Went to see Inception recently, and loved it! Cant wait for dvd to come out, if only so I can explain to my boyfriend! You mentioned other 'dream invading' films of past years, and I remembered seeing a film years ago with a similar theme, but I cant remember the name of it for life of me! I think it was made in the 80's and starred Denis Quaid, or somebody like that - obviously not a huge success at the time, or I'd know what its called. Any idea?

That would be Dreamscape

Back again, after reading through past comments, found answer I was looking for:Name of film 'Dreamscape' - Many thanks to Mister Straker's July posting - made the film sound a lot better than I remember, must try and get hold of a copy soon!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Very Nice!

https://goo.gl/fb/JxWf4

@RussiansEatBambi



I agree with you to some extent about Nolans work (namely 'Memento'), in that while i did enjoy i did get the distinct impression that it thought it was a hell of a lot cleverer than it was. I'd even go so far as to say it was somewhat up it's own backside.

That said, i did enjoy 'Inception'. I REALLY enjoyed it.

Yes it may have been a little nod back to things like 'Memento' in terms of Christor Nolan shouting maniacally at the audience - "LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM!!! MWWAAHH HA HA HA!!!!!"



But it was still a damn fine piece of work and a true testement to what a blockbuster big-budget film can do if it really puts its mind to it and, crucially, does not underestimate the intelligence of the audience.



When all's said and done guys.... it's either this or 'Transformers 2'.

I know which line i'll be in, folks!

by the way - that should have been "Christopher" Nolan. Typo. OOps.

...and of course there's The Cell, which is only notable for its inclusion of a "Brothers Quay"-type effect at a couple of points.

...which of course was already mentioned in the Inception blog. D'oh!

Good job everybody!



@RussiansEatBambi66: I mostly agree with what you're saying, except that I actually didn't like Nolan's Batman films much either. I saw Inception twice and never really felt into it. But as a mainstream popcorn film, even attempted cleverness is a noted improvement, don't you agree?



The film puts on the airs of being smart, which in turn gives the audience confidence and leaves them open for more. I wouldn't suggest that Inception is a masterpiece, but it's still doing more good than bad.

I'm a bit annoyed. I didn't think Inception was as great as everyone else raves. It was emotionally vacuous. I really wanted to feel something for the Leonardo character and I couldn't muster a single emotion. There's something very calculated about Nolan's films (just see how every single shot is pre-visualised) which leaves me feeling a bit... well emotionless towards them.



I think Nolan is an intelligent film-maker,yes, but I don't consider this to be an intelligent film. It uses a lot of fancy footwork and bold exposition to trick us along.

Speaking of Paprika and Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon's TV series Paranoia Agent is equally as mind bending as I might even say more original. Not so much about dreams as collective consciousness, but definitely connected. It's really worth checking out.

Alejandro Jodorowsky?

What about Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street and the underrated Wes Craven's New Nightmare?

Someone mentioned NOES in the previous blog I hadn't watched. Sorry about that.

Went to see Inception recently. Thought it was really good but I was a little disappointed by a) the lack of justification as to how they're actually able to share dreams (of course, I may have missed something) and b) the dream worlds were a lot more normal than I was hoping.



However, what I wanted to say was that I find it interesting that eXistenZ is a film about videogames that all feels like a dream, where Inception is a film about dreams that all feels like a videogame. The constant references to 'levels', the intense action tied together by what is essentially a ridiculous concept, not to mention the fact that the third act felt just like Goldeneye (the REAL Goldeneye i.e. the N64 videogame).



All in all a great and entertaining action film, but not as clever as it thinks it is. Much in the way that WALL-E was a better film than The Dark Knight, Toy Story 3 (which I saw this evening) is a better film than Inception.

I too don't see anything too intelligent in Inception. The main premise of the movie, the relativity of reality, is repeated every few minutes, and finally hammered in at the end, so that even the stupidest member of the audience can get it. Contrast that with subtle clues in, for example, Blade Runner.



12 Monkeys is another truly intelligent film, with similar theme, that I'm surprised nobody mentioned. I guess it's left underrated as always.



Inception may be a mind bender compared to Transformers, but that is REALLY not saying much. Compared to an actual intelligent film like 12 Monkeys, it's just another popcorn action movie, no more radical or clever than either of Nolan's Batmans.

#6 ... I'll bang on about this 'til I die, but Transformers 2 ain't that bad - it's all a matter of perception ...



How about this for a load of films re 'alternate realities' ...



- Lawnmower Man (1&2)

- Flatliners (very close if you think about it)

- Any Elm Street you care to mention

- Jason X

- Back To The Future 2

- The Terminator films

- Disclosure

- Moon

- The Bourne films

- Any number of Marvel / DC Comics strips

- Citizen Kane

- Tron



... and more besides



It's a really enjoyable film, well written and well clever. But it is derivative. No crime in that - let's just accept it as a very well made, crafted and thought out film.



It isn't perfect though - now I think of it, there are at least 2x major 'eh?' questions in my mind.



According to the IMDB (make of that what you will) only The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather are better than it.



Really? Dunno about that, but have to agree with #16. WALL-E is an infinitely better film than The Dark Knight (I'd go as far to say that WALL-E is the best film of the last decade, easily). Derivative, yes - the Silent Running comparison is so apt - but just so, so, enjoyable. A good story, told well, should always be enjoyable, and I think that is true of Inception.



I think Nolan's great trick is to pull a number of genre strands together on his terms, and make them work - a great way to please a lot of the people a lot of the time.



Can I start the campaign here to get Nolan to do the next Elm Street? Could be good ...

Thanks for reading out my comment! :) *Spoilers for Inception below*



I agree with RussiansEatBambi66(Bambi? Dear God, no!) and everyone else who wasn't blown away like they hoped they would be.



My main issues were: lack of emotional involvement and a real sense of danger the characters were in. Oh they go into Limbo if they die in their dream under the sedative? Just kill youself in Limbo then hope for the next kick. If not, well they still don't die really. It really lacked that big, thrilling climax and although the zero-gravity hotel scene was cool, I was left wanting more.



It's a bit like looking at an admittedly beautiful painting of something emotional with some sort of abstract trickery going on but ultimately, while admiring the artistry, not being moved by it. Like watching an optical illusion for two and a half-hours.



I get Nolan's trying to mirror Cobb's perception of what is reality and what is a dream by constantly editing so the whole thing feels like a dream(though I doubt it), so the audience experience what Cobb is going through mentally but it just left me frustrated and disappointed. Mum, who I treated to see it with me, looked utterly exasperated, then turned to me and said after that Toy Story 3 was a lot better:D



It is a step in the right direction for intelligent big-budget film making, but is it too much to ask for that such future films should be more involving(not cold) and be more satisfying? Inception was compelling but lacked the two essentials aforementioned that I need in films to love them.



Liquidcow - I'd have to watch Paranoia Agent then.



Tommas-jay - I admit, I am someone as well who prefers the surreal, weird qualities of dreams being represented on screen. Maybe that's why I like Paprika so much :D I understand Nolan prefers to ground it in a more 'realistic' way, but if I had that sort of freedom within the sci-fi/fantasy genre (and since the subject fills the created world with their subconscious), I'd put all sorts of odd in there that'd reflect the character's hopes and fears etc.



