I agree and disagree with Scott; were Inception properly a movie interested in answering “is it a dream within a dream?”, or even a film that tried to get us to guess, I would agree that it fails. But I thought the movie succeeded, though it was good, but not great. There will be spoilers after the jump, though nothing I think that would rob one’s enjoyment of the film. Nor will there be a defense of Nolan himself after the jump; it would not surprise me that the man’s intentions could be defended, but the only other work of his I’ve seen is the Batman reboot, which was notable mostly for Heath Ledger’s performance, the disappearing pencil trick, and Batman flipping the truck.
What can I say? I enjoyed it, and as a curmudgeon-in-training, I have a low tolerance for entertainment that purports to be about something big and philosophical but is really about the authors putting in random crap/polar bears and hoping that the fans will work it into their mythology and think that it’s deep, so I trust my instinct when I think there is something clever in a film.
Imagine that you’re a writer, in 2010, who wants to write about dreams and reality. You have a problem. Everyone with half a brain who sees the trailer, or reads a review, thinks “I bet this turns out to be a question about whether or not the main character is dreaming.” Blame everything, but blame The Sixth Sense most. Thinking that you can pull this over on an audience is like expecting that you can make a movie with a mustachio’d grand vizier and have it be a surprise when the man has an evil plot to steal the kingdom from the young heir, or have the cops arrest a suspect in minute 9 of Law and Order, and expect the viewers to be shocked when in minute 22 someone else is the criminal. We’ve outgrown that.
About fifteen minutes into Inception, we discover that it is indeed possible to have a dream within a dream. It is not a subtle hint. Nolan hangs a lantern studded with halogen LEDs on it. At this point, I was thinking, if we get to the end, and Cobb’s [DiCaprio] story ends in a dream, I will be mildly annoyed, unless Batman shows up and flips a truck.
The rest of the film doesn’t develop in a way that should convince us that wondering “is Cobb in a dream or reality?” is the point of the film. There isn’t an obvious visual contrast between the dreamworlds and the real world that someone could use to trick us into thinking that a dream was real; the characters have totems so they know what is the real world, but they’re not generally concerned that they haven’t returned, with one exception; and one theme in many critical reviews is that the dreamworlds aren’t as weird as one might expect, especially the lower levels where you’d think the id would cry out for more than a PG-13 rating. If we were meant to follow a mystery into the thicket of the mind, we’ve been left few breadcrumbs.
I found this mystery overwhelmed by what I think is the central theme: how much does it matter if Cobb is in a dream or not? We’re prejudiced by lots of films of this type to think that of course it matters. It’s good to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Within this film, there is an argument for that: Cobb’s sin lead to his wife being unable to distinguish reality from the dreamworld, and he is haunted by her, the projection of his guilt. There’s also an argument for the opposite position:
- The sleeping souls in the bowels of the shop, who are dreaming in order to feel alive (“who can say” whether their lives are worth it, because it depends on the dream);
- Cobb’s conversation with his wife, the projection of his subconscious, in which he forgives himself for her death in part because he can tell her that while he can’t stay here with her because she isn’t real, he fulfilled his engagement promise because they did grow old together, in the dreamworld;
- The inception itself, the giving of the germ of an idea to someone who wouldn’t have had it otherwise, who will nurture it so it flowers into an idea of their own, which is taken as possible to achieve and arguably good, as their mark comes out their scheme believing because of his dreams that his father loved him and wanted him to be his own man. (Would you take that away from him? This is a heist film without a villain.) That is going to become his reality now, and it’s not going to matter that he was the victim of the triple banana split of heist films.
The film plays around with the assumptions that an audience brings to a story about a dream within a dream. We’re supposed to root for reality. We’re supposed to find out what happens. Instead, we’re left with a deliberately ambiguous shot. We don’t know if the top that spins forever only in dreamland falls over. But that’s beside the point. Cobb doesn’t look. He spins it to check that he isn’t being fooled, but once he sees the faces of his children, he no longer cares. So why do we? Because reality is important? Or because we know that dream within a dream stories are supposed to be solved?
