DiCaprio apparently has three little indentations in the shape of a triangle on his forehead that I never noticed before. Maybe it was the 8-story-tall screen, but the pattern on his skin was so blatantly obvious that I was sure it would be a plot-point. But then…nothing. Anyone else notice this?
What happened to the Lukas Haas character? Was he killed? That seems a bit of a harsh punishment for failing an audition, and the other team members didn’t seem too concerned when a bloody and beaten Haas was dragged off, never to be seen again. “We need another architect,” was all Leo had to say.
In the hotel room scene immediately after DiCaprio gets off the train in Kyoto (“I don’t like trains”) they show him spinning the top and it spins for a while before falling.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t dreaming, but if he is and his totem is supposed to fall immediately then he’d know at this point he is dreaming.
It would also mean he is in someone else’s dream. Who’s dream would that be?
It wasn’t an audition, it was an assignment that they failed to complete for Cobol (though Saito was also using it as an audition, unbeknownst to them). They were supposed to extract some secret from Saito’s mind, but Nash (Haas) got the texture of the carpet wrong, and that’s what sunk them.
As for them being not so sympathetic, he did try to sell them out to Cobol, so he was a traitor in their midst, only looking to save his own skin after the botched mission. I’m sure Cobol applied the screws in a very bad way once he was turned over to them.
Here are the categories Inception will possibly get Academy attention in (IMHO), in general order of likelihood:
EDITING - for jumping back and forth between the multiple dream levels so effortlessly, keeping what could’ve been really confusing fairly straight-forward.
SOUND/SOUND EDITING - aural cues are critically important in the story, but it’s also an action film so plenty of crashes, shooting, etc., which the branch tends to favor
VISUAL EFFECTS - the category expands to 5 this year, IIRC, so it should easily make the cut, especially since the effects are quite good and don’t have the whiff of overdone CG
CINEMATOGRAPHY - Nolan’s last 3 films have all received nods in this category (for Wally Pfister), though the branch can be notoriously fickle. Still, a fairly safe bet
ART DIRECTION - The villa, the arctic hospital, and especially the rotating hallway. Non-period films usually get short shrift here, but the odds are still good on this one
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Nolan last received attention here for Memento, and this is equally original in conception and execution. This writing category is usually less competitive, too, so there’s more room for a genre film
SCORE - The Academy runs really hot & cold with Zimmer, and Dark Knight got snubbed here despite getting nods in the 1st 6 categories on this list. It’s also not a type of score that the Academy tends to warm up to as easily as others
PICTURE - With the slate expanded to 10, it has a decent shot, though a similar Batman backlash in the Academy could occur. Tons of critical cred but probably a hard film for older voters to want to champion
DIRECTING - Not out of the question, but with only 5 slots, a much tougher gauntlet to run. He may end up taking a backseat to the better-loved Scorsese for his similar Shutter Island
That puts the tally as a possible 10, though I’m guessing the 7-8 range is most likely.
Inception is going on my short list of movies that I consider perfect. In fact, it’s probably in my top 5 all time favorites. I’ve got to see it at least one more time on the big screen.
I disagree. I got chills when they first explained the limbo concept, and I fully expected the movie to go the route of The Jaunt and have one of the characters go insane after spending a seeming eternity trapped there. I’m glad that didn’t happen.
This review of the movie presents a really interesting interpretation.
I don’t agree with all of it (and I’m not sure I actually agree with any of it), but if there’s one thing that I took away from the movie for sure, it’s that it’s not intended to have one definitive interpretation. We all carried our own subjective impressions out of the theater, and have to create whatever interpretation works best for us ourselves.
I do really like the idea that Cobb is intentionally Nolan’s avatar in the film, and Fischer is our’s as the audience. I know that I felt Fischer’s moment of catharsis as truly as I have many other great moments in film, and Faraci’s article is the first I’ve seen that articulates a way for the whole movie to be a dream without cheapening Fischer’s arc. It’s a very existential way of looking at movies - after all, nothing about movies is real. But that doesn’t mean we can’t prescribe meaning to them, because ultimately we are the arbiters of what has meaning for us.
IIRC, Haas’s character sold them out, as per Saito’s dialogue in the scene.