Roadblaster - I too, think WALL.E while somewhat predictable was just too sweet, funny and entertaining to not enjoy. Pixar are adept at being able to have satisying climatic scenes and emotionally engage audiences with their characters e.g. most recently, the tear-jerking ending of Toy Story 3.



I think this summer has been such a yawn that any film that at least tries something ambitious is gonna look better than what it really is, personally.

Even better: https://tinyurl.com/3a3tvp5

When you were reading out readers mail about Inception you said someone pointed out it had a "who's driving the boat?" moment.



Any chance of at least hinting at what that moment is? After seeing the film I didn't notice any "who's driving the boat?" moments

Although I've expressed my opinion elsewhere, I'm happy to jump on the "not as clever as it thinks it is" bandwagon (...Bambi... above captured my reaction very well). Expecting a very twisty thriller with the possibilities of surreal dreaming (I had more Dreamscape/Nightmare on Elm Street/Bunuel hopes), Inception delivers a much more straightforward action picture with a long and complex set-piece for it's final third. The dream settings were mostly mundane, but that can be justified by the conning the dreamer element of the story. I would have liked a little more Imaginarium, bendy Paris was a cool idea, but it wasn't really taken anywhere.



There are logical inconsistencies in it's own set up (which I'll describe as vaguely as possible for those who've not seen) -- the time dilation shouldn't be compounded between the dream levels ('cause the brain of the dreamer in the dream is still the original brain which can only go faster than reality, but not faster than itself), even ignoring this, the time dilation is inconsistently applied. Then freefall in one dream level causes weightlessness in the next level down, but mysteriously doesn't effect any other levels in the dreamworld. Of course the initial premise that you could steal complex macguffins in dreams is absurd, for example the plans to a nuclear sub would require photographic memory for both dreamer and thief. If the ideas have to be simpler, say your Facebook account password, well, that's probably cheaper to get a hacker to find. Finally, even if you could steal an idea from a dream, you're ignoring dream symbolism -- I've stolen a burning giraffe, but I don't have any idea how it translates back into the chemical formula I was after.



I think we should reign in our disappointment a little. True the film doesn't live up to the hype we were bombarded with, the critical establishment starved for a blockbuster that even attempted to put a thinking cap on have seized the opportunity to laud this because it tries. So, perhaps in our best interests to admire the Emperor's Armani suit, so the Hollywood accountants will be that little bit more easy to sell on projects that stink of smart.



Of course the downside in recent history: remember how clever so many thought the Matrix was. That didn't end well.

I would also suggest Minority Report as a precursor to Inception. I was not that taken with MR the first time I saw it, and though I'm not sure if this interpretation is correct, it is one of the few instances where, in my experience, a spoiler actually IMPROVED my viewing of the film, which I now think of as great, and which I outline below (I do so because this interpretation was news to me, and to everyone else I have discussed this with - apologies if I am outlining the bleeding obvious!):



SPOILER



The possibility of the film's conclusion being fantasy stems from the prison facility Tim Blake Nelson's character Gideon describes to us; "...Look at how peaceful they all are. But on the inside... Busy, busy, busy." The film's third act begins once Tom Cruise is incarcerated. From that point on, not only is he released, but he sees off his boss, the pre-cog program is shut down and he is reunited with his (now expecting) wife, with whom he retires to the country. A pretty swift and perfect outcome(?).



/SPOILER



As for Inception, though, as good as it was and as much as I enjoyed the viewing experience, it left me wondering how much of a Nolan fan I really am. I was similarly impressed with the Dark Knight, which I thought of as being an incredible film, until a second viewing, when I was left wondering how I could have been so fooled by such a convoluted and pretty messy film the first time. As much as I liked Inception I do not intend to watch it again for a long while, lest I be similarly retrospectively disappointed. So I thought back to Nolan's other films, and really the only movie of his, including Inception, that I have great memories of is Insomnia, and I think that's more down to being a Robin Williams fanboy.



When it comes to how intelligent it is, there is absolutely plenty to mull over after the event, but to follow the film in the watching is not so difficult to manage. In fact, where the Good Doctor remarks how refreshing it is to have a film that asks it's audience to keep up with it as Inception does, I think this may be more down to the film's pacing than it's subject, of which very little seems to have been made.



Inception is great, but not as great as the significance of it's success.*



(*copyright PBuggy 2010.)

@fantasy_escapist



Not to explain away your comments about Inception (particularly the coldness and lack of character development), but here's a possibly-incorrect interpretation I was sent that hints at some of that stuff:



SPOILER https://tiny.cc/5hm98 SPOILER



I felt exactly the same as you did after seeing it, which I think is why I found this a pretty interesting read.

PBuggy-I should've guessed! I thought that initially, but dismissed it as 'that seems TOO easy' :D



I guess someone may do a 'chronological' Level timeline for the film as well.

Guys! Jeez no offense but inception was a clever film , i cant belive that throughout you all knew what was going to happen because that is absolute crap it was a good film because it made you want to go on the adventure with the characters it made you feel part of it . Maybe the connection to the characters was hard to grasp but the concept of the film and the effects used make it an amazing watch so all i can say is that it's an amazing film if you havent seen it see it , it may not be some muddled clever mess of a movie that is hard for the average person without a oxbridge degree to understand but it wasnt made to be . It's for entertainment not so you can brag to your friends about how intellectual you are

@fantasy_escapist:



Actually, somebody did do up a timeline.

https://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/inceptionchart.jpg?w=538



@macsis10:



Don't get excited. Most people were really impressed by Inception, but this is a website occupied by film nerds. Film nerds are always going to scoff a bit at stuff like this because we've seen so many more films than the average audience member and like to over-analyze everything, the side-effect being that it puts us a little ahead of the jump and it takes a little more to impress us. It's an advantage because we get to see and can enjoy certain films that other people won't, but a disadvantage at the same time because it takes away from our enjoyment of anything too familiar.



Anyway. I didn't not like the film because I didn't think it was clever enough. It was very clever, but I don't like Nolan's delivery of said cleverness. Boy is it ever a boring movie to watch.



@Pbuggy: Very interesting article, I hadn't seen that idea yet.



@Marge: The funny thing is, when you think about it, Hobbes is actually the perfect totem. ;)

I hear they're doing a TR remake helmed by the doofus who gave us bore fests Underworld and Die Hard 4.0. Urgh. I loved Verhoven's delightful pulpy treat!



Despite having to view it from the front row, thus irreparably boiling out my eyes, I also enjoyed Inception - it's a serious and well crafted mind ladder that I thought was as good as modern megamovies get.



pablumbiolab.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/inceptionreview

Apologies (for anyone interested), the link in the previous post should be:



https://pablumbiolab.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/inceptionreview



Hopefully that now works...?

#11, I agree with you - emotionally vacuous.



I loved Eternal Sunshine, Matrix, Brazil and so on, but the characters seemed so one-dimensional in Inception, I just didn't care about them. After all, you have an attractive girl join the team and there seems to be no sexual chemistry, unless you include a nerdy peck on the cheek at one point. It was so disappointing. The whole film was about the 'clever' plot and the set pieces.



