I loved it. I didn’t feel confused or lost at any time, and I never had any problem following along with the snow scenes. And this isn’t to toot my own horn, either. I’m not some genius movie follower/solver, but every single gripe about following along in the snow is actually handled by the movie itself, and those people just weren’t paying attention or simply forgot what they saw. (For example, Ames clearly sees the bad guys gather together and get towed away by the Hummer on skis thing, and then chases after them.) I thought the movie was extremely clear about who was doing what in that snow scene.
As for the top and the ending, I think people are trying to get too clever here and trying a bit too hard and confusing matters. Your own personal experiences with how a top works or spins, or your own ideas about how physics works, aren’t at all important here. What’s important is how the top works in the movie world, and it was shown plenty enough times to get an idea of what to expect. When it’s spun, one of two things happens; it spins and falls down, or it spins forever. **Pepperlandgirl **nailed it: when the top is spun in a dream throughout the entire movie, it never once “wobbles.” It wobbles in the final scene, so it’s obvious that the implication is that it will fall, and that it hasn’t fallen is just a red herring. Again, the movie provides all the answers.
This will be a great movie to watch on DVD with the subtitles on, because there were several snatches of dialogue I couldn’t understand on either viewing. As much as I love Ken Watanabe, he provided most of them. I still don’t understand what it was about the ugly shag carpet that clued him into the fact that he was in a dream. Anyone catch that?
I am curious about how all the professional reviews and media reports keep harping on how “incomprehensible” the movie is. While there was a lot going on, it was relatively easy to follow what was happening in general terms. They were careful to make the separate dream states visually distinct to make it clear where you were at a given time. I am curious if this says more about the general intellect and/or attention span of the media’s target audience than the movie itself.
I still haven’t decided if I agree with this interpretation, or if I think that any interpretation is correct or even if it matters, but I think your post is fantastic and fun to think about. There’s a 5th thing that could go on this list:
Cobb enters the hotel room where they spend their anniversaries, looks out the window, and Mal is on the ledge across from him. How’d she get over there? It was more like a mirror image of his window than a different hotel room altogether. Both times I saw it, she and what she plans to do is so striking that I never even looked behind her to see if the interior was normal or all messed up like the one he was in. And that’s another thing, why is the interior of the hotel room all messed up, with broken glasses, overturned lamps and chairs and whatnot? Did she have an anger fit before she went out on the ledge, or did they have a physical fight that we weren’t privy to?
She was framing Cobb for her murder. She simulated a violent quarrel so that anybody who investigated her suicide would be inclined to believe Cobb threw her out the window after a struggle.
Because if she didn’t do that, he would have less incentive to follow her. She wanted to make it impossible for him not to. (just thought I’d flesh that out in case there are follow up questions.)
I am starting to love this movie more and more as I read everyone’s theories.
Also, although my friend complained of the music being too loud, I absolutely loved it. I like when the music plays a part in the movie. (There Will Be Blood was great that way.)
Just got back from seeing it and absolutely loved it. I’ll just throw out for consideration that I found it to be the closest cinematic equivalent I’ve seen to one of my favorite Philip K Dick novels, Ubik; oddly enough, it seemed to capture that particular flavor of reality-bending more so than any previous film adaptations of Dick’s work I’ve seen.
Didn’t have any problems at all keeping track of the plot and what was going on at any given time, yet at the same time didn’t think there was any particular degree of overexplaining being done to keep the audience up to speed. I also thought that the moment of the inception itself was handled wonderfully. Absolutely brilliant screenplay, IMO.
I’d also like to shake Nolan’s hand for apparently sharing my belief that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is one of the greatest of all the Bond films, since he seemed to lift whole chunks of it for the Arctic Redoubt scenes.
There did seem to be some inconsistencies in how one got into and out of the different dream levels. I don’t get why, for example, Ken Watanabe aged so much in Limbo when DiCaprio didn’t.
Ellen Page was an interesting choice for the architect, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her every moment she was on the screen. “Small but perfectly formed” was the phrase that kept running through my head. I think I’m crushing.
I hooted a bit at the blackout ending, but I will say that even if the film ends in limbo, there is no chance whatever that the whole film was in dream state, since the top fell over a couple of times in scenes before the main heist got going.