Yes, this was the reason they had to use to improved sedative, to keep the deeper dreams from easily dissipating due to external disturbances. If they had used the normal sedative, they all would have woken up in the van early on.
The time dilation always occurs. It’s the special sedative that creates stability (as a side effect it also increases the amount of dilation, but the dilation is always there regardless).
I think the fact that they hooked into Cobb (or Fischer?) was probably a key here - otherwise they just would have gone to a regular level 4. I think limbo is probably more of a state of mind which could happen one of several ways:
Die in a dream but can’t wake up (heavy sedative)
Deliberately or inadvertently choose to forget you are a dreamer, in a level deep enough such that you will spend enough years from your perspective in order for this state to become psychologically dominant.
Normally when you are at such a deep level (getting there manually like Mal and Cobb, or by accident like the other characters) the brain is processing as fast as it possibly can, and so you are kind of just thrown into a raw subconscious mess. In the case of Mal and Cobb, they worked their way there gradually enough that they were able to handle it together and build a world (although Mal wasn’t able to keep hold on her grasp of reality).
However if you are thrown there, and hooked up to someone who has been there before and projected things, you will instead get stuck in their limbo projections, in this case Fischer and Saito got thrown into Cobb’s subconscious limbo projection that he had built with Mal. But because you got there by dying your brain won’t be ready to handle what’s going on and you will lose your sense of reality.
In Fischer’s case, his dream body was revived, so he had a place for his mind to go when he suicided out of Limbo. Likewise Ariadne. It’s not clear whether they can do this because a different ‘sedative’ was used for this jump or because they were escaping limbo which is special.
Saito and Cobb (eventually) lose themselves in limbo but eventually manage to remember reality. I’m guessing they wait out the sedative at this point, since Saito was killed on level 1 and wouldn’t have a body to get back to.
I think this explains the totems. Totems in general are a way to tell whether you are in a dream or not - you design them with 1) some feature that only works in dreams and 2) some feature that is secret and known only to you. The first acts as a benchmark for reality and the second prevents other architects from tricking you. I don’t think a slightly longer lasting spin is the answer to the last scene though, that would require an architect who already has a really good clue about Cobb’s totem in which case they could probably just completely fake it (maybe Mal).
Saito wasn’t punishing him. Nash (Haas) ratted them out to Cobol. Saito captured him in order to give Cobb the opportunity to revenge this dishonor. Cobb declined the offer, so Saito let him go, and said he would leave him alone, but that he suspected Cobol would still be after him.
Since the detail about her being on the other ledge instantly bothered me and raised the possibilty that the hotel room is a “paradox” in the architecture of a dream, I did have a good stare at the details here, despite only having seen the film once. The exterior walls are in the same style and it looks as if the room is decorated in the same manner, but there aren’t any obvious signs of damage.
It could just be another wing of the same hotel and she’s put herself in a position where he can’t physically stop her jumping.
At the start of the movie, when Cobb and… eh, Joseph Gordon Levitt are hustling Saito in his dream, trying to con him (and the one part of the movie I’m damn sure IS a dream), Cobb looks at his watch. It’s running slowly, and ALSO the letters on it are backwards. This was my first clue that we were watching a dream (I remembere and old episode of Batman TAS where Batman was being manipulated by the Mad Hatter in his dream, but sussed it out when he read a book and all the letter were scrambled.
So ok, can we accept that (in the movie Inception, at least) in dreams the way words and writing appear is distorted from what it would naturally be? Thats what that scene with the watch would suggest, right? I’m reading that right, aren’t I?
So now, all we gotta do is re-watch the movie and keep lookout for similar anomalies, which will tell us when people are dreaming. Maybe a headline in a newspaper, or a distant shop window, anything.
From memory, the one time that I distinctly remember forward writing (suggesting reality) was in the airport at the very end, when Cobb meets… eh, Michael Caine. The chauffers waiting on people at arrivals are holding signs, clearly stating the names of people they are waiting for. Which would suggest that Cobb really does wake up, gets through emmigration, and goes home.
Otherwise, why introduce the backwards writing on the watch face in the opening scenes?
There are plenty of details that are readable within the dreams. The name of the Paris cafe - I know the city fairly well and was trying to work out locations - or the document Cobb lifts from Saito’s safe. Hell, even the display panel on the safe next to the deathbed in the vault and the title of the document therein.
