Inception

If you have not seen Inception, do not read this, but go see it quickly. (I have now seen it twice.)

If you have, here are some links to reviews and analyses, followed by my own scattered thoughts:

i. John C. Wright ponders the film, and also a dumb review that denies Inception any value because it contains fantastic elements. (Wright: "I puke contempt upon this muggle thinking.")

ii. New York Magazine presents some speculation on the movie, as well as a rather interesting interview with Dileep Rao (who plays Yusef the chemist).

iii. Never Wake Up: The Meaning and Secret of Inception is a highly interesting article, positing not only the unreality of the entire movie (debatable) but also that the movie acts as a metaphor for film-making, likening different characters to director, scriptwriter, producer, &c. The comments section is long and meandering and contains lots of additional theories.

My own reactions:

1. Naturally, the film has to problematise (hate that word, but it expresses its meaning so succinctly) itself by deliberately raising, and not answering, the question about whether Cobb is in reality or still in dreams at the end.

1a. Steve Greydanus:

"Everyone wants catharsis," one character observes in relation to plotting the caper. Nolan, plotting the film, is aware that the audience desires catharsis. Will we get it? On what terms will we accept it? Is illusory catharsis as good as the real thing?

1a(i). The catharsis offered is "consequentialist", as the moral philosophers say. Cobb deals with his problems, succeeds at his heist. Everyone is happy, more at peace - despite the fact he's spend most of the movie violating someone's mind in the service of that someone's business competitor. That someone winds up more at peace, having dealt with several of their own issues in the process of being screwed around with. (Imagine a movie in which someone is tortured for kicks, but it's a happy ending because the process has allowed both the unrepentant torturer and the victim to realise some important things about themselves. The problem is that torture is more obviously unpleasant; the mental violation being offered is a very bloodless crime, no pain or suffering inflicted. It doesn't strike the viewer as viscerally evil, so it's hard to give it proper moral context.)

1a(ii). (Except that Cobb killed his wife by doing that bloodless crime. It's mentioned that inception is dangerous for that reason: ideas can destroy people. Fischer has undergone some degree of catharsis, but no-one knows - everyone's too relieved to care - what the aftereffects will be.)

1a(ii)[+]. (Although if this is still an imaginary world at the end, we're seeing Cobb's catharsis - he's finally dealt with the issue at the level where it really guts him - that he killed his wife. Compared to that, Fischer is a minor aspect of his catharsis; he really only served to bring the crisis to a head and force Cobb to face his own demons.)

1a(ii)[+]{I}. ("His own demons", it turns out, are his wife and children - and the scariest moment is when his children, in Limbo, begin to turn their faces towards the camera. Corruptio optima, pessimi, as the schoolmen said - when good things turn bad, is worst; it's only angels that can really turn into demons. It's the extension of swem nie von liebe leid geschach, dem geschach ouch liep von liebe nie - Walther von der Vogelweide - "who never knew love's sorrows, also never knew love's joys" - love comes with the price of pain even when pure (CS Lewis in A Grief Observed notes that bereavement is a natural part of marriage, like autumn following summer). When it becomes damaged or toxic, things get even worse.)

1a(ii)[++]. (Mr. Nick Milne, of the Daily Kraken, has theorised - if I remember rightly, on the basis of very subtle evidence I totally missed concerning Cobb's totem - that everything after a certain point, even in the apparent real world, is a dream - including the part where Fischer turns up (although after he's told what his job will be). Possibly the near-entirety of the movie is one big illusionary catharsis, or wrestling in dreams with a possibility that has just been presented. And he wakes up at the end... or is about to... and then decide whether to do this for real.)

[EDIT: I rewatched and this is the case. At least twice, Cobb wakes up and twirls his totem, and it falls over with the short, thick end down and the long, thin end up. After Yusef puts him to sleep in Mombasa, he has brief visions of Mal and is then seen wandering round in Mombasa, where he tries twirling the totem but it falls to the floor, thin end down. This puts a different slant on the final scene: others have said that Cobb is taking it on faith that the top will stop spinning, or just sees his kids and doesn't need the reassurance of the top anymore - he just knows - and that may be the case. But the question isn't whether the top keeps spinning, because it won't (it's wobbling at the end) - it's which way the top falls.]