Another thing; I just didn't buy the sci-fi. A 'kick' at one level is supposed to wake the dreamers, like being knocked off a chair, but rolling a minibus down an embankment to a crashing halt it seemed didn't count! And that thing about time being stretched in lower level dreams, I couldn't buy that. When you dream you're dreaming, it's still just the same dream. Get over it.

How about Michel Gondry's the Science of Sleep? A brilliant examination of dreams, the whole film feels as irrational and blurry-eyed as a real dream does, with that same feeling of forward momentum coupled with absolute absurdity.

@hypocritic



I am sure you are quite right about dreaming at different levels. You are just in another dream, not at a deeper level. But then shared dreaming is all b****x anyway, isn't it? You have to go along with one or two basic premises otherwise there is not point in watching the film.



I still don't see why they are not also weightless in level three.

Then, maybe instead of going for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, they could have gone for a Thunderball sequence (or Moonraker).



I think Ariadne was of no romantic interest to Cobb because he was in love with his dead wife. I don't think the other characters really existed, but if they did, maybe they had seen Hard Candy. I wonder if Ellen Page found it harder to get a date after that movie.

#21, the driving the boat moment . . . when they all go under in the plane. Think about it!



#30 Totally with you re the kick logic. Unless that only applies in reality? In that case, perfect sense.



By the way, I've not seen any mention of Marion Cotillard. I thought she was excellent, and really would be a fine fit for the right type of horror film (just look at her eyes through her hair!)



What are the odds of a sequel to Inception? Lots of possibilities ...

@Roadblaster

I may be remembering this wrong as I have only seen it once but...wasn't there another woman with them on the plane who dispensed the drug to put them under?

#34 MargeGunderson



Indeed. But, given the nature of the film (people on the run, only trusted or chosen people, etc) would such a - frankly - minor, until-now-never-seen-or-mentioned-person be left in charge of all the cast?



If the father-in-law was doing it,yes, I could go with that. But the hostess watching over everyone? C'mon . . .

@AidanDeLarge

Did you watch the above video?



@Amber

I like the idea of a Hobbes totem! Did you see the Scrooge McDuck comic as well? Link at #20

Nolan's appreciation for technicalities at the expense of narrative is clearly apparent in Inception. What was the point of the staircases other than for Nolan to show off his technical abilities; it had no relevance to the storyline in the slightest bit.



Which isn't to say Inception isn't an enjoyable film, one with some massive flaws however. There's a cracking article here about it's pitfalls https://www.ultraculture.co.uk/4234-10-things-that-stop-inception-being-as-good-as-it-thinks-it-is.htm Nolan fanboys probably best avoid it though!

#37 Good link - can't really argue with a lot of that (though I rather liked the first hour)



But then, what are we looking for / expecting from the film? Maybe this is how Nolan dreams - surely everyone does it a bit different.



As ever, you take from the film what you want from it. I liked it, for all the flaws, as an above average summer blockbuster, with ideas.



Still not as good as Batman Begins or The Prestige though . . .

@ MargeGunderson

Yeah, sorry dropped the ball on that one. I commented on the video waaaay after I watched it so my memory obviously decided not to work. I do apologise.

@Roadblaster



"Indeed. But, given the nature of the film (people on the run, only trusted or chosen people, etc) would such a - frankly - minor, until-now-never-seen-or-mentioned-person be left in charge of all the cast?



If the father-in-law was doing it,yes, I could go with that. But the hostess watching over everyone? C'mon . . ."



Well if you remember in the first sequence, it was an insignificant young man that performed the same role on the Japanese train. He was paid in cash by Cobb for his trouble.



It was explained that they had to be on a 747 so that no one else would walk through the first class cabin and that they had to buy out all those seats. They also flew on an airline that Saito owned so having one of his employees/goons perform the role would be very simple. And Michael Caine's a bit too old to play a flight attendant.

#40



I do indeed recall. And look how that ended up.



Point taken entirely, but it (to my mind) just backs up my point - if they, particularly Cobb, is such a professional, why is he hiring people so randomly for such an important role? And earlier on, why is he doing it on a train?!? Does Watanabe's character own that too?



Another point that's just occurred to me . . . the lack of emotional 'weight' that some have said the films suffers from; could the be that, for all the danger we see, in this dream logic, no-one actually can die? Therefore there is isn't (really) danger?



I could be wholly wrong on that point, as obviously death does feature in places, but even the limbo elements, ultimately people escape.



And I never said Micheal Caine would have to play a flight attendant. Interesting thought, though . . .

Well I must say that I'm glad that I'm not the only one who wasn't on the Inception bandwagon!





Let's be clear - I'm very much behind it from a political stand point and YES blockbusters should be big, loud and clever.



But Nolan's tricks exist mainly in the chopping and changing of the story timeline - REALLY!





I would be interested to see if anyone can name anything more skillful than that in his work?



When you think of Fincher's brilliant tricks in Fight Club (much smarter) to fool us and then get us to re-watch the movie from quite a different perspective was GREAT!



While I am somewhat of a Nolan fan I am aware that in every film he shows what he can do whilst at the same time showing clearly what he can't!





Let's do a Nolan report card:



THE DARK KNIGHT



Reinventing the Joker = PASS*



Expanding on the world established in Begins = PASS



Creating a smart crime thriller with brilliant action set pieces= PASS



Making an intelligent film that makes money= PASS



Exploring fully the character of Harvey Dent= FAIL



Being able to handle an ensemble cast= FAIL (Dawes, Wayne and Dent)



Expanding on Bruce Wayne/Batman character= FAIL (sidelined by Joker)



Keeping the whole movie tight without fluff= FAIL (see the boat scene)





Anyone fancy doing the INCEPTION report card?

I'm Surprised he didnt mention Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. (I presume other will have)



Inception also reminded me of a red dwarf episode. terrorform. Where the crew go onto a planet made up of Rimmers mind.



My review of inception:



In my opinion - it was good. Nothing more. Mainly because I just didn't care about the Characters enough. As an idea, as a premise - as a maze, moving from theme to theme its brilliant. How things come togethe...r is fantastic, but as a film I was just left feeling it lacked something.



I just didn't care about the characters enough for me to love it. None of the characters (apart from cobb) are explored.



Example:

Cillian murphy's character, his mental state is analysed, by people writing on a blackboard - you know his relationship with his father - but its like reading it in a text book. I just didn't care about him. The only way to get an attachment to a character is by spending time with them, not by having their past picked over.



For such a hullabaloo, the stakes of the plot are astonishingly low. Will the corporation remain a single entity or will it break up? Who cares?



Having said that - I was impressed with how everything fitted together.



(I expect that to be ripped apart though as most seem to love it)



Do I need to see it again?

I was wondering why there were no dwarves in the dream sequences???? Then I figured it was because Mr Nolan is a fan of Living In Oblivion...

[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

I should probably mention a poor film by an eccentric director that no one has ever watched as similar, then act surprised that no one else mentioned it.



Then I'll get off my high horse.

Fab film, Dreamscape was ok too, great scene on a train!

How about other films with higher levels of reality such as The Thirteen Floor or Vanilla Sky? They weren't bad.

Terrorform! Good spot!



If we're criticising all of Nolan's films (I'm not), how did Harvey Dent enunciate perfectly with half a face instead of drooling everywhere and saying 'gottle o gear'?

This is probably a bit late, but...



The wonderful "Dead of Night" (1945, black & white portmanteau horror film) has a some dream oddness in it on several levels.