I thus don’t think you can use anything being readable - like the names at the airport - as evidence that it’s not a dream.
Could the problem with the watch have been another example of how Lucas Haas was doing a sub-par job with the architecture? A watch with backwards numbers would also make a good totem, or a totem backup.
There’s been some excellent thoughts here; I especially like the notion that the sedatives used in the deeper dream levels are not ‘real’, and therefore why would we expect them to act the same as the special sedative used in the real world. IOW, death in level 1 drops you to limbo, but death in deeper levels just wakes you up to the level one layer up from you. Saito dies in level 1 of his gunshot wound before the kick of the van hitting the water, so he dies in levels 2 and 3 as well (not obvious for level 3) and Cobb dies of drowning in level 1, having missed the kick or being killed by the crash or whatever, so Saito is in limbo longer than Cobb.
This is still tough to reconcile with Fischer being shot in level 3 and being picked up by Cobb and Ariadne in level 4. Was Fischer truly dead, or just unconscious/dreaming after being shot? If he was just asleep, I can see how the defib jolt would be a good kick to wake him up to level 3 and give him time for his inception moment before a bigger C4 kick to try to get Ariadne and Cobb back as well. But why doesn’t Cobb wake up on level 3 either after being stabbed/?killed by Mal on level 4 or due to the C4 kick on level 3?
Except it isn’t true, because we’re in Fischer’s dream of course. That, to me, is the suckerpunch. I was totally buying into that scene and felt so happy for Fischer, but then remember it wasn’t real. Dammit!
But nothing you saw in the movie was real - it’s all actors putting on a show. Doesn’t mean your emotional response wasn’t. Same for Fischer - his epiphany may be built on fiction, but it doesn’t make it any less powerful (to him or to the audience). Is he being manipulated? Yes, absolutely. But so are we.
In other words, I don’t think the ethics of inception are really the issue here - or at least, it’s not what Nolan is interested in exploring. This isn’t “Battlestar Galactica” or “The West Wing.” Right and wrong isn’t the question at hand. Instead, it’s the subjectivity of experience. We are all constantly under manipulation, by the movies and TV shows we watch, the music we listen to, the advice we get from our friends, the knowledge we learn from our teachers. Does that negate the value to us of any catharsis we receive from that manipulation?
Of course, we do tend to react badly if we find out that one of our deeply held beliefs is the end result of a pack of lies. But that’s a separate issue from the epiphany itself, and one that I think Nolan is consciously avoiding. After all, inception is the one thing from which it is literally impossible to be “rudely awakened” by the truth. We saw it with Mal: the seed of the idea grows into a tree so solid, with roots so deep, that the person cannot discard it. I suspect that even if Cobb had admitted to Mal directly that he had planted the idea in her, that she still would not have believed herself to be in the “real world.” Same goes for Fischer and his newfound independence from his father’s coattails.
I loved this movie, all of it, so I don’t want to discredit all the other great parts by exalting one particular favorite, but . . .
yes, I did have a favorite part.
In the Hotel level of Fischer’s dream, while Dom is in the bar with Fischer staring his gambit:
Arthur and Ariadne are sitting in the lobby.
Ariadne notices all the people, all the projections of Fischer’s subconscious, are looking at them, she asks why.
Arthur answers that Fischer’s subconscious is starting to notice foreign elements in the dream and they are looking for the intrusive dreamer, “They are looking for me.”
Ariadne is alarmed but the more experience Arthur realizes they are not quite at the alarm stage yet. She asks, “What do we do?”
Arthur: Kiss me.
Ariadne kisses him.
They pull out from the kiss. Ariadne looks around, “They’re still looking at us.”
Arthur smiles and looks away, “It was worth a shot.”
They acting from both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page in this spot is just so brilliantly enjoyable!
Gordon-Levitt, with the self-congratulatory smirk as he turns away and the bit of swarm he puts into the saying of his line, totally tells us that he knew full well that a kiss wouldn’t help. He just saw a great opportunity to get the cute college girl to kiss him and he went for it.
Page shows with just the look on her face as she reacts to his answer that she realizes that she’s been punked. She is, and all concurrently, pissed off that she’s been punked, amused and impressed at Arthur’s little joke, and charmed by his boyish mischief.