I find comparisons of this film to the Matrix to be lazy. Yes, they have the distinction between a real world and a manipulable fantasy world in common, and also there is fighting that uses some of the visual language that is common to films post-Matrix. But the motivating idea of the Matrix was that it really mattered that the Matrix wasn’t real. Better to wear raggedy clothes and eat snot gruel in reality than enjoy strip steak in the Matrix! It’s not clear whether Cobb finishes in reality or in his subconscious, but it’s also not clear how much it matters to him.
I don’t think the film is perfect. It’s very hard to care about the fates of most of the characters, including Cobb, and it would be better if any point in the 2.5 hours had created an emotional connection. We need to be rooting for the top to fall. I usually like Ellen Page, but she is the Mary Sue of Basil Expositions in this film, and her lines clunked. It also wasn’t clear why, in the second act, the dreamworlds were immediately at the command of the Architect, who would do cool tricks like fold Paris on itself, yet once the heist started, the dreamworlds looked like action sets.
I did think, however, that it was more clever than many thought.
32 comments
July 26, 2010 at 10:02 pm
nick
Have you seen the film “Primer” ? Not really the same concept but it does deal with recursion (only through time, not dreamspace) and the parts that deal with exposition have reasons built into the films for the exposition. It was an indie flick produced on a shoestring budget… and doesn’t go for the normal Hollywoodisms that unfortunately bog down a film like Inception.
The main problem is blockbuster films NEED to appeal to the lowest common denominator, otherwise a larger percentage of people just wont get it and it’ll be a box office flop. So the money men do their fiduciary duty to see things dumbed down and explained in simplistic terms so the audience can grok things in easily digestible sound-byte chunks.
I imagine that if Nolan was the only one in charge of the film, things might have been different, but he has to heel to his producers and the almighty pocketbook.
July 26, 2010 at 10:33 pm
andrew
I have no idea about Inception, but both Following and Memento are quite different from Nolan’s Batman work (which are the only other Nolan films I’ve seen). Memento has its flaws, but I like the way the dialogue handles history and memory stuff (even if that wasn’t its intent, which it probably wasn’t). I wonder if Nolan’s ambitions are larger than his talents.
July 26, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Daniel
Agree about Ellen Paige, but also felt like there was a ton of unrealized potential there, in her relationship with Cobb. When the movie was over, I found myself thinking “I wish this had been a book!” I wanted to know why this brilliant girl half Cobb’s age was the only one who was somehow able to penetrate his reserve and force him to be totally honest with her. I wanted to know what drives her to persist in her thankless efforts at understanding him. There’s a lot going on there that suggests incredibly interesting things happening beneath the surface of the narrative. “Inception” the novel would have had ample time to explore all that and a lot more, while the movie just made it feel like something they had to put in to advance the plot.
July 26, 2010 at 11:51 pm
peter ramus
The scene of the wife’s suicide leap was a dream, wasn’t it? He enters the room, steps on the glass, walks to the window. She’s across from him in the window of the building opposite, a building identical to the building our man is looking on from. She’s prepared to jump, and he’s across from her, pleading with her not to, but she does. This is still his dream of whatever really happened, right?
July 27, 2010 at 12:25 am
JCPen
No Peter. As far as Cobb was concerned this was real. His wife really did throw herself out a window because she thought she was still dreaming and “needed to wake up” (again, as far as Cobb thought).
Although, if indeed Cobb was dreaming at the end of the film it is left uncertain whether his wife’s death was also a dream. At what point does Cobb think he has woken up? On the airplane at the end, or was the entire film where Cobb thinks he is in reality, really a dream? Does your head in doesn’t it?
But I think Dana is right. It is irrelevant to Cobb. What is reality to him when he is happy? Just as who are we to question Fischer’s reconciliation with his father, even if it isn’t real? Who are we to take it from him? In truth, the truth is irrelevant.
