Four weeks ago, I had never heard about this movie. Then I bough an issue of American Cinematographer (which was extremely overpriced here in Seoul) and got interested in it although nothing was said about the plot. The article was well written and very informative about the photography in the movie. I then saw the trailer and got even more interested. Now I've seen it, really enjoyed it and I don't know how to re-construct this movie so that it makes sense in my mind. Christopher Nolan played with time and space in this movie like we've rarely seen in movies recently. It's reminiscent of Memento, which he also wrote and directed.
Now for the movie; in order to understand it we must look for answers on-screen and on the soundtrack. We must also understand the logic and rules that the movie sets up, namely for sleep travelling. So you have an architect who apparently creates "dreams spaces" in reality, which are then reflected in dreams (boundaries and mazes). You need a "kick" / trigger to wake up from dreams. If you die while in a deep dream, due to heavy drugs, you'll end up in limbo and might never wake up. You can also reach limbo by forgetting that you're in a dream. If the participants in someone's dream demonstrate that they know that they're in a dream, people (projections of the subconscious) around will react and will kick that person out of the his dream state. Just trying to figure out how these dreams function is not easy. An architect design levels (like videogames) where dreamers (subconscious) fill up the space and moreover in the case of multi layered dreams, someone must stay behind to initiate kicks and make sure that people "wake up". So the main dream sequence is constructed by Ariadne, populated with Eames, Yusuf, Saito, Fischer, Arthur and Cobb. Fischer is the only person in there that is not fully aware of the intentions of the other subconsciousness / participants and thus the team can mess around with his mind. So because Fischer is unaware of these things, all dreams are populated with thugs and mercenaries which are subconscious representation of Fischer's "mental defenses training" that prevents people from playing with his mind.
This movie could be playing with our minds for the sakes of playing with our minds and thus we cannot re-construct the movie logically. Maybe there are also keys to understanding this movie which are not so obvious on screen. I'd like to think that what we need to understand in this movie is on screen. Cobb is grieving the loss of his wife and he misses his kids. Now what he does to find his kids again is the essence of the movie. And what an adventure it is!
"Their dreams have become their reality, they come here to wake up"
It's a rare time in movie history that I'm kept wondering about what I've just seen and not having discussions about the deep meaning of it (like let's say we could do after watching The Seventh Seal or The White Ribbon). We are kept wondering about seemingly simple things like, well, "What the hell happens in this movie?" ! We want to re-construct it so that it makes sense and we're really wondering if it's all a dream. Well first of all our first reaction is obviously "Oh! Is he dreaming this reunion with his kids?" Some people find it cheap to end the movie that way. But what if it's the whole point to keep us wondering and make us feel like being in a dream like state. As spectators when Cobb's totem keeps spinning we really hope that it will fall but then Nolan doesn't give us satisfaction, just a simple wobble which unless we actually see it stop spinning it does not give us any answers. Can we reconstruct this movie so that it makes sense to us and that we are sure beyond any doubt that some scenes are taking place in the so-called reality. Ultimately Nolan forces us to think about what we've just seen and focus on many elements of the movie, not only its story, but also its editing.
Beyond a doubt there are going to be many answers to the question of "What happens in this movie?". And many of these scenarios will be plausible since answers are not given to us implicitly in the movie. Once again maybe that's Nolan's intentions. He shows us just enough elements to create a plausible story but in reality there are not enough of them to create something that would seem true to us. I would also go as far as saying that he's playing with our expectations of what a narrative is without being too experimental and "out there" in order for the movie to be this Hollywood blockbuster. Without a doubt, it will be a success at the box office because it is after all an action movie with cool effects à la Matrix and whatnot. Nonetheless within this blockbuster format Nolan goes that extra step to create something that plays with narrative like we've rarely seen coming from a studio production. It obviously helps to have crafted one of the most lucrative movie ever (Dark Knight). But that's an whole other discussion!
Quite often we see Cobb spinning his totem and feeling relieved, like him, that it stops spinning. We would expect that from reality; this object cannot spin forever in our reality. Let's not forget that Cobb mentions while in dream state, that if the totem stops spinning it means that he's in reality! Why don't we see the other characters looking at their totems to make sure that they are in this so-called reality? Of course they aren't the main characters so it could be the reason why no importance is attached to them regarding this. Either way he does spin it in the Tokyo hotel and it stops and then calls his kids. Important scene because if this is reality then most of the movie is explainable (well not all...) I've read on some forum that paying attention to Cobb's ring is an indicator of a dreamlike state and I must say that it's true. Most scenes that we would at first glance call a dream he wears his wedding ring and then when we want to see it the most, in the last scene, we never see his left hand clearly...
Take a leap of faith: we hear this twice in the movie: once from Saito and once from Mal. Strikes me as a strange thing to say since obviously in both cases his decisions would affect his faith be it in the real world or not. Could both characters be hinting that Cobb should jump out of his dream? Jump down a building to finally wake up? Mal and Ariadne do it but he can't...
