Look, if you haven't figured it out yet, whenever I write a discussion of a movie it's ripe with spoilers, so just deal with that OK? But really, when you come right down to it, Inception isn't the type of movie you can ruin by giving a few things away. The movie doesn't really exist on a plot based level, it's more this vague meditation on human beings perceive their reality (with a lot of cool special effects thrown in for good measure). But before I start talking too much more about Inception, I have to justify why I'm talking about this movie on my Blog about Peru. Well, it's simple, there is a part in Inception where they go to Limbo, the place where the mind is free to dream for what is perceived to be decades. As I sat there in the movie theater and I watched Leonardo DiCaprio wash up on the shores of Limbo, I couldn't help but think that Limbo looked a whole lot like Lima, Peru. My initial response to this revelation was to post that comment on Facebook, along with the question of just where was I for the last 10 years. I got one response, "trippy!"
Ok, now that I've gotten the Peru connection out of the way...what is Inception?
Well, Inception is a movie about dreams, and make no mistake, half of the ideas in Inception are just there so there can be some cool special effects sequences/car chases/shootouts. However, the surprising thing about these shootouts/special effects sequences/car chases is that they seem somehow new. It's weird isn't it? Inception is 99% stuff that you've seen in other movies a thousand times, but there is a special arching theme running through the movie that causes your brain to stumble slightly and that gives you the impression that...well...something is different.
The movie that Inception most closely mirrors is The Matrix I believe (although those scarf wearing, coffee slugging, obnoxious intellectuals that just say, "NO!" to all of your suggestions would [predictably] disagree with me). For my money, Inception gets more right than the Matrix does, and it handles its dream-like atmosphere in a way that's more plausible to actual human experience.
The essential thing that you have to comprehend about Inception is that it's about lucid dreaming. Characters enter the dreams of other characters in order to mess with their subconscious on any number of levels. This is all fine and dandy unless you start entering the dreams of somebody who's a little messed up (DiCaprio's character is...suffice it to say...a little messed up, which has caused his subconscious to create a sort of "Trickster/Merlyn/Diety/Devil" character that runs around and makes mischief...the fact that this character takes the form of his ex-wife only makes the whole scenario that much more chilling [remember how scary mean adult women used to seem when you were like six years old...that's the effect that you get with this woman...good performance I have to say])
One of the big constructs of the movie is the idea that time passes differently in the dream world. When you sleep for five minutes, you experience an hour of time in the dream world. But there's a wrinkle, if you then put yourself to sleep while you are sleeping, the hour becomes ten, if you go another level it becomes 100 and so on. This might seem like a great way to get the most out of your limited mortality (by "experiencing" a thousand years or so for every 5 minutes you sleep)...however, there's a catch. What if you're dream isn't a dream...but a nightmare? Suddenly I'm reminded of Constantine, the film in which the guy was really tormented by spending like 3 minutes in hell (while you're in hell, it doesn't feel like three minutes...it's forever).
Existential angst? You bet.
As you can probably guess, the fearless characters of Inception end up going down level after level after level. Yes, there is an eventual bottom, and they end up there too (it's sort of like the Mirror scene in "The Neverending Story"...the one that shows you who you really are, which is the worst sort of torture there is). As I drew a mental map for myself while watching Inception (you have to draw a mental map...and bring some graph paper) I found myself imagining Dante's Inferno...but inverted. If you don't know what I mean by that, here's an image:
The idea in Dante's inferno is that as you go farther down...things get worse (until you get to Satan himself who is encased in ice [odd, that he's not in fire...but ice burns too] right next to Judas and the other false councilors).
Again, flip it over and you get the basic idea of Inception. In the first level, five minutes pass, in the second, it's an hour (thus the expansion of the cone) etc.:
Now, I'm not trying to suggest that Inception is some sort of weird retelling of The Inferno, it's just that I think the symbolism is similar and that's sort of reflective of how the brain works (or has worked) over time (plus the fact that they mention Limbo...). This isn't a film about people being in hell necessarily, however it IS a film about people being extremely emotionally disturbed (DiCaprio's having trouble with his family/children again...if you saw Shutter Island, you know it's not good to be the fictional children of a DiCaprio character in film...heck...have any of his fictitious families EVER survived?).
The other sort of vague, ethereal idea that Inception inspired me to contemplate is General Relativity...but just in the basic sense. According to Einstein, YES, it IS possible to experience time differently depending on your frame of reference. All this makes me wonder if films like Inception or The Matrix would have ever existed if Einstein hadn't ever come along. Still, I was actually pretty surprised when I stopped and thought about it, how many films are dealing with this "escape from reality" theme. Does this represent some essential longing on the part of modern human beings? I mean, honestly, it's a different kind of world when people's greatest dream is to just be able to sit and create their own world for them to inhabit from scratch (there was a day when people would have been happy with a sandwich). Heck, is Inception the film that has finally exposed the fact that the human race is starting to understand, on a very profound level, our own mortality? All you have to do is throw the additional wrench into the works by suggesting that FILM ITSELF is a way to experience many hours of experience in just a few hours of literal time. Film itself is sort of a dream.
Is that Christopher Nolan's inside joke? Is that why the top seems to apparently continue spinning at the end? Of COURSE DiCaprio is in a dream! The FILM is a dream!
Is that what we're supposed to draw from this? If so, this technique or "kick" is far more effective than when Kuffs or even Ferris Bueller turned to the screen and tried to engage us, the audience, in his literal experience.
And all of this talk is not to say that Inception is not without its obvious flaws. Actually, I'm GLAD it has some flaws, since it means that Nolan wasn't so obsessed with the rules of his universe that he focused on THOSE rather than just good storytelling (for example, they hear the music from the previous level when they are in the snow compound...shouldn't they hear a version of the music that's like 10X slower...because of the time dialation?). Bahhhh....all that's beside the point.
The POINT of the film is that there are layers upon layers to your subconscious, and these layers can TORTURE you and there's no way you can make them stop...at least, not by any methods that you might have become conversant in using. The problem with the Earth is that it makes human beings become a little overly focused on Newtonian physics...but F does not equal MA in your sub-conscious...Einstein's taken over (or maybe even this new string theory/entropy guy).
And you know, I think this represents a kind of breakthrough. What if we've taken our first steps (creatively) into a world that's governed by the more philosophical aspects of General relativity? What if our perception of reality has advanced from the "hammer" phase to the "psychic distortion of matter" phase? What conclusions can we make about our own mortality and our last feeble clutches at theology when we've evolved to the point where we can literally perceive how to construct our own worlds?
Then again, if you're only constructing those worlds in your own mind, are they real?
Can you even be sure that anything exists beyond your own perception?
Interesting concepts...and maybe they'll fade quickly.
Honestly, when it comes right down to it, I don't think Inception will even really live up to multiple viewings. I think it's sort of a one shot deal the same way "Memento" was. But what a ride it is that first time you see it. Heck, maybe it's BETTER not to watch it a second time.
But don't get too focused on the ending.
DiCaprio is in a movie. The top never stops spinning (and be thankful of that because if it did, the whole world might end...not that THAT would be such a bad thing necessarily...when you come right down to it, we don't even know if the whole world is even here).
yay!
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