at the tail-end of some standard cons. Maybe Nolan ought to have drafted in Mamet to help him with this part of the script!

Nolan is a mediocre-at-best director of action

Spoiler

and his matter-of-course frenetic cutting and spatial incoherence actually harmed the fundamental concept of the film, where at various points disorienting cutting and spatial incoherence are expected to carry an important narrative load. How can you effectively cinematically convey an artificial world that's designed to be a confusing trap when that's how you film the 'real world' at the best of times? It also meant that a couple of rather spectacular visual non sequiturs such as the locomotive intruding on the car chase were cheated of their full impact. The zero-gravity hallway fight was the exception to the rule, but it boggles the mind that Nolan couldn't see why that sequence worked so much better than his others

Not quite the 'not enough like a dream' complaint, but

Spoiler

the fact that the film's world's structure was so baldly based on that of a video game, with its levels, regenerating antagonists, multiple lives and repetitive tasks, made it very hard for me to accept it on its own internal narrative terms. Sure, all of those things may well figure in a dream, but in exactly the same configuration as a video game? It also meant for me that the 'dream baggage' - the subconscious, the working out of 'personal issues' - that does figure in the film's schema seems both pick 'n' mix and hit 'n' miss. While this stuff did generally live up to the 'rules' articulated by the characters - and admirably so - I didn't really buy that set of rules as all that plausible for what they were supposed to represent. Easy enough to get past, but it did seem like Nolan was having his cake and eating it in terms of positioning all this stuff as 'dreamwork'.

Finally, in addition to the cinematic precursors mentioned before, I'm very surprised nobody has mentioned (at least as far as I've noticed):

Spoiler

World on a Wire - I was thinking about this all the way through.
Demonlover - Handled the corporate stuff much more effectively, I thought. In Inception it's reduced to basic plot servicing and 'pfft - it wuz wizards' dramatic convenience.
Stalker - Really, that final shot, with its pointed ambiguity, is a direct rip. As for the Meaning (man) of the shot, it's clearly engineered to be precisely ambiguous. I'm sure if there are any clear-cut indications one way or the other (that aren't nullified by countervailing ones or neutralised by plausible explanations), they're gaffes. It seems pretty clear to me that Nolan has gone out of his way to avoid definitive resolution, and I think he did a good job of it.

[Numero Trois]

I think it's a true (and meaningful) statement about Nolan that, for the most part, he seems to be as or more interested in puzzle-box structures and labyrinthine plotting than in normal character arcs or development. I think it's fair to posit that as a reason to like his movies less, or dislike them altogether- it's one of the reasons I'm fairly ambivalent towards Memento and The Prestige, in both of which cases I felt the characters were designed around the puzzle rather than the other way around.

That's it in a nutshell. One's tolerance for "puzzle cinema" may indicate whether or not one likes his movies. As best stated by David Borwell:

As Kristin hints, the whole thing might actually be complicated rather than complex; instead of a dense but coherent cluster of principles we might have a shiny contraption, bolting on new premises as it hurtles along

.
Granted, better made than other action films but at its core still hollow.

Unfortunately the theatre I saw it at not only didn't project it properly but also the sound mix was terrible.... some of the quieter dialogue was drowned out in bassy soundtrack, and maybe it's like that everywhere... unfortunately, the city I live in has zero standards for this sort of thing

As does just about every other one in the country. Did anyone else have a problem with Ken Watanabe's accent? Maybe it's just me, but I failed to catch a good percentage of what he was saying. I'm terrible anyway at understanding many international actors when they speak English. Haven't winced so much since hearing Gong Li in Miami Vice. Luckily, I did seem to catch most of the rest of the dialogue. Plan to watch the film again at a different theater. Not that it'll make much difference.

Nolan has inherited some of Kubrick and Hitchcock's worst tendencies, most notably their defensive, compulsive inclination to work everything out about their stories and characters to the last detail, as if human beings and the world were algebraic or geometrical phenomena requiring a solution.

I don't think Nolan's work is anywhere near as clinical as Kubrick's at this point in time. He does seem to give the actors room to maneuver, most famously with Heath Ledger's performance in the Batman film. His real weaknesses are the penchance for convoluted storytelling and the clunky film style.

re 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.