Edith Piaf's song "Non je ne regrette rien" - I do not regret anything: how fitting for this movie. Interestingly enough Edith Piaf was played by Marion Cotillard (Mal) in the movie La Vie en Rose! This song is diagetic thus heard by characters. In my opinion it's a clear sign that using this is too close to being unreal - why would they use this song in reality? Why chose a song which theme is regret? Cobb is filled with regret and conveniently enough the "kick" music is about regret. How odd... And why would they choose a French song? I believe that this song is used in dreams and this creates an issue since its used in the Paris scene which is a scene that most viewers would interpret as reality.
Cobb can't go back to the USA because he says that "they think I killed her" (Mal). Let's take a second to think about this because it's basically Cobb's whole motivation and the main plot of the movie. Now if Mal actually committed suicide and went through all the trouble to get herself diagnosed as suicidal and basically mentally unstable, why would Cobb leave right away like this since his kids are so important to him? All these events around him seem too complicated for them to be reality! A mysterious organisation chasing him (Cobol?), a man with so much power and wealth (Saito) that makes us wonder why he would go through all the trouble to get Cobb to plant ideas in Fisher's mind? Which makes me very uncomfortable since it seems that too many elements point to the fact that this movie was all a dream! Ariadne seems a little bit too comfortable with this whole dream travel thing. Of course if the world in which Inception takes place is completely aware of these things, it would not be such an issue. This whole easy acceptance seems too convenient to be reality though. Oddly enough, it does not seem like the real world in Inception is especially advanced, in a Blade Runner kind of way, which re-enforces this notion that whatever happens in the whole movie is really a dream.
In the end it's interesting that I started writing this wanting in order to find a logical explanation to the movie and finding reality and of course saying without a doubt how it end, but all I managed to do is find that it might just all be a dream. And in the end it's similar to the events in the movie: Cobb wants to find reality (his kids) throughout the whole movie and just when he thinks he found them it might not be reality... and this is where he wakes up again on the beach and finds Saito and tries to remember why he was there! Like Escher's stairways, which we see an example in one scene, this movie could be about Cobb's endless looping dreams. As soon as he thinks that he's reunited with reality (his kids), he becomes unaware that it's a dream and keeps on dreaming since I believe that he's stuck in limbo. So it's almost beside the point that we do not see his totem spinning to the end or not in the final shot, because the totem is not important!
Parts:
1) Cobb meets old Saito
2) Cobb mission in Saito's mind to find something
3) Cobb assembling a team to complete Saito's mission (Inception)
4) Mission/Dream 3 + 1 layers
5) Cobb meets old Saito (similar to #1)
6) Cobb in airport and home
Nolan uses the oldest trick in the book to start the movie with a scene that we'll eventually see later in the movie. It's been done often, for example in Kubrick's Lolita. In relation to the whole looping of the story it becomes much more than a simple editing trick. But it's not that easy since the movie does not end with Saito but with Cobb re-uniting with his kids. So if Saito kills himself in part 5 (which we don't see), it means that he wakes up in the real world but how does Cobb wakes up? Maybe Saito shoots Cobb then himself? Pushing it a lot since this relies on too many elements not seen on screen. Anyways between part 4 and 5 how does Cobb meet up with Saito? He seems to be waking up in yet another layer. Whose dream is it though? What's the kick? Is this limbo? Mal stabs him in the 4th layer of the Inception dream. So if he dies from this wound he would go to limbo, if he decided to give himself a kick like jumping off the building he would probably not be with Saito.
Who is Saito? If Eames can mimic somebody in someone else's dream, could there be any mimics in Cobb's dreams?
All in all, it's actually hard to point at things that would be beyond any doubt what we would call reality in this movie.
Digress:
Is Saito actually Cobb's father (as a mimic) that's testing him to see if he can let go of his deceased wife to get access once again to his kids proving therefore that he's finally able to live without her?
It would be too easy to say that most characters in this movie are only Cobb's projections and thus we are left with nothing that connects us to any reality whatsoever.
6) Cobb in airport and home
Nolan uses the oldest trick in the book to start the movie with a scene that we'll eventually see later in the movie. It's been done often, for example in Kubrick's Lolita. In relation to the whole looping of the story it becomes much more than a simple editing trick. But it's not that easy since the movie does not end with Saito but with Cobb re-uniting with his kids. So if Saito kills himself in part 5 (which we don't see), it means that he wakes up in the real world but how does Cobb wakes up? Maybe Saito shoots Cobb then himself? Pushing it a lot since this relies on too many elements not seen on screen. Anyways between part 4 and 5 how does Cobb meet up with Saito? He seems to be waking up in yet another layer. Whose dream is it though? What's the kick? Is this limbo? Mal stabs him in the 4th layer of the Inception dream. So if he dies from this wound he would go to limbo, if he decided to give himself a kick like jumping off the building he would probably not be with Saito.
Who is Saito? If Eames can mimic somebody in someone else's dream, could there be any mimics in Cobb's dreams?
All in all, it's actually hard to point at things that would be beyond any doubt what we would call reality in this movie.
Digress:
Is Saito actually Cobb's father (as a mimic) that's testing him to see if he can let go of his deceased wife to get access once again to his kids proving therefore that he's finally able to live without her?
It would be too easy to say that most characters in this movie are only Cobb's projections and thus we are left with nothing that connects us to any reality whatsoever.