2. The film is reductionistically brutal, taking sides with those who hold that reality has no time for ideals and beauty, the things they would like to hold to. Cobb is asked what he believes in: reality or love. He goes for reality. Reality is solid. Love passes. (Cf. the term "depressive realism". Depressives are brutally honest sometimes.)

2a. The film is nihilistic. The fundamental question put to Cobb is what he believes in: reality or love. The virtues of truth and beauty are put in opposition. This is an attitude of despair, or a deeply flippant question: what lunatic makes them separate options?

2b. The film is honest, but compassionate towards the chaos of the heart. The question is put to Cobb what he believes in: reality or love. He opts for truth, because love without truth is not love. His image of Mal is lacking, flat, without complexity: an imagined ghost, nothing more than a caricature. Real love is uninterested in a fantasy of the beloved.

2b(i). "What pitiable cant to say, ‘She will live forever in my memory!’ Live? That is exactly what she won’t do." - CS Lewis, A Grief Observed, again.

And there is another quote, which I have seen but cannot now find; but which is described by Eve Tushnet as "a quick, heartbreaking moment in A Grief Observed, in which he realizes that when he imagines his late wife, he erases all the otherness and individuality, all the unpredictability, that he loved in her. He made her into a fantasy, not a memory." This fits Cobb's last talk to Mal so well.

2b(i)[+]. (I actually haven't read either Lewis' AGO or his Till We Have Faces, beyond a few pages (considering the "face" motif in the film, I have a feeling it may be relevant...) I should, I know (especially as I borrowed TWHF from someone else for that purpose). But from what I've seen of the quotes from AGO, I think a blog post taking Inception, AGO, and TWHF, and getting them to argue with each other, would be a worthwhile project...)

3. I will need to see it again to judge. But the mechanics are problematic in certain respects.

3a. The whole "processing power of the brain" explanation for the time differential has... issues. The brain is apparently able to process time faster when operating at its "full potential" (I think the neurologists have issues with that, but never mind). This is why dreams go 10-20 times faster. Except that this is compounded with each dream-within-dream, so, in the third layer of dreamspace time goes 500 times faster, and in Limbo, time goes over 1,000,000 times faster. Therefore the limit of the human brain at full potential is to create an imaginative world which is experienced at a 1,000,000:1 time-differential relative to real life. I can't remember the numbers exactly (take these only as concerns the order of magnitude), but this means you can, in principle, run about 6-8 layers of dreaming before you're actually hitting the full potential.

3a(i). Although that assumes it goes exponentially per dream layer. I suspect that the repeated layers of dreams either start off exponential but get less so - that is, the time differential from one dream to the next starts dropping off, to the point where each dream is only twice the speed of the previous, then only 1.5 times the speed, then 1.1 times, then 1.01 times, &c; so Limbo is actually an infinite number of dream-layers away, and they converge to the speed of Limbo - which, as stated, is the maximum possible speed the human brain is dreaming at. Either that, or once you get far enough in, dream layers start blending into each other and it becomes impossible to keep them separate, and Limbo is again the limit, except in a different way. [EDIT: Is it my imagination or, near the end, do Cobb and Ariadne actually go to Limbo by using a dream machine? Or do they somehow kill themselves to go to Limbo?]

3a(ii). It is not a sufficient explanation to plead the relative complexity of the dreamworld (Mr. Milne, who will shortly be doing a review of his own, I hope [hint, hint], pointed out that the layers get slightly less complicated the further in you go), because the real processing power is in creating the immediate environment - fleshing out the vague idea of the dream architecture into something that seems real - and the immediate environment doesn't seem too much less detailed on each level.

