Film: Inception
Aug. 4th, 2010 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackPrejudices
First, to get the obvious observations out of the way. It has a bunch of action in a somewhat artistic way, and some interesting intellectual ideas. This leads some people, who have never seen cinematic action used to show an intellectual idea before, to proclaim "it doesn't make any sense, it sucks" or preferably "Wow, that's the most amazing cleverest thing I've ever seen". And it leads other people, who have seen one or more of the interesting ideas explored somewhere before, to panic, and think that if they say anything positive people will confuse them with fanboys, and hence proclaim "utter derivative trash! I knew everything that was going to happen from the first scene. it's just stupid"
In general, I like films that have action and heists, and also interesting ideas. I think that they come along every so often, and I like to encourage them. Of those films, I think this is a pretty good one. Far from the best, but it had an awful lot to like, and also many undeniable flaws. I basically expected it to fall into the "good but not best example of a genre I like a lot" based on people's reactions to it, and it pretty much did.
Missed opportunities
One of the most prominent criticisms are things it COULD have done, and would have been awesome, but weren't touched upon. For instance:
1. Any actual details on performing any of the heists, rather than just running around with a shaky camera.
2. Any use of manipulating the dream to advantage (or even just being more surreal). There are a few scenes where Ariadne manipulates the dream in an interesting way, and it happens somewhat in limbo, but there's an explanation why that manipulation isn't part of a standard extraction, which would have been a lot cooler.
3. Any character development on the characters other than Cobb.
However, it's not interesting to dismiss the film on those bases. It's unfortunate that it wasn't better if it could have been, but many excellent films leave you wanting lots more, it's not an excuse to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to what WAS there.
Unsupported premises
Like many films, there are things that aren't dwelled on, but don't make sense. This is unfortunate, but as long as it's clearly established up front, doesn't really affect the film. I don't really care, but want to list them for completeness, and in case anyone can correct me. For instance:
1. If the grandfather didn't blame Cobb, why couldn't he take the children to visit him abroad?
2. If Cobb had worked for people who were very, very rich and powerful, but not as rich and powerful as Saito, even if quashing the murder charge was impossible, surely they'd be able to arrange a fake passport?
3. What does it mean when Cobb's totem is supposed to "not fall over"? Why not? Do they mean that a typical spinning top would fall over only when it runs out of spin, but his falls over earlier because it's asymmetric? But surely, if it's only "fall over" or "not fall over", it's not much defence against anyone who knows about totems, because if they can guess it does SOMETHING they can guess it's weighted.
4. Breaking up Fisher's empire is a comparatively random aim. The film invites us to accept it as morally questionable but generally positive, but it would be better if there were some aim we could more directly empathise with.
Of course some people will say "it's supposed to not make sense, it's a clue that the whole film is in a dream". I agree that's possible, but I think it's a very bad decision by Nolan if so. It would be a bad mistake to put in things that look exactly like ill-thought-out macguffins as featured in 100% of other films, and present them as if we're supposed to take them on trust and suspend our disbelief, and not reference them as implausible anywhere within the film itself (as it did with some other implausible things).
Of course, there are always some cases of a film-maker overrating their audience (or the standard of coherency they've come to expect), but there is generally evidence that that is the case when you look. There are differences between a bad plot and a parody of a bad plot, and while it's always possible to confuse them, I see no evidence that these things were deliberately bad, and will assume they were not unless such evidence presents itself.
Things that were somewhat unclear, but became clearer thinking about them
Some things became clear, some things didn't. Some things were well explained, some things were explained badly. At first, I was confused whether the kicks had to be simultaneous, but it seems that the inner kick just has to be first, but the deadline is that once the van goes off the cliff, there's no convenient way to kick people again before they die from drowning or shooting.
I was confused about what comes from the dreamer and what comes from someone else's unconscious, but I think I'm convinced by the consensus wisdom on the internet that it's essentially always the mark's subconscious (or Cob's, when he's dreaming of his wife and Ariadne enters, or Cob's, when he's teaching Ariadne), and the dreamer can be anyone sufficiently trained, either the student, the extractor, the architect, or someone else.
If the internet is right, in the opening action pieces, the doofy architect created the fleapit hotel room, within which Arthur created the Chinese mansion, and in Fisher's dreams, Yusuf created the raining city, Arthur created the hotel, and Eames created the snowscape (all to Ariadne's design).
And that the dreamer shapes the world, and can, in principle, change the structure in large scale ways, but doesn't, because of the risk of exciting the projections. In the film, we don't see anyone changing anything other than (a) Ariadne's experiments (b) reflecting movement of the dreamer's body in the dream (c) Cobb's not-dreamer subconscious projecting Mal, even though most of the projections come from Fisher, and her potential knowledge of the layout if he knows it.
I think some other things probably didn't make sense, that I forgot to concentrate on.