Ii have to say I found inception to be a good (enough) movie. The wrong running for once wasnt making me dream about a smoke(always a good sign) and I did come out of it feeling like I had been on a journey, but I felt that in trying to be clever it left (for me anyway) a lot of unanswered questions.

The main one being.. How did they go into the dreams? We saw them connecting the drips but it doesnt explain how and also how they know whos dream to go into.

Also as stated there was no chemistry between the characters and it left me feeling rather empty as try tried to 'scam' Mr Fischer.



In all from a purely entertainment perspective (other than this I know nothing about films) it did get me talking after and I did enough it. But would I watch it again? Probably not.

I liked the film a lot, but I have to say I preferred the Prestige.



@Tommus-Jay "the dream worlds were a lot more normal than I was hoping."



Why do people expect dream worlds to be weird Dali-esque fantasies? Surely most dreams that you or I have are based on reality.



"the lack of justification as to how they're actually able to share dreams "



They have a box, it does stuff. Nolan could have spent 20 minutes coming up with some pseudo-science to explain it. Would that make it a better movie?

(I'm not getting at T-J specifically here, just giving some opinions).

It was good, but not fantastic as the hype might suggest. I agree that the lack of character development and lose ends throughout the plot being a problem, as well as its main attraction being that it was overcomplicated and the pleasure of 'getting it'. The start of the film confusing the time line just to confuse the audience was unnecessary. Perhaps the original was much longer and it was cut down a lot. It could have been a lot tighter and used a lot of the same clever ideas. For example why bother about the maze plot when they used the vents in the end (other than to reference Ariadne's name)?



Also thought it borrowed a lot (too much?) from elsewhere. We have Robert Fischer which when combined with the idea of the chess piece totem suggests Bobby Fischer being the inspiration for naming the character (perhaps even there is Maurice the father rhyming with Boris [Spassky]). We have Ariadne (the maze architect) who was supposed to be King Minos' daughter and maybe the Mistress of the Labyrinth. Finally the whole snow scene with the plot about using the vents is a reference to (or a rip off of) Metal Gear Solid. I imagine there were a lot of other links/references that I missed.

@nyhotep



Obviously I can't speak for anyone else regarding this but my dreams, while obviously having some basis on reality, usually have thousands of hints that it's not real (obviously none of which I ever pick up on), but this is why I always think of eXistenZ as being the closest to a dream I've ever seen on film. The flesh-gun thing in that film is EXACTLY the kind of thing that appears in my dreams, and Inception had none of that. The bit with the folding world looked great but for my money the bit with the train was the only part that felt like a dream.



As for pseudo-science, I agree to a point, but it seems that with Nolan's more recent films he seems to try and base the whole thing in reality while at the same time asking you to suspend your disbelief as far as you can. He did this with The Dark Knight with the sonar eye goggles machine at the end and with Tesla's invention in The Prestige. If the films were set in worlds that felt less real from the get go, the bits where you DO need to suspend your disbelief wouldn't stick out so much. By contrast, directors like Lynch or Cronenburg don't have to ask you to suspend your disbelief because the strangeness of the worlds they create make all the crazy stuff seem more real, which now that I think about it, is what dreams do as well, and now I've accidently gone in full circle.



Nolan's makes great films, but it's this element that stops them from being classic, in my view.

Inception was spoiled for me by the hype, for which I cannot blame Dr Kermode entirely.



Once you know that a) it's about dreaming states, b) that there is a question about whose subconcious we are actually in, and c) there is an "ooooo" moment at the end, you can pretty much see what that end is and watch the movie for the first time as if it is the second.



Particularly revealing was Michael Caine's performance as the father in law. There was a point where he all but gave the game away. I think the character actually says, Come back to reality.



In fact, the trilogy is already mapped out in this first act, with act two being about just how deep the protagonist actually is. Act two features the never falling spinner. It's in the posters and trailers.



Clever, yes. But a victim of its own success.

I've heard a lot of people talk about this spinner and I remember it being in the film, but I think I had a lapse in concentration on this bit where it never falls. The couple sitting next to me walked out and it's possible that during the scene I was thinking, 'I can't believe these guys have walked out, maybe one of them needed the toilet so they both decided to start again'. Or, maybe I was thinking 'I need the toilet but I can't leave or I'll need to start again', which was another thought that was going through my mind the whole time. THANKS KERMODE.

A lot of people are complaining that the dreams were not "dream-like" enough.



*** SPOILERS ***



Remember that the dreams are supposed to be about a deception so they must appear to be real to the marks. The anti-gravity sequence in dream level two seemed quite dream-like and innovative film-making to me. There is also the deception and ambiguity that Nolan is creating between reality and dream states. He wants to keep us guessing even after the film is over so making the contrast between "reality" and dream states greater would not work. Having said that, even the "reality" states seem quite dream-like to me, at least they include parts that are not part of any reality that I know about.



Somebody raised the point about why the beginning is out of sequence to the rest. I am sure Nolan does not do anything without a good reason. I was a bit irritated with it at first and thought perhaps he was just referencing Momento or Pulp Fiction. Well, Cobb says to Ariadne "Do you ever know how dreams begin?" So perhaps this is not a bad way of starting the film.

Then there is the point that before Saito and Cobb can take the leap of faith to come back to reality (because they both seem disoriented in limbo) they have to remember what went before and how they got there so that is what I think happens for the next two hours or so. I also like the idea that this two hours or so of running time that plays out is a way of giving the feeling of a large amount of time passing between moments in dreams when only a short amount of time has elapsed at a higher state. So the decision to take the leap of faith only takes seconds but to us we see hours representing even greater expanses of time elapse before the team wakes (or do they?) on the plane.

I don't think this is something most of us appreciate until after the film is finished or perhaps on a subsequent viewing but I think it is an example of an Easter egg that Nolan has left to for us to discover (like the wedding ring) but is not necessary to pick up to enjoy the film.



*** end of spoilers ***

Wow there are some pretentious people who comment on here! "I understood it from the start and I knew what was going to happen all along, therefore I am far superior to all those who didn't understand it immediately." Thats not an actual quote by the way...





I for one thought the film was great, it was complex and clever but not too much that you had to ask anybody what was going on at any one time, when it got a little complex it soon explained itself. The main reason I enjoyed the film was probably because I have a bias towards many of the actors in the film [Di Caprio, Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Cilian Murphy] so I let myself get taken in by them and trully enjoyed each of their performances, Hardy in particular in this film.



Overall its a great watch, Im not a film buff like many of you and only venture to the cinema for films that really excite me like this one did. I was not disappointed, some great performances, some great action sequences, special effects and the final half hour or so which concluded each dream simultaneously was fantastically done.

*******SPOILER*******



I saw this last night and was sorely disappointed.





Although there were moments that were great to watch (such as the city folding on itself), the overall film lacked direction, it had very little plot, and the acting was average at best.





At no point was I interested if they "kicked" themselves up a level.





A van reversing into a river again and again and again? (I get it; I just didn't want to keep seeing it). A 17 year old girl who is wiser than Yoda…?





Even the snow scenes which I had been looking forward to seeing just washed over me, with seemingly no artistic direction.





Was he dreaming at the end? I’m not sure if I care enough for an answer.