Even with the film’s flaws, Nolan has done something which I did not think possible. He took an obvious cliched filmatic trope – and turn it on its head. It may well be a dream – but it doesn’t matter.
Personally I saw it coming a mile off. I knew he was gonna use that spinning top right at the end. “Aww f*ck”, I thought “I hate these cliches”. But when it actually happened, I didn’t seem to mind. In fact I was impressed. Until now I didn’t know why. Thanks Dana.
July 27, 2010 at 3:35 am
dana
This is still his dream of whatever really happened, right?
Nice catch. It may not be a dream (in that he’s recounting the story to Ariadne at that point, and is probably in the reality of the film, not asleep), but it’s definitely a flashback as constructed by someone who has been spending a lot of time manipulating his memories.
I imagine that if Nolan was the only one in charge of the film, things might have been different, but he has to heel to his producers and the almighty pocketbook.
I don’t know if I’d go that far. The guy really seems to like explosions and he’s very good at making compelling action sequences. It strikes me that what he’s trying to do, which is make an original (this is not to say it has no influences, but it’s not X-Men: Origins Yet Another Mutant) action movie that also has some kind of complexity, is a lot to set up in 2.5 hours, and he didn’t quite pull it off.
July 27, 2010 at 5:48 am
Julian
I thought this interpretation of the movie was great:
http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html
However, even with this most charitable lens, it’s hard to defend the truly endless/pointless/boring fight and chase scenes, exposition he didn’t even try to hide (“We’ve been over this,” “As you know,” “I’ve told you before”), and clunky-as-hell dialogue.
Also, did anyone else think the music was deafening?
July 27, 2010 at 6:15 am
dana
The exposition was bad, but I like trains in intersections and fights in free fall. I go to see action movies so I can see things blow up!
July 27, 2010 at 8:11 am
politicalfootball
I don’t see many movies, Julian, and I’m kind of old with delicate ears – but yeah, it was loud as hell in my theater.
It’s funny to read unfavorable reviews and the critiques here, agree with pretty much everything in them, and still say (like dana) that I thought it was a pretty good flick.
Inception was a caper movie and an action flick, and by the standards of both, it was middlin’ good, by my reckoning. I found the ending satisfying precisely because so few of these movies actually are willing to go with the dumb stoner ending: “Whoa dude, maybe he’s dreaming the whole thing.”
I dunno – everyone says this is a cliche, and lord knows Philip K. Dick certainly spent his entire career in an effort to make this a cliche, but I’m not sure it ever really reached mainstream movies. What mainstream movie heavily involved in dreams has actually ended this way? Not Total Recall. Not Twelve Monkeys. Not Eternal Sunshine. (All of which I liked, but all of which ended with the protagonist’s reality being the “real” reality.)
On the other hand, there’s Blade Runner – but hey, that was a good flick.
But as I say, I don’t watch enough movies to have an informed opinion. By MSMovie standards, was Inception’s ending really a cliche?
July 27, 2010 at 8:16 am
politicalfootball
Brazil! That one ended with the guy in a dream – but that was a good movie, too, and a good ending!
July 27, 2010 at 8:27 am
politicalfootball
I like Julian’s link for it’s clever effort to admire the movie, but ultimately, I think it fails. The author interprets Inception’s plot inconsistencies, credulity-straining coincidences and cinematic devices as suggesting that the whole movie takes place in a dream. But by that standard, you could conclude that pretty much any mediocre movie was set in a dream.
Jacob’s Ladder! – another dream movie that ends in a dream. But pretty good!
And the dream season of Dallas?? Well, whatever you want to call that, it certainly wasn’t a cliche.
July 27, 2010 at 8:28 am
politicalfootball
Y’all can have your thread back, now. I think I’m done.
July 27, 2010 at 10:25 am
Josh
What mainstream movie heavily involved in dreams has actually ended this way?
Minority Report?