Good things
1. The concept of a dream which is subconsciously hostile to the extractor. It gives a good set-up for lots of hustling, of action, and of danger, and a good explanation of why they have to break into safes. Even though the details aren't specific, it (mostly) makes sense that they _somehow_ have to create a world sufficiently tricky the dreamer puts secrets in it, but sufficiently tractable they can find them.
2. The talismans. A simple, good idea that's very visually and emotionally appealing. (Even if it has some logistical difficulties.)
3. The details of what they tell Fisher in each layer. I didn't examine it closely, but the idea of planting suspicion of his godfather, and then letting him dream it naturally, and of associating the message with a positive reinforcement all felt good.
4. The intricate waking up as the van fell: I kept counting in my head to work out where everyone was, and some things didn't click until later.
5. That Cobb had implanted the idea to wake up in Mal's head. That was extremely tragic, but it also worked very well because we knew they'd been trapped in limbo, and that he'd implanted something in her, and that she'd been obsessed with escaping the real world, and when we find out what happens in makes perfect sense.
Ending
I thought it was one of the very few films where an ambiguous ending actually added something to the film, rather than being a cop-out. Most films, especially "was it a dream" and "is it all over" endings, I think an ambiguous ending is trying to have it both ways and undercuts both readings.
Here, I felt leaving it ambiguous whether Cobb was dreaming accurately reflected that HE couldn't know, and actually brought home that uncertainty to the viewer in a way that "he was" or "he wasn't" wouldn't have done.
I also note firstly, that it doesn't ring true to me that, as some people feared, the WHOLE film was a dream, either within Cobb and Mal's mind when they were trapped in limbo, or in her mind if she was more right than he was about what was real, or in some completely different situation. It's possible, and there may be more evidence that that is the case than I've seen, other than the question of if Cobb's real life is plausible[1], but to me it feels equally cop-out as as in any other film where it "was all a dream", because then NOTHING, not even the basic rules of the dreamworld, we can take as true, so the whole thing has NO emotional impact at all, but the filmmaker would obviously intend us to take SOME of it at face value, and some not, with no way of distinguishing which.
I assumed, that if the ending wasn't real, Cobb never exited the dream with Fisher, (either after rescuing Saito, or not, and the scene in the plane of everyone else waking up either being real, or not), and his mind constructed a plausible fantasy where he goes home.
[1] A somewhat unfair question, as it's obviously implausible in the real world, and plausible in a typical action film, and whether this film is a dream or not, there's no evidence whether it's plausible or not in this film. I think that's a interesting "shake Cobb and the audience's faith" question, but much more interesting if the real world IS real.
I note secondly, that if the ending is not real, that Cobb's talisman doesn't work to tell him if it's real if the dream is not constructed by a malicious third party, but is constructed either (a) by his own wish-fulfilment, (b) by his wife or (c) by his projection of his wife, because they all know how the talisman should behave in the real world, and would construct a convincing reality including that.
Also, people have pointed out that the children at the end, although looking very similar, were apparently played by older actors, so are not just continued reflections like his previous projections, but like before, it doesn't help to distinguish between (a) reality and (b) his own mind has constructed a fantasy consistent with what he knows of the real world.
Unanswered questions
There's some things I'm still muddled on, either because I didn't understand, or because they actually didn't make sense.
Does falling kick you out of the dream when your body falls in the outer dream/in reality? But it doesn't work if dream-you is nested in another dream? Or can a kick in reality wake up someone from any levels deep?
They intended to be kicked in the hotel before the van fell, and then be kicked when the van fell? And the van's falling triggered the avalanche, and they knew they had a known but approximate amount of time before the van fell again? And Arthur waited until the last possible moment before waking them up in the lift, so they'd have the greatest chance of finishing the mission, but then be woken in the lift, before the van landing woke them into the city?
When Fisher was shot outside the vault, and Ariadne and Cobb followed him, where they in the dream city because Fisher was dead, or because it was Cobb's dream and his mind automatically produced the city he remembered? Was Fisher dead or unconscious?
How did Fisher and Ariadne wake up out of the dream city? Because they fell in the dream, or died in the dream, or were awoken in the snow vault level?
Limbo is what you reach when you die and can't wake up. Is that the same as what happens if you go too deep, or different?
When Cobb and Mal were trapped in limbo(?), why did they need to die to wake up? If dying COULD wake them up, why couldn't they escape immediately? If dying could wake them up, why did Cobb have to persuade Mal rather than just killing her directly?
Did Cobb go several levels further deeper into Mal's mind when they were trapped in order to plant the idea, or was everything sufficiently deep he could walk to her secret vault without officially dreaming?
In the plane, once they'd woken up in the sinking van, how did they get back to presumed reality? Were they kicked in reality, or the drug just wore off? If the drug wore off, why did they need to worry, wouldn't that mean they could wake up whatever level they were in?