3b. You can possibly say that 3a is an oversight on the part of the filmmakers. Maybe. For a movie this detailed and smart, my instinct is to try to make sense of it inside the scenario presented rather than assuming the scenario is broken. (It's a testament to the power of the movie to overwhelm the capacity of the brain to absorb on one viewing that it took a while to even consider this as "something the moviemakers didn't think of" rather than "something whose explanation is other than that offered in the movie".) So as I see it, the characters are basically playing with something they don't fully understand. They think they know the rules and the nature of what's going on; they don't, and their explanations fail. So what is going on? Good question. I mean, the logical problems matter a lot less if you assume this is all taking place in the world of Sandman and Morpheus is just about to walk in and say "'ello 'ello 'ello, wot's all this then?"

3b(i). Wild speculation! Cobb is still dreaming at the end because Morpheus is annoyed by this abuse of his realm, and is putting him through dreams-within-dreams, like with that guy whose father captured Morpheus at the beginning of Sandman. The totem is still spinning because it's a dream, and everything is about to go totally to Hell as Cobb's children throw themselves upon him and rip their own faces off.

3b(ii). ...or "Mal" was an emissary of Morpheus, part of an intricate dream sent to bring Cobb to catharsis. Except I can't quite imagine Morpheus being so very benevolent and merciful.

3c. Limbo. It is problematic, so very much.

3c(i). When Cobb and Mal lay down before the train they are young. Actually they grew old, however. Probable explanation: Mal is remembered primarily as she was when they entered the dream and when she died (agewise, the same). Note that their faces as old people are not shown. He perceives things as happening to Mal-of-his-mental-images - to the Mal who was 30 years old, whose face is etched in his memory. In the way of things in dreams, concepts and images and people sometimes get overlaid a little. Mal, 30 and 70 years old simultaneously, consists of her face and an image of old hands holding each other. (It's also possible that Cobb's retroactively remembering old-Mal's face according to how she looked afterwards, when she died.) (Does she ever wear different clothing? I forgot to watch out for that. I think as the fantasy-Mal haunting his dreams, she wears what she did when she died.)

3c(i)[+]: Something that occurred to me during the film: he should have proposed an experiment - to see how their children's faces changed. If the children had grown older, they would have different faces. Would they look at their children and see an overlay of faces from different times? Both 20 and 6 years old at once?

3c(ii): That said, how come Japanese guy looks totally different, decades older, where Mal was still wearing her own younger face while putatively a pensioner? I'm going to guess that this is part of the malleable nature of Limbo. I think Cobb and Mal's self-image is partly determined by each other and held static, as mentioned. Japanese guy is on his own; he feels older than they did. Possibly (wild speculation) he's looking like his own father, or grandfather?

3c(iii): How come Japanese guy is old, whereas Fischer (who went into Limbo before him) isn't old in Limbo, and neither is Cobb? Again, maybe this is Limbo being malleable. Perhaps the passage of time is subjective as well as its effects; maybe having company slows it down, and you age faster alone. Maybe Japanese guy is more preoccupied with ageing; maybe it occurs to him to age faster than to anyone else, for whatever reason [EDIT: Maybe it's that he had already pondered it - in the rainy city, wounded, he talks of becoming an old man, full of regrets]. The meeting of young Cobb with old Japanese guy is such an obvious discrepancy that it's clearly deliberate on behalf of the filmmakers. Possibly it's that Japanese guy is an amateur - Limbo affects him more, he's not weathered and hardened in dreams - Cobb, and even Ariadne, are experienced, Fischer has been deliberately hardened.

3c(iii)[+]: (Of course, the "age faster alone" explanation depends on it counting as "company" for Fischer that he's with Mal, and presupposes that Mal's been down there before Cobb - well, before the rest of Cobb, she's an aspect of him - as also seems to be indicated by the fact she's keeping him captive. Explanation I: it's stated that "Limbo" is going to look like whatever it looked like to anyone there who had been there before. That means, the Limbo in Cobb's mind is there, ready to receive the dead-in-dreams, from the moment Cobb arrives in the shared dream - complete with tower blocks, running children, and Mal. Explanation II: Cobb, in shooting her, sends her to Limbo - which, as noted, exists in his mind and is being shared with whoever is unlucky enough to be sent there, including projections of his own mind, like Mal. Explanation III: Mal has independent existence and runs around wherever she wants.)