Except for the fact that Nolan wasn't familiar with Marienbad before the creation of his film. Not that it matters per se.

[Mr Pixies]

so, this film is about parallel worlds/portals, gates, etc. not s0o much about dreams, the presige deals with this stuff too, so Nolan is telling us about portals/parallel worlds. it is what all conspiracy theories are about,

[jojo]

[/url]Nolan has inherited some of Kubrick and Hitchcock's worst tendencies, most notably their defensive, compulsive inclination to work everything out about their stories and characters to the last detail, as if human beings and the world were algebraic or geometrical phenomena requiring a solution.

Not sure if anyone has commented on this yet, but didn't Hitchcock sometimes play fast and loose with the details? He may have treated some of his actors like chess pieces but I would hardly consider Hitchcock obsessive about every last detail in a story. He was obsessive about CERTAIN details, but many others he would just let fall by the wayside. I could name numerous examples.

[flyonthewall2983]

Did anyone else have a problem with Ken Watanabe's accent? Maybe it's just me, but I failed to catch a good percentage of what he was saying. I'm terrible anyway at understanding many international actors when they speak English. Haven't winced so much since hearing Gong Li in Miami Vice. Luckily, I did seem to catch most of the rest of the dialogue. Plan to watch the film again at a different theater. Not that it'll make much difference.

At least Ken can speak and understand English, from what I remember Gong Li had to do all of her lines phonetically. But I'll admit some lines seemed a little warbled on his part first time seeing it, especially at the beginning. Second time was easier.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

[domino harvey]

IT WORKS ON SO MANY LEVELS

[lady wakasa]

We can't tell you, because then we'd have to kill you. Or at least spoiler-tag you.

[matrixschmatrix]

Doesn't prove anything, but Michael Caine doesn't see any ambiguity in the ending.

[jbeall]

Was thinking about this film again recently, and wondering

Spoiler

If the top doesn't stop spinning and it's all a dream, does that mean Mal was right all along? Of course, in another respect, if the entire movie turns out to have been a dream, then we have absolutely no external confirmation that any of the characters have an independent existence (not even Cobb), as they could all be subconscious projections of Cobb or whoever's unconscious he, too, is part of.

[zedz]

Or, for that matter,

Spoiler

why should we believe that the 'rules' of a dream-world have any empirical value or consistency? That is, why can't Leo dream that a top stops spinning? We've only got his word for any of this, and if he doesn't even know which world he's in, why should we trust his understanding of its rules? It's all a very wobbly narrative conceit that doesn't bear too much thinking about.

[Markson]

Agreed with both of the above. When given too much thought, much of the film's "rules" appear arbitrary. But it's still fun and thought-provoking. When a contemporary film hits both of those marks, I'm hard-pressed to want to complain too much, though, perhaps, that says less about Inception and more about the dearth of challenging "mainstream" fare nowadays. Still, I felt that the money spent viewing it was not misplaced––another decreasing likelihood, with Hollywood's amazing capacity to find new ways to churn out bland slop.

[jbeall]

I suppose that I want too badly for it to add up to something coherent that I'm unwilling to write it off as an inconsistency or plothole, but that's probably what it is. Oh well, it's still far better than any other blockbuster I've seen lately (not that that's saying too much!).

[Mr Sausage]

I got the impression from the dialogue that Mal/Cob's totem in particular involved a certain amount of conditioning. Leo could dream of a top that ceases to spin, but I gather he's conditioned himself to only ever dream of an endlessly spinning top.

Despite what some critics have claimed, there is a certain base-line logic for most dreams, and certain obvious violations of reality common in dreams are recommended as a way to test if you're dreaming. Wikipedia has a list of these methods, like being able to put your hand through solid surfaces like your own body, ect. I notice they include two from Inception, both of which, the dice one especially, suggest that Inception did not invent them and that they are common dream properties/reality tests (I'd love to test them, but after an extended period a decade ago of exclusively lucid dreams I am no longer able to lucid dream. Sucks). Obviously these should be confirmed by something other than wikipedia, but considering the length of time Nolan took constructing his movie, I'm willing to believe he did research into dream properties such as totems and has represented them accurately.