3/10 – for some of the effects

#56



Was the van going in reverse? I must have missed that.



Ellen Page is actually 23 which would seem to be consistent with her being a student or grad student.



Even when she was a pregnant 16-year old in Juno she was actually 20.

A lot of people have commented on how good her performance was as if they believe she really is 16. I suppose I have to try not to let my impressions of her carry over from previous films too. After Hard Candy, I want to keep my legs crossed when I see her on screen.

Even for 23 she does seem to have an old head on young shoulders, though

https://www.chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html

...And that bit where Cillian Murphy's character finally makes it to the safe, he pulls out that paper fan thing!



I laughed my ass off!





Is this is what this whole hi-tec Inception operation and multi-level espionage battle was for?





A PAPER FAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Maybe Inception isn't an espionage thriller but a screw-ball comedy?

1st thought that crossed my mind upon watching the 0gravity scene in "Inception" was the joyous wall dancing scene by Fred Astaire in "Royal Wedding".

Just come back from seeing the A-Team with my daughter, who I also saw Inception with (she's 14). We both agreed that we liked both films the same, but for different reasons.



I'm sure this will get everyone howling with derision (how can you compare these two films etc) but perhaps its a case of giving the audience what they want: with Inception, highbrow well thought-out masterly film making, with the A-Team, flip humour and a LOT of explosions.



Also, is it a reasonable comment that the 'smarter' a film is, so it must be judged harsher - ie while applauding intents, concepts, etc etc, surely if the calibre of people involved is so good, then the flaws must be scrutinised harder than usual?



It's all very well saying a film demands your attention, and it's telling the audience to keep up, but if that audience find flaws, so be it, you have to take it . . .

@Terrier1987cas



I don't think people are trying to prove themselves clever for egotistic reasons, rather they are venting their POV's about how Inception may not be as clever as it thinks.





While the film is cleverer than much of the other blockbusters that have come out this year, the movie is not without it's problems.





I was glad that YES I had no idea where the story was going and it was refreshing to have somebody attempting to step away from formula.



BUT



While other filmmakers (who play with the idea of dreams) like Lynch and certainly Cronenberg seem to be well on top of the subjects and themes of their movies - I'm not sure that Nolan has quite got his horse by the reigns.



The action sequences were great and characters were very interesting but my issue was mainly with the story and the incessant twisting and turning that goes beyond interest and starts to actually take you out of the immersive experience your were enjoying.

#63, I think you're right. I certainly enjoyed the film, and it was absolutely a film to be seen at the cinema (in glorious 2D, no less - the folding land scene blew my mind on the big screen). I thought the "kick" concept was really cool and worked well, and the anti-gravity scene was great.



SPOILERS:



One of the biggest issues I had was with the "limbo" idea, which seemed to only exist as a device to make us fear death in the characters, but then in the end it turns out that it's really not a big deal at all. Also, if I was building myself a dreamworld, I wouldn't make it look like a faceless cut-n-paste Chicago, I guess Leo's character really was messed up.



However, I'm starting to feel like how I did after seeing The Dark Knight, when I got so caught up in counteracting all the hype that I forgot that I still DID really enjoy it. It's just that, like The Dark Knight, it was a really silly film.

All those films sound quite interesting, I think I may make a list...



I sort of agree 'Mulholland Drive' might not be a great example. Even though Lynch himself often says that we are all living in a dream. However 'Inalnd Empire' and 'Blue Velvet' have much more in common with 'Inception'. 'Blue Velvet' simply because at the end of that, like 'Inception', the doubt is there as to whether or not everything that just happened was in fact a dream. 'Inland Empire' however, because it has similar qualities, such a different characters repeating lines of dialogue. Not to mention that 'Inland Empire' would be a lot easier to follow if you could just say each of the different characters Laura Dern plays are different levels of a dream. But where would the fun be in a Lynch film so easily explained?



Anyway, 'Inception' has blown me away all over again after a second viewing but for different reasons. The first time it just seemed like a smart, enjoyable, Nolan movie with a cheeky twist at the end, which I'd assumed wasn't meant to be taken seriously but was still the perfect ending. However, the second viewing (and after reading a very interesting take on the plot) changes how almost character can be percieved and makes the movie even more like the open ended puzzles of David Lynch. Christopher Nolan, kudos to you sir. Take note Cameron, this is what a movie which sits in a drawer for years should look like!

Hey people,



Nice film references. I'll check them out.

Since we are discussing 'dreams, alternate realities, and such' as themes or plots in films, have a look at this interactive short film called 'Come to the secret location' which can be viewed at hellohello.bz/sl

You can post your interpretation at the end of it.

I haven't seen it yet, but fully intend to. However, I'm always deeply suspicious whenever a film is described as 'complex' and 'clever' and 'mind-blowingly intelligent': after all, "Total Recall" was described as such when it came out!



I've never found these films, even Lynch, to be as impenetrable as they're cracked up to be, and I'm no rocket scientist. 'Memento' was good, I enjoyed that: I was disappointed in TDK after all the hype, although still thought it was very good, it definitely wasn't as good as everyone hysterically claimed. It seems you've only got to put a "the fiend planned it all along!" moment into a film these days to make it into a 'complex psychological thriller'.



However, and I don't mean to be particularly racist or anything, but these films are (mostly) coming out of Hollywood: is it just the case that to most Americans, these films actually ARE amazingly complex and clever, while to us Europeans, they're merely good?

Did anyone mention Jacobs Ladder?

#67 I would say that Inland Empire is the only Lynch film that's truely difficult to take it, but as Lynch said himself, he never intends to confuse people. I don't agree about Americans not being as clever, I think it's a combination of low expectations of the audience on the part of the studios, and the average bar for intelligence in mainstream films being considerably lower than the audience deserves. I would say that Inception is what the average SHOULD be but isn't.



I also think that, with Lynch films for example, it's easy to let all the weird stuff just wash over you. His films are so filled with clues and red herrings that trying to interpret everything is futile, but the wonderful thing about his films is that you can always find meaning in them.

@MrCyberKim



Dead of Night is a truly, truly wonderful film. Really underrated.

#67 & #69



How much does a story suffer in the editing process, when scenes are cut for a multitude of reasons without regard for the story?



I've often watched deleted scenes on a DVD only to find that the film makes much more sense and becomes far more interesting.



When scenes are cut in order to get a film down to an acceptable length or to get a teen certificate, it seems that the storytelling can suffer.



I think that quite often the film/story that is released is not necessarily the story that was told by the director. You have to wait for the film to make it's money back before they take a risk and release a Directors Cut or Special Edition.



There is also the possibility that the film released in the States, where alot of the initial buzz comes from, is not the same cut as the film released in the UK.



Hope that makes sense.

@wrighty: YES!!! I'm so glad someone else found this film to be a somewhat sterile viewing experience. From reading through some of the posts on here it seems there are more than a few people who weren't blown away by the smoke & mirrors.



Personally, I thought Inception was a 7/10 film. It's slick, & the effects are great, but that's not really a big issue nowadays. As an audience we've been spoiled with a smorgasbord of top-notch CGI in the past 5-10 years. The best summation I've read of Inception described it as 'a heist movie with sci-fi knobs on', & that seems to pretty much nail it for me.