Lastly, I read the first few posts to this thread before seeing the film, and so noted the complaints from people having trouble working out who was who in the snow fighting scene. Folks, if or when you see the film again, take note: the bad guys are all wearing light grey ‘digital’ camo and black knit caps. The good guys are in all white. The oldest movie cliche in the book, kids. You’re welcome.
OR DID HE!!? I mean, when he was breaking it down to Mal, he said they DID grow old together, and they even showed the flash back.
What does it meeeeeannn???!!! I am falling further and further into over analyzing and misinterpreting!! I’m on level 10 in limbo! There is only one way out.
The totem just shows that you’re not in someone else’s dream since no one but yourself could replicate it properly. I can’t recall anything in the movie that says you can’t fool yourself in your own dream.
Also, about the age difference between Dicaprio and Watanabe: Watanabe spent far longer in limbo than Dicaprio because he died several layers up from where Dicaprio was “awake” and therefore spent a subjectively far longer period of time in limbo.
Little thing here–it may have been explained; there were snippets of dialogue that I missed because of accents, music, sound effects, acoustics, whatever.
Why was it so very important to bring “the Chemist” along? Other than as one more dude to leave on a dream-level to be in charge of the kick, I don’t think I saw any reason for him to be there. If you just needed somebody to drive the van, you could’ve gotten yourself a professional dream-van driver.
Related, and hinting at my confusion about the mechanics of dreamwalking in the Inception-verse: Wasn’t “the Chemist” dead after the van crashed into the river? They couldn’t wake him up, and… um, that one dude with the air supply looked briefly concerned. Then they got out of the river, everyone woke up, DiCaprio saw him in the airport. Shouldn’t he have been stuck in limbo with Saito?
The plot wasn’t terribly confusing; the finer points of dreamwalking mechanics were.
DiCaprio and Page actually went to limbo before Watanabe died in any dream. He and Tom Hardy’s character were left behind to keep security off Fischer’s body for as long as possible so that they could kick him at the appointed time.
And when Ellen Page kicks Fischer off the ledge to kick him back up a level she calls for DiCaprio to come and he says he can’t because “by now” Watanabe is dead and so he has to go find him.
My assumption is that DiCaprio didn’t age because he knew he was in limbo and chose not to.
No, they showed him alive and using his own air supply after the crash. Fischer and Tom Hardy (as the godfarther) go out the back. Ellen Page and Gordon Levitt-Smith share a scuba tank while checking on Watanabe and DiCaprio. Then we see the Chemist with his own air supply and everybody awake swims out of the van.
It was awesome. So visually stunning, especially the level 2 scenes in the hotel- not just the floating, which was gorgeous, but the overall colors and costumes and setting. It was like Mad Men or The Shining with zero gravity.
I didn’t really leave with any questions because normally I’m not great at following these kinds of plots, so I decided to just enjoy. I’m really enjoying reading everyone’s interpretations, though.
And boy, is Joseph Gordon Levitt handsome! He looks so much like Heath Ledger.
For those who are saying it wasn’t hard to follow at all, I actually agree. And that’s coming from someone that has The Wizard of Oz explained. But I saw someone use a word I like: under-confused.
Sometimes, when we think we got it all figured out, we are missing mad layers, and that is where the heavy lifting comes in for a movie like this.
As for the question of whether it was all a dream, I have decided no, it wasn’t. And I have heard some brilliant theories of why it was, but I will take it the way I did in my gut when I first saw it…his kids faces were somewhat of a totem for him. When he sees their faces, he knows for a fact he isn’t dreaming. That totem wasn’t as important as one might think. He even knows that, which is why he walks away from it without even waiting for it to stop spinning.
Hey, I heard someone say that throughout the movie, something always happens before we see the top actually stop spinning, like it falls off of a counter or something. I didn’t catch that and can’t remember. Can anyone?
Oh, I think you nailed it with “his kids faces were somewhat of a totem for him” except I’d take it a step further and say they were his totem. Mal had the little top and Dom had his kids. That’s why he refused to look at them in Limbo with Mal no matter how much she pleaded with him. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s such a perfectly elegant solution to why he doesn’t ever explicitly have his own totem. Thus rendering the top at the end moot–it’d just be a red herring, a slight of hand trick.