First, to get the obvious observations out of the way. It has a bunch of action in a somewhat artistic way, and some interesting intellectual ideas. This leads some people, who have never seen cinematic action used to show an intellectual idea before, to proclaim "it doesn't make any sense, it sucks" or preferably "Wow, that's the most amazing cleverest thing I've ever seen". And it leads other people, who have seen one or more of the interesting ideas explored somewhere before, to panic, and think that if they say anything positive people will confuse them with fanboys, and hence proclaim "utter derivative trash! I knew everything that was going to happen from the first scene. it's just stupid"
In general, I like films that have action and heists, and also interesting ideas. I think that they come along every so often, and I like to encourage them. Of those films, I think this is a pretty good one. Far from the best, but it had an awful lot to like, and also many undeniable flaws. I basically expected it to fall into the "good but not best example of a genre I like a lot" based on people's reactions to it, and it pretty much did.
Missed opportunities
One of the most prominent criticisms are things it COULD have done, and would have been awesome, but weren't touched upon. For instance:
1. Any actual details on performing any of the heists, rather than just running around with a shaky camera.
2. Any use of manipulating the dream to advantage (or even just being more surreal). There are a few scenes where Ariadne manipulates the dream in an interesting way, and it happens somewhat in limbo, but there's an explanation why that manipulation isn't part of a standard extraction, which would have been a lot cooler.
3. Any character development on the characters other than Cobb.
However, it's not interesting to dismiss the film on those bases. It's unfortunate that it wasn't better if it could have been, but many excellent films leave you wanting lots more, it's not an excuse to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to what WAS there.
Unsupported premises
Like many films, there are things that aren't dwelled on, but don't make sense. This is unfortunate, but as long as it's clearly established up front, doesn't really affect the film. I don't really care, but want to list them for completeness, and in case anyone can correct me. For instance:
1. If the grandfather didn't blame Cobb, why couldn't he take the children to visit him abroad?
2. If Cobb had worked for people who were very, very rich and powerful, but not as rich and powerful as Saito, even if quashing the murder charge was impossible, surely they'd be able to arrange a fake passport?
3. What does it mean when Cobb's totem is supposed to "not fall over"? Why not? Do they mean that a typical spinning top would fall over only when it runs out of spin, but his falls over earlier because it's asymmetric? But surely, if it's only "fall over" or "not fall over", it's not much defence against anyone who knows about totems, because if they can guess it does SOMETHING they can guess it's weighted.
4. Breaking up Fisher's empire is a comparatively random aim. The film invites us to accept it as morally questionable but generally positive, but it would be better if there were some aim we could more directly empathise with.
Of course some people will say "it's supposed to not make sense, it's a clue that the whole film is in a dream". I agree that's possible, but I think it's a very bad decision by Nolan if so. It would be a bad mistake to put in things that look exactly like ill-thought-out macguffins as featured in 100% of other films, and present them as if we're supposed to take them on trust and suspend our disbelief, and not reference them as implausible anywhere within the film itself (as it did with some other implausible things).
Of course, there are always some cases of a film-maker overrating their audience (or the standard of coherency they've come to expect), but there is generally evidence that that is the case when you look. There are differences between a bad plot and a parody of a bad plot, and while it's always possible to confuse them, I see no evidence that these things were deliberately bad, and will assume they were not unless such evidence presents itself.
Things that were somewhat unclear, but became clearer thinking about them
Some things became clear, some things didn't. Some things were well explained, some things were explained badly. At first, I was confused whether the kicks had to be simultaneous, but it seems that the inner kick just has to be first, but the deadline is that once the van goes off the cliff, there's no convenient way to kick people again before they die from drowning or shooting.
I was confused about what comes from the dreamer and what comes from someone else's unconscious, but I think I'm convinced by the consensus wisdom on the internet that it's essentially always the mark's subconscious (or Cob's, when he's dreaming of his wife and Ariadne enters, or Cob's, when he's teaching Ariadne), and the dreamer can be anyone sufficiently trained, either the student, the extractor, the architect, or someone else.
If the internet is right, in the opening action pieces, the doofy architect created the fleapit hotel room, within which Arthur created the Chinese mansion, and in Fisher's dreams, Yusuf created the raining city, Arthur created the hotel, and Eames created the snowscape (all to Ariadne's design).
And that the dreamer shapes the world, and can, in principle, change the structure in large scale ways, but doesn't, because of the risk of exciting the projections. In the film, we don't see anyone changing anything other than (a) Ariadne's experiments (b) reflecting movement of the dreamer's body in the dream (c) Cobb's not-dreamer subconscious projecting Mal, even though most of the projections come from Fisher, and her potential knowledge of the layout if he knows it.
I think some other things probably didn't make sense, that I forgot to concentrate on.