July 27, 2010 at 11:01 am
politicalfootball
I took the conclusion of Minority Report to point more-or-less in the opposite direction: that the dreams, in the end, didn’t dictate reality; that the conventional idea of free will remained valid.
July 27, 2010 at 11:53 am
ben
Primer is extremely cleverly constructed.
July 27, 2010 at 12:45 pm
JPool
Thank you dana, that was first-rate.
Like pf, I didn’t think it was a perfect movie, but I did think it was the smartest thrill-ride movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a big unwieldy set of conceits, and it’s amazing that, despite all the clunky exposition, Nolan gets them to go down as easily as he does. I don’t buy the everything was a dream interpretation, but I think that Nolan wants the viewer to experience the story akin to the way we experience dreams: as a pregiven world that we accept because there we are in it.
July 27, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Sergei
I think your reading is interesting but has very little to do with the film itself. It reads as though you are trying to justify to yourself why you really enjoyed this film while all the signs clearly point to its utter nonsensical plot and just downright horrible acting.
Are we meant to ask a question whether it matters for Cobb to be in a dream or not? I hardly think so, and the film never really raises this question either explicitly or even implicitly. Whatever signs you see in it that it is indeed the question are just your own projections. In fact, the film is clearly driven by Cobb’s attempt to get back to his real children, the whole point here is to do the job as a way to get back to them. Your only evidence is that he walks away not looking at the spinning top, but why should he? If it’s a dream, it will still be spinning after he sees the children – since he couldn’t see their faces in the dream (the point that is never quite explained – you can think up a big gun but you can’t make your children turn), it’s an absolutely predictable move on his part. A larger question, if this was all a dream (in the end), then to what purpose? The idea that you imitate reality to extract something valuable from someone does not work here as we are never told if Cobb has anything valuable. This movie was a royal piece of smoldering crap and all of your attempts to find some amazing hidden meaning are just rather pathetic self-serving attempts to save face. Admit it.
July 27, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Anderson
People who think Inception was “a royal piece of smoldering crap” haven’t seen enough genuinely bad movies, and really should never leave the safety of The Criterion Collection.
July 27, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Sergei
Good point. That last part sounded more harsh and less funny than was intended. Please, disregard it (as a failed attempt at a joke). My point still stands, I think, you’re reading too much into this rather shallow and utterly predictable film.
July 27, 2010 at 2:47 pm
dana
Dude, nothing to admit. I have none of my self-conception bound up in being thought to be the sort of person who enjoys only excellent films.
I might be reading too much into it (as a side note, it’s curious that normally “reading too much into it” is a complaint directed towards someone who points out flaws in something that was enjoyed; I conclude that people like to bitch), but I enjoyed the movie, and it’s not like I was surprised by the suggestions that it could all be a dream, &c., so I’m inclined to think that there was more going on. Moreover, it’s not as though the film has one simple reading of what happened; I differ from the rest that I don’t think that “was it a dream?” is the right kind of question.
pf, I was thinking less of movies where the film ended with the events being a dream, but of the fairly common trope where something that was outlandish/caused the death of a character/whatever turned out to be a dream/wasn’t real/was the alternate timeline. That’s reasonably common and I think that’s what makes it impossible to have a character talk about dreams-within-dreams without the audience immediately thinking that “and as it turned out, this was all a dream” is a live option.
July 27, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Popeye
I thought it was kinda interesting how Cobb behaved exactly like a dreaming character who had fallen prey to a successful inception or two — first there’s his single-minded obsession with his wife and his children, and then he inevitably heads towards the dream-like catharsis in the ending, pushed gently along the way by Saito… but the movie never actually “went there” (as far as I could tell).
July 28, 2010 at 11:59 am
SEK
People who think Inception was “a royal piece of smoldering crap” haven’t seen enough genuinely bad movies, and really should never leave the safety of The Criterion Collection.
Dude, I said it wasn’t as good as The Dark Knight, about which I’m writing a book (in part). I don’t think you can number me among the latte-sipping elitists.