I've no doubt that there will be those who decry the naysayers, & insist that if you didn't like Inception it's merely because you didn't 'GET' it, but I have to agree with those posters who question it's #3 ranking on IMDB, & I too think that Toy Story 3 was by far the better film. An accolade it achieves, may I add, without having to resort to pretending to be clever.

I found Inception to be a really dreadful and dull film which failed in any way to live up to it's great premise. I strongly suspect it has garnered such reverential reviews because of the director's impeccable pedigree and the casting of DiCaprio after the great 'Shutter Island'. The dialogue was woeful with no discernible sense of humour whatsoever. I found Nolan's direction adequate at best and it was visually flat apart from the 'folding city' scene which everyone saw on the trailer.



I watched it in a cinema next to an elderly couple who looke to be in their sixties...by the end of the film the elderly gentlemen was holding his head in his hands and rocking slightly having aged about twenty years and no, I wasn't dreaming!

You might also want to think of Wim Wender's futuristic film 'Until the End of the World (German: Bis ans Ende der Welt)'( 1991)which spearheaded the idea how to translate images into thoughts (and the other way around)using a special type of goggles, which is then abused by others to voyeur on each other's dreams and thoughts. A remarkable form of 'negative cinema' where the cathartic power of the written word rescues the users from the hallucinogenic and addictive flood of other people's mental imagery.

Having seen Inception the weekend it came out, I have no great desire to watch it again when the DVD comes out in order to see if I can understand it any better. I'm pretty much in agreement with RussiansEatBambi66 - it's a good action/thriller, but not a lot more. The idea that it's intellectually challenging, or that you have to watch every second or else you'll lose track of what's going on is utter rubbish - there are different levels of dreams, I get it, I really do. I don't need to smugly tell myself that it's a clever film and by extention I'm a clever boy because I understood it.



Whether there are holes in the script, and whether it all stands up to close scrutiny is rather unimportant, given that the whole basis of the story is that people can all meet up in other people's dreams!



The weaknesses lie mostly with the over-wrought Di Caprio - he really isn't an action star, and the sooner he gives up on trying to be one the better. All the attempts to pile "emotional depth" on him (dragging the wife and kids into the dreams, the whole being a wanted man business, the idea that one person knows his secrets but he won't tell anybody else) seem like a desperate attempt to make his character just a little bit more engaging. Ultimately you care very little for him or his success, and the "mission" makes so very little sense that they have to invent all the stuff about not dying in this particular dream to add tension.



I do wonder if the reviewers are over-stating Nolan's intentions here: I understood what was going on pretty early on and settled back for an enjoyable thriller. I didn't get to the last ten minutes scratching my head waiting for everything to be revealed (well, there is the question mark over what level of reality we are actually in at the very end, but that's not central when you don't especially care about Di Caprio, it's just funny).



The people I went with were all the same - we didn't come out discussing "well what happened there", we all agreed it was a pretty good film and that we "got" what was going on. In terms of "intelligent" films I'd much rather re-watch Gone Baby Gone, where you can have hours afterwards arguing "well, what would you do in that situation" - this one just sticks on whether you understood the basic premise of the film, and if you get it then there's not a lot more to be said.

i went to see Inception. must admit thought best part of movie was when the projector failed at cinema. movies are meant to entertain not put you to sleep.

@tommus-jay:



"I don't agree about Americans not being as clever, I think it's a combination of low expectations of the audience on the part of the studios, and the average bar for intelligence in mainstream films being considerably lower than the audience deserves. I would say that Inception is what the average SHOULD be but isn't."



Thank you. Geez, I was about to say the exact same thing.



Hollywood is strictly a money-making venture, like the film industry's version of McDonald's. They're only interested in what they can sell us: if superhero films make a lot of cash, they'll start cranking out a slew of superhero movies. If Avatar makes a billion dollars we get a billion more 3D movies. So if we prove to them that we want original, intelligent cinema, that's what they'll start giving us. Inception isn't top tier, but it's a stepping stone to better things and that's where I think a lot of the buzz is coming from.



Also, "clever" is not the same thing as being impenetrable or impossible to follow. Simplicity can be clever in itself - In a Station of the Metro, for example.



(Your interpretation of Lynch is dead-on too. His work should be approached more in the manner of a beat poem or a painting - one relaxes into it and falls into the moods, then takes away from it whatever they like.)

I'm sad to have missed the opportunity to comment on this blog in regards to Inception as it arrived to my cuntry (Argentina) just a week ago, where I immideately went to watch it. I absolutely loved it, and moving back to the comparisons to other films, the film Inception most reminded me of was Andrei Tarkovsky's Solyaris, in which the main character has to struggle to accept that the projection of his late wife right before him is not real and has to get over his loss, and in many ways this is what happens to Cobb throughout the film.



Ty Burr recently wrote a great article on the film and, despite not having liked it THAT much, he mentioned something interesting about Marion Cotillard's character, how he found her to be the most compelling character in the film due to her conflict as a dream disowned by his dreamer - this reminded me a lot of The Circular Ruins, a short story by Jorge Luis Borges who was according to Chris Nolan himself his greatest literary influence for Inception.



Hope you get to read this, Mark, though I fear I'm a tad too late. :(

@Fugazi68 (great band by the way) - Yeah, editting is a tricky one. If you consider a film like Watchmen, it's clearly something that would benefit from a pair of scissors, but then often films can just seem underdeveloped when too much is taken out. Personally, I think if a film is over 140 minutes it needs to have a pretty good reason for it. I wouldn't be surprised if Inception had been heavily cut down, although I would guess that it would be Nolan's decision given the success of The Dark Knight, but I'm sure that it would be easier to relate to Leo's character and would provide better reasons as to how they're able to enter each others dreams than 'just 'cause'.



@Amber - Glad you agree, and yeah, overbearing complexity is just pseudo-intelligence (most pretentious pseudo-intelligent sentence ever?), and often it's way more intelligent to go with a simple but interesting premise. That said, I would say that Inception sits somewhere in between. As for David Lynch, I totally agree that his films are often 'poetic' in structure. I used to think of them as being like songs, the parts don't necessarily need to makes narrative sense but the theme and feel is consistant throughout.

I'm surprised with the amount of backlash on here. People are entitled to their own opinions, but I just came from the cinema having seen Inception and I loved it to pieces. It played nicely with the conventions of the heist genre, the performances were excellent (especially Tom Hardy and Ellen Page) and Wally Pfister cinematography was beautiful.



From the comments I've read, one of the big problems people to seem to have is that the film wasn't much fun - they complained of not laughing enough or not being entertain. I think that is less an expectation generated by the film's content and more by the money involved. We have gotten so used to blockbusters having a (relatively) dumb sense of humour that we expect everything with a budget of over $100m to make us laugh, or at least make us smile. Don't forget that some of the most expensive films ever made are not exactly laugh-fests - think of Metropolis, for instance.



What impressed me most about Inception, as Mark has said already, is its constant refusal to simply offer up simple pleasure on the plate to its audience. I did laugh as some of the comic interplay, and I found myself grinning as I walked out because I'd not only been entertained but mentally stimulated. I felt happy that I had to think, in the same way as The Prestige or Mulholland Drive - the fact that you have to involve yourself so much makes the experience so much better.