Good things
1. The concept of a dream which is subconsciously hostile to the extractor. It gives a good set-up for lots of hustling, of action, and of danger, and a good explanation of why they have to break into safes. Even though the details aren't specific, it (mostly) makes sense that they _somehow_ have to create a world sufficiently tricky the dreamer puts secrets in it, but sufficiently tractable they can find them.
2. The talismans. A simple, good idea that's very visually and emotionally appealing. (Even if it has some logistical difficulties.)
3. The details of what they tell Fisher in each layer. I didn't examine it closely, but the idea of planting suspicion of his godfather, and then letting him dream it naturally, and of associating the message with a positive reinforcement all felt good.
4. The intricate waking up as the van fell: I kept counting in my head to work out where everyone was, and some things didn't click until later.
5. That Cobb had implanted the idea to wake up in Mal's head. That was extremely tragic, but it also worked very well because we knew they'd been trapped in limbo, and that he'd implanted something in her, and that she'd been obsessed with escaping the real world, and when we find out what happens in makes perfect sense.
Ending
I thought it was one of the very few films where an ambiguous ending actually added something to the film, rather than being a cop-out. Most films, especially "was it a dream" and "is it all over" endings, I think an ambiguous ending is trying to have it both ways and undercuts both readings.
Here, I felt leaving it ambiguous whether Cobb was dreaming accurately reflected that HE couldn't know, and actually brought home that uncertainty to the viewer in a way that "he was" or "he wasn't" wouldn't have done.
I also note firstly, that it doesn't ring true to me that, as some people feared, the WHOLE film was a dream, either within Cobb and Mal's mind when they were trapped in limbo, or in her mind if she was more right than he was about what was real, or in some completely different situation. It's possible, and there may be more evidence that that is the case than I've seen, other than the question of if Cobb's real life is plausible[1], but to me it feels equally cop-out as as in any other film where it "was all a dream", because then NOTHING, not even the basic rules of the dreamworld, we can take as true, so the whole thing has NO emotional impact at all, but the filmmaker would obviously intend us to take SOME of it at face value, and some not, with no way of distinguishing which.
I assumed, that if the ending wasn't real, Cobb never exited the dream with Fisher, (either after rescuing Saito, or not, and the scene in the plane of everyone else waking up either being real, or not), and his mind constructed a plausible fantasy where he goes home.
[1] A somewhat unfair question, as it's obviously implausible in the real world, and plausible in a typical action film, and whether this film is a dream or not, there's no evidence whether it's plausible or not in this film. I think that's a interesting "shake Cobb and the audience's faith" question, but much more interesting if the real world IS real.
I note secondly, that if the ending is not real, that Cobb's talisman doesn't work to tell him if it's real if the dream is not constructed by a malicious third party, but is constructed either (a) by his own wish-fulfilment, (b) by his wife or (c) by his projection of his wife, because they all know how the talisman should behave in the real world, and would construct a convincing reality including that.
Also, people have pointed out that the children at the end, although looking very similar, were apparently played by older actors, so are not just continued reflections like his previous projections, but like before, it doesn't help to distinguish between (a) reality and (b) his own mind has constructed a fantasy consistent with what he knows of the real world.
Unanswered questions
There's some things I'm still muddled on, either because I didn't understand, or because they actually didn't make sense.
Does falling kick you out of the dream when your body falls in the outer dream/in reality? But it doesn't work if dream-you is nested in another dream? Or can a kick in reality wake up someone from any levels deep?
They intended to be kicked in the hotel before the van fell, and then be kicked when the van fell? And the van's falling triggered the avalanche, and they knew they had a known but approximate amount of time before the van fell again? And Arthur waited until the last possible moment before waking them up in the lift, so they'd have the greatest chance of finishing the mission, but then be woken in the lift, before the van landing woke them into the city?
When Fisher was shot outside the vault, and Ariadne and Cobb followed him, where they in the dream city because Fisher was dead, or because it was Cobb's dream and his mind automatically produced the city he remembered? Was Fisher dead or unconscious?
How did Fisher and Ariadne wake up out of the dream city? Because they fell in the dream, or died in the dream, or were awoken in the snow vault level?
Limbo is what you reach when you die and can't wake up. Is that the same as what happens if you go too deep, or different?
When Cobb and Mal were trapped in limbo(?), why did they need to die to wake up? If dying COULD wake them up, why couldn't they escape immediately? If dying could wake them up, why did Cobb have to persuade Mal rather than just killing her directly?
Did Cobb go several levels further deeper into Mal's mind when they were trapped in order to plant the idea, or was everything sufficiently deep he could walk to her secret vault without officially dreaming?
In the plane, once they'd woken up in the sinking van, how did they get back to presumed reality? Were they kicked in reality, or the drug just wore off? If the drug wore off, why did they need to worry, wouldn't that mean they could wake up whatever level they were in?