July 28, 2010 at 1:04 pm
politicalfootball
Scott, Anderson didn’t put you there – he was quoting someone else.
On the other hand, it’s easy to understand how you could mistakenly suppose that Anderson was talking to you, since you probably read your own post and noted that your reaction was pretty over-the-top. You didn’t merely say Inception wasn’t as good as Dark Knight. You said you “hated” it so much that you walked out.
Of course, if you also post under the alias “Sergei,” this comment is inoperative.
July 28, 2010 at 1:19 pm
SEK
he was quoting someone else.
I see. I took my status of the post’s official foil a little too seriously.
You didn’t merely say Inception wasn’t as good as Dark Knight. You said you “hated” it so much that you walked out.
I confess: I did write and feel and do those things. More shortly.
July 28, 2010 at 4:40 pm
SEK
FYI, the promised more shortly.
July 28, 2010 at 5:24 pm
grackle
“a royal piece of smoldering crap” more or less what I thought of Dark Knight Memento, on the other hand was a delight.
July 29, 2010 at 8:27 am
Anderson
Some good comments at SEK’s new post about how the “but the dreams weren’t dream-y enough” criticisms make no sense on the movie’s own terms.
Really, I’m much more lowbrow and sentimental than I’d realized, since I thought Inception was remarkable for being an emotionally gripping heist/SF flick.
Cf. Goethe’s response re: those complaining his works weren’t Christian enough: “I hanged Gretchen and starved poor Ottilie to death — isn’t that Christian enough for them?” Nolan could say something similar to those who found Inception lacking in emotion.
July 29, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Sergei
As excited as I am that my “royal piece of smoldering crap” comment got so many citations and apparently was frank enough for SEK to take it as directed as him, but I find the argument against it – “well, you haven’t seen real crap, friend” – to be extremely lacking. Reminds me of my middle school teacher who in response to student complaints about food at the cafeteria yelled that people were eating grass back during the Leningrad blockade. This way no movie is really bad, because if you compare it with other inferior movies, it’s pretty good. So it has nothing to do with my preference for Criterion Collection, but with your lacking comparing skills, which are, of course, not as bad as Glenn Beck’s comparing skills, therefore they are pretty good.
August 2, 2010 at 10:31 am
Cryptic Ned
The only other work of his I’ve seen is the Batman reboot, which was notable mostly for Heath Ledger’s performance, the disappearing pencil trick, and Batman flipping the truck.
That was his sequel to his Batman reboot.
August 2, 2010 at 10:33 am
Cryptic Ned
What mainstream movie heavily involved in dreams has actually ended this way? Not Total Recall. Not Twelve Monkeys. Not Eternal Sunshine. (All of which I liked, but all of which ended with the protagonist’s reality being the “real” reality.)
Not Total Recall? I thought it was definitely a possibility that all the action in Total Recall was the exciting series of adventures that he had paid those people for the ability to experience and then remember.
August 2, 2010 at 1:11 pm
politicalfootball
That possibility was raised in Total Recall – and that part of the movie was great! – but the movie didn’t have the guts to actually pursue that theme. It ended with the understanding that Arnold’s character spent the whole film firmly planted in reality.
The Philip K. Dick short story, if memory serves, ended with the protagonist waking up from his dream, only to find that he was still in a dream that he had to be awoken from.
Inception could have had a lot of fun with this sort of Dickian theme – it already had the dreams-within-dreams plot. But the only time it really approached the whole reality-is-an-illusion thing was at the beginning and the end. Hence my argument that the ending was fine, and not a cliche.
August 3, 2010 at 4:03 am
ajay
It ended with the understanding that Arnold’s character spent the whole film firmly planted in reality.
Even though the entire plot of the film follows the exact sales-pitch description of the dream which he’s been given before he sits down in the chair?
IIRC the original short story ends, very Dickally, with the realisation that whatever dream Quaid chooses experiences becomes reality…