I remember the Wachowskis citing Serial Experiments Lain as an influence. This might sound odd but I think the dreams in Inception are far too glossy and coherent. I may not have read as much dream theory as the Nolan Brothers but find the subconscious a much darker place in which the threat is not always tangible as human - it might be signalled by a sound like a roar, a creature or even a frightening room. I sent Simon Mayo a message about Inception's lack of spirituality and mentioned the Marmite-esque The Lovely Bones, whose intended atmosphere is most tangible in the scenes where Suzie returns home. Yes Mark, a returning them, that we have perhaps all dreamt of. The subconscious for me is most memorably deployed in Ivan's Childhood as sparing and poignant set-pieces providing catharsis to the film's horror. Whatever Bowman is witnessing at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey led me to look beyond what I was consciously witnessing. And the perfectly cut endings to Visconti's Ludwig, Bresson's L'Argent or Kurosawa's Kagemusha made me believe that I perfectly understood the motivations of the protagonists and the reason for their downfall. I recently saw a Polish magazine whose headline read WAJDA-KUBRICK-NOLAN. Welcome to the big leagues Christopher Nolan, we're all rooting for you.

@Tommus-Jay





EXACTLY!





True intelligence derives from an artist using the simple form to get at complexity. All the greats do it and I'm not sure that a convoluted plot = advanced intelligence.

@ Robert



I agree with you. The dreams in Inception I thought too were oddly too glossy and coherent, but I suppose that's why it's mainstream-audience-friendly. Inception is ultimately a mere action-thriller film, though, with originality and some substance to it for a Hollywood blockbuster 'flick'. I don't see it as a philosophical or psychological film at all even though some are regarding it as such. Anyway, like Mr. Kermode says in his video, let's hope Inception does amazing at the box office because then the big studios will perhaps finally understand and agree that the mainstream audience out there 'want' films/movies that aren't just brainless entertainment, but are also intelligent and mind-engaging. It's always satisfying when a film provokes thoughts or new ideas in the viewers' mind.

@Guazi - no! I was just flicking through the comments and was surpised that no one had.



Arrgh, herre be spoilers.



In Jacob's Ladder, we have what we initially believe to be a Vietnam war movie, which then turns into a conspiracy movie, which then turns into a horror movie, which then turns into a 'redemption' movie. And he dies at the end...which is actually the beginning. The guy dreamed his whole life, whilst he was dying.



The first time I saw that movie, my mind was twisted in so many knots that I was left breathless. And each viewing you still think you have an idea what's going on, when something else will make you think again.



Inception had a great effect on me...I shed a tear at the end! I thought the ending, and I mean the very end, whilst predictable was absolutely perfect. It was either gonna slap you in the face with it or leave you hanging, and I'd go for the latter every time.



And in response to the comments about it being emotionally vacuous and lacking in character development, if we take the POV that it IS all just Cobbs dream, and every single character, with maybe the exception of Mal, was a figment of his subconcious. After all, we are told at the beginning that in order to plant an idea, it has to be done in such a way that the dreamer thinks it their own. If the idea to get home by performing inception was in fact 'incepted' by an unseen third party into Cobb...who knows where that takes us?

And I meant @Fugazi

A lot of people have rated Inception to the stars, but here's a question . . .



How do you define cinematic brilliance?



Can you?



We all have our favourites for whatever reasons, but can anyone - SHOULD anyone define cinematic genius, or is that missing the point entirely?



We are told that certain films are brilliant, terrible, etc - but surely that is personal taste?



It seems with Inception that most (not all) people agree it is a very good film, a very enjoyable film - but is it brilliant?



Discuss . . .

Liked it, but didn't love it. It felt a little like the film forgot what it was doing once they started the job. I was quite enjoying the plot, but once it had set up the inception job it was a bit like it was chucked in the corner so the film could play with it's big idea. Just a little over-full and overly obsessed with it's ideas, like it's struggling under the weight of being the 'clever ideas film'.

Inception was a hard story line to get into. It was very good and interesting. Although it was a very long movie.

I must confess I haven't seen many of Nolan's films but I found Inception to be the best of his films I've seen. As I've said I haven't seen many of his films.



SPOLIER!!!! SPOILER!!!!!!



Although it was good it wasn't that clever and, to a very small degree, had the same sort of "questioning of reality" that films like The Matrix had. There were some irritatingly confusing points. I understand how they could all share a dream and Cobb's subconcious can affect the dream, what fail to understand is why no one else's subconcious had an affect. After all sub concious is a powerful thing. One point that did irritate me was that the arcitect (I can't spell her name) started off knowing nothing but when Fischer died and got sent to limbo, how did she suddenly know how to get him back? In fact how did she suddenly become an expert?

Another point that confused me and still has me scratching my head is did Cobb plant the idea in Mol's head that limbo was the reality or the dream? and if he planted the idea that it was the dream world then why did she end up believeing the reality was the dream?



But this aside I found it a brilliant film and can't wait for it to be released on DVD.

I agree with RussiansEatBambi66



Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Christopher Nolan's films, but I don't know... I didn't find the film that clever.



A while ago I saw the film 'Abre los Ojos' from Alejandro Amenabar which also explored the idea of the subconscious and the different levels of reality and well, that film blowed me away, so when I went to see 'Inception' I found the plot quite similar but not as clever or engaging.



Also, I was quite dissapointed in some of the special effects. Fair enough, there were some scenes that were astonishing (unfortunately, I had seen most of them in the trailer, ugh!) but I found that most of them looked quite 'cheap' in the sense that the actors had a 'computergenerated' look and the movements seemed a bit unnatural.



Anyway! I am not going to say that I didn't enjoy the film, but I was a bit let down.

Am I really the only viewer who thought that it was clever but subtle of Christopher Nolan to use 'Je ne regrette rien' as the wake-up music given Marion Cotillard's starring role in 'La Vie en Rose' about Edith Piaf?

''Am I really the only viewer who thought that it was clever but subtle of Christopher Nolan to use 'Je ne regrette rien' as the wake-up music given Marion Cotillard's starring role in 'La Vie en Rose' about Edith Piaf?''



The story goes that Nolan wanted to remove Je ne regrette rien once Cotillard was cast, but Zimmer persuaded him to leave it in. https://tiny.cc/8ee8n



As for users mentioning (/criticising) Nolan's use of the cliched circular narrative device in Inception, it's worth noting that the dialogue and who speaks it, is different at the beginning and the end of the film. I think there is more significance to it than it first appears.

@Jabberwocky





SPOILER---SPOILER---SPOILER---









If you subscribe to the theory that it was all a dream (as I do), then the only subconscious would be Cobb's subconscious (unless this is really somebody else's dream). The wedding ring appearance and disappearance suggests that there are at least two different subconscious perspectives, if this is all a dream.



Ariadne goes from asking the question "Whose subconscious are we going into now?" to knowing how to complete the mission when everybody else thought it had failed and then knowing how to escape from limbo. In the early part of the film she is the prompt for Basil Exposition but later on she is the savant that saves the mission. If it's all a dream you can break or make all the rules. I did think it was a bit lazy of Nolan to use the phrase "improvise" when he couldn't be bothered to come up with any more explanations but perhaps this would happen in a dream. In Alice in Wonderland the surreal things that happen to Alice seem to occur as a result of the suggestions her subconscious makes to her in advance and perhaps that is what is going on with Ariadne in the later stages of the film.