I thought doing this was brilliant, actually. It adds to the dream atmosphere they’re creating. Not knowing the good guys from the bad guys was essential to the plot and to identify the themes of isolation and confusion being explored here. In this world, you can’t rely on being the only independent actor in your own dream. Hell, you might not even be in your own dream when you dream.
The murky monsoon also helps limit what you can perceive, again visually, but also fits into the idea that these types of created dreams are limited in their scope.
And notice that it got more basic the further down we went, (The white parkas in a snowfield could have been in black and white) culminating with a paradox in “limbo,” where we could finally see for miles, only to see a receding image of the same thing over an over.
Come to think of it, the next time I watch this movie I’m going to look to see if depth of field is manipulated following the same pattern.
Anyway, my thoughts without reading further into this thread:
My wife and I watched this in D-BOX seats, a modern-day, computer-synced rumble seat. Despite my initial smirk at the gimmicky idea, they were a lot of fun. It was like watching the movie sitting in an unpredictable combination of a massage chair and amusement park ride. It has both the buzzing and the swinging around. I sat in the second row of two, and and through my periphery I could see the whole section sway back and forth in an animated symphony. The added cost is a factor, but I think I’d spring for the seats again for a future action flick.
I like the subtlety of the sci-fi. The fact that it was a machine that enabled shared dreaming grounded the movie in a realistic world. No matter how far into the rabbit hole we are, we know there is a level zero, a place where we’re not in that rabbit hole at all.
But then the movie fools us. After establishing that people in dreams can be other real people, we see this machine that enables it. Very quickly, however, we see two things about this machine. One, this machine can make you an actor inside someone else’s dream (sometimes whether you realize it or not, or whether you want to be or not), and this machine can be imagined into existence inside a dream, then used again to dream within a dream*. The filmmakers use the uncertainty to their advantage
Through a variety of characters, we are given a view of not knowing whether they are awake or in a dream. DiCaprio we see first, seeing the dream that would haunt him through the rest of the film: the backs of his children as they run off. We don’t know whether he’s waking up from a dream or in the middle of a dream. Ken Watanabe, is shown in a board room thinking he’s in the real world, when it’s really a dream, but then he slowly realizes it’s a dream. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is used to demonstrate that dying in a dream isn’t fatal, it only wakes you up. Ellen Page has an interesting bit, they slip her into a dream by cutting from one scene of her and DiCaprio talking to another scene of them talking, as if in a montage. This fools us into forgetting that any scene change could be the beginning of a different dream. Later we see Cillian Murphy being fooled inside a dream (multiple times, and he never realizes it, poor fellow), including being fooled into thinking a real-world stranger was a specific person he knew.
We as viewers are also given some friends, seasoned veterans inside the movie who always know what level they’re on inside the rabbit hole. Gordon-Levitt, Hardy, and Rao, all did awesome jobs giving us their own personal swagger to characters who always knew what they were doing, even if they were occasionally making shit up as they went along. But importantly to the audience, they are on “our” side all the way to the end.
The chatter on teh internets is all about whether DiCaprio is awake or dreaming at the end. It could be either, but the movie was like that the whole time. Therefore I say it doesn’t matter. Notice that DiCaprio spins the top to make sure its real, and then decides to walk away to join his children before he sees it fall. He’s chosen that level as his level zero.
Somewhere there is a reality, and in that reality his wife is dead. He gets blamed because of his idea planting, but he didn’t intend for her real-world death. She lost track of level zero in the dreamscape she was in. She dies because of the machine, since it is this machine that enables this dreamscape world. DiCaprio has to journey down three levels to come to terms with his culpability in her death (by shooting her in the snow fort), then down one more level, risking getting lost in eternity, to apologize for it.
I liked your thoughts on the movie, however, I’m not so sure about this interpretation quoted above. IF Leo was dreaming the whole time, then how can we assume that the machine was real?
Well, the machine is as real as the movie. It’s never shown to not be real, and it permeates the world. Combine that with the fact that, if there is another level above zero, we never see it. Nothing dreamlike happens in the portions of the movie that are presented as level zero. One has to peg that down or else it’s all just speculation
That, to me, is the suckerpunch. I was totally buying into that scene and felt so happy for Fischer, but then remember it wasn’t real. Dammit!