3c(iii)[++]: (This reflects off the brain-computation issue. If the explanation for that is that these are levels of reality which do not receive their existence (solely) from being filled in by the computing power of the brain, it's entirely plausible Mal is quite literally a ghost, left as a mark on these levels by her presence there, according to the physical and psychical laws of these levels. In fact, it's entirely plausible she's a ghost anyway, for whatever explanation - or lack of explanation - one can attribute to ghosthood in the normal way of things.)

3c(iii)[+++]: (Mal doesn't kidnap Japanese guy nor keep him company because, for the moment, Cobb doesn't care about him so much. He doesn't ask after him that quickly; he asks after Fischer almost immediately, on meeting Mal. Mal's behaviour reflects this, because she's part of him - or, if she has independent existence, Fischer has anyway more significance to her, because he has more significance to Cobb.) (Why? Good question. I think it's a side effect of his guilt. Fischer is important and Japanese guy a side-issue, because he's doing to Fischer what he did to Mal. She doesn't actually seem to realise this until he confesses it, which is interesting - as a projection of his unconscious, she should know, unless this indicates he's been unable to admit it fully to himself, or reflects the fact he feels bad about not telling her what he did to her, or needs the psychological release of telling her, so she reflects this.) [EDIT: On rewatching, Cobb states specifically that Mal will be with Fischer, to draw him to her.]

3c(iv). Inconsistent rules about peopling Limbo - Mal and Cobb are on their own, can't people the place with anyone else, and the children don't appear (what, like you can beget and bear two children and not dream about them? Although actually reasonable if they're in control - they didn't want to create fantasy-versions of their kids, they'd be creating simulacra, not the real thing). But then Cobb comes back into Limbo during the inception-heist and sees the kids all over the place (well, I guess he's not in control then...) But most seriously, Japanese guy has bodyguards. One even shows his face. As noted above, Cobb sees Mal's face as young on the train tracks even though her hands are old; he can't bear to look as his children turn their faces in Limbo. Japanese guy's bodyguards having faces is pretty significant. [EDIT: Actually, they never state that Limbo can't be peopled with projections. I thought they had, but they didn't.]

3c(v). Limbo is presented as scary, but you can get out of it really easily, by, like, killing yourself. Possibly there was something I missed there? Have to see it again and reconsider.

3d. Variable gravity. This leads to one of the most awesome fight scenes ever, as a shifting gravity vector leads to Arthur fighting various goons, hand-to-hand, in a corridor where gravity shifts between pulling to the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. It is amazing. It is also problematic: if the dreamers he's protecting weren't strapped to the floor (I forget if they were), they would be flying around the room, and falling and rolling around the floor like that (especially with loose furniture) would (a) provide very strong jolts, of the kind he goes to so much effort to provide afterwards, and (b) probably lead to a few fatalities. I'll have to see again and check the tied-down-ness of the dreamers. (Maybe this isn't problematic, because the reason for the gravity shifts is that the characters perceive them from the dream-layer above, and it's reflected in their immediate environment. Note that the hotel room they enter does not, at first, have all its furniture all piled haphazardly in a corner - which the first gravity shift, while in the bar, should have accomplished. Arthur dreams the environment as having variable, then no, gravity, but until his environment includes the other dreamers - when he takes them to the lift in zero-g - it doesn't affect them at all. Or affects them slightly - Nick pointed out they seem to have a muted effect of reduced gravity in the next dream-layer. Probably their hotel-bodies were shifting only slightly during the gravity shifts because they didn't expect them to be; then they float up in the air when the person paying most attention - Arthur - enters the room.)

3d(i). Thought experiment. Two dreamers in a dream-within-dream, having a fight. In the first dream-layer, one is subject to variable "gravity", eg in