From the Cobb perspective, it was he who planted the "inception" in Mal's mind to kill herself in order to escape from limbo. He did this without realizing that this idea might persist when she returned to reality. Because the inception was so powerful, Mal still believed she was in limbo when she awoke and tried to persuade Cobb that they both kill themselves. When she killed herself in "reality" Cobb knew "inception" was something that could work (Arthur thought it was impossible, and Eames thought it was possible but too difficult to pull off).



What isn't quite so clear is why she killed herself without knowing whether Cobb would also kill himself too. Cobb had persuaded her to kill themselves together in limbo but without Mal's unilateral action we wouldn't have a story. This adds to the theory that somehow Mal is still alive or that she was separated from Cobb either by death or by leaving him.



This film is something that cooks in the brain. I was not too impressed with it to begin with for the reasons that others have stated (emotional detachment, holes in the plot and not caring if it was all a dream etc.) but I found that I could not stop my mind from trying to deconstruct it afterwards. Quite a few of the ideas occurred to me later on and I have benefited from what others have suggested that I missed (e.g. that external disturbances that occur in all the dreams were due to being on the flight so that all the dreams take place on a single flight) and from seeing the film 3 times.



@Greybeard Loon



I think at least two people mentioned the connection between Marion Cotillard and the music in the original blog entry (you can always try the search feature in the browser if you don't want to read all the blog entries).



Your question did prompt me to think about the role of music in the film, not just the cue music but the immense contribution of the score.

Does Nolan realise this, since he has not seen fit to include the composer as a character integral and vital to the film making process?

Perhaps like editing, music is a post filming process and is why there are no characters to represent this. On the other hand, perhaps the initial sequence and the Edith Piaf music cue represent both these processes, or perhaps I am just thinking about this too much.

I was disappointed to find that Inception was little more than an action movie with a fancy trailer. *Some spoilers to follow* There were a few points where I thought that the movie would either be very thoughtful or very engaging, then people started shooting at each other. Ariadne's first foray into the world of dreams ended in a pretty perfect simulation of a nightmare, but that was the only time that I felt like I was watching a dream. The rest of the film felt either like an action movie or a dream sequence. The scenes in the snow don't even make the attempt. I might have been able to accept the concept of the movie taking place inside of the mind, if the word "dream" was not used so constantly.



The dream issue might not have been as much of a problem if the characters had been better developed. Aside from Cobb and Saito, I wasn't really sure why anyone was willing to go through so much trouble. There were some glimpses into the other characters, but I don't want to have to write my own backstories in order for Christopher Nolan's shoot-em-up to make sense. Everyone gets a totem, but Cobb is the only one who seems to need one. It almost makes negligible the fact that we essentially lose a character at every level of the dream. I will concede that parts of the zero-gravity sequence were interesting to watch, but I would rather have had Gordon-Levitt with the rest of the cast. *End spoilers*



For one who studies psychology with the interest of a 19th century gentleman, the plot wasn't as complex as some reviews had made it out to be, and there was the potential for a far better movie than we were given. I think that Dr. Kermode (BBC may want to add that to their dictionary) is right in asking what Inception will inspire in the future, but I think that whoever said that the movie owes a debt to the Bond films hit closer to the mark than those who brought up Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I'm not saying that the movie was terrible. If it hadn't meant seeing the trailer for The Last Exorcism, I would say that going to see Inception was not a mistake, but it wasn't worth the actual nightmare. On the topic of other movies about dreams, kind of, the trailers for Inception, along with this blog, made me think of "Magnetic Rose" from Memories. It tells the story of a space salvage crew who end up on a haunted ship, and was written by Satoshi Kon, who wrote and directed Paprika.

@antimode:



I'm starting to get the feeling that our evidence is just excusing Nolan for writing a sloppy film. ;)

Bah, lost half of my post.



"+This film is something that cooks in the brain. I was not too impressed with it to begin with for the reasons that others have stated (emotional detachment, holes in the plot and not caring if it was all a dream etc.) but I found that I could not stop my mind from trying to deconstruct it afterwards. Quite a few of the ideas occurred to me later on and I have benefited from what others have suggested that I missed (e.g. that external disturbances that occur in all the dreams were due to being on the flight so that all the dreams take place on a single flight) and from seeing the film 3 times."



I kind of agree with that. Kind of. I still find the film aloof and not particularly graceful in it's delivery, but it is one of the more fun ones to discuss and try to organize. I do think it is a lot greater film to pick apart than it is to actually watch, however as I have yet to find myself fully engaged during a viewing. But the deconstructionist in me can't help but play with it afterwards.

Watch PAPRIKA.

Anyone else wondering what Dr. K's response to this will be called? 'Inception Reception Perception Misconception'? Exception? Contraception?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I loved this film when I saw it, and thought about it constantly afterwards.



* Possible Spoilers *



I tend to think that "Inception" is an allegory of films themselves.



We, the audience, go in, and watch a film, a film that is creating a reality. We, collectively, share a dream with each other where we suspend disbelief and live in that dream willingly.



Nolan's role is like that of the architect, to try and make a maze whereby the audience doesn't fully escape from this reality except perhaps at the end, but ideally not. The architect wants us to remain trapped in the maze of the film for as long as possible (one reason for an ambiguous ending). More than that, Nolan is trying to implant an idea in our heads that we take away with us that grows, and grows. (_Amber above exhibits this clearly when he/she says: "I was not too impressed with it to begin with for the reasons that others have stated but I found that I could not stop my mind from trying to deconstruct it afterwards." In fact, I'm exhibiting this myself, as I've been pondering it more and more.)



Now, if we suspend our disbelief, the film itself becomes fake, we don't accept what it's telling us. We get hostile to the film, and worse than that, how we feel towards that film will spread to others.



Also, even though film is a shared experience, we still maintain a level of individuality in our relationship; films don't exist independent of the viewer. What I mean is, the "film" we perceive is different for each person, depending on their experiences, their emotions, etc. That has an effect on how we interpret and see the film, because we fill in the gaps of the film with our subconscious, just like is described regarding dreams. On a simple level, we accept huge gaps in time, where characters appear and disappear, but we can also see in this thread people rationalising what others see as discrepancies.



I guess what I'm driving at is the idea that the film Inception is, if you will, an attempt to carry out an inception, and frankly, it succeeded. Nolan's always been fascinated with the concept of memory, reality, illusion etc. It's a thread that runs through all his films, and I suspect it's because of how he views the nature of film itself i.e. film is all about creating a shared reality that has to last the entirety of the film's duration, if not longer. (As an aside, that's probably also why he continually goes to greater and greater lengths for secrecy, because if too much is known prior to the film, he won't succeed, one of the reasons, for example, Cobb keeps saying that he doesn't want to know anything about the different levels.)



At any rate, for me, Inception is a beautiful, intelligent film. I also think it deeply unfair to say that Nolan is making this film to show how intelligent he is. All Nolan is trying to do (IMO) is to trap us in a maze for a few hours, and plant a seed in our heads that stays with us for far, far longer than that.



And in that, he surely succeeded.



(And yes, I know it's all pure speculation, but hopefully I'm illustrating just how interesting this film is, because it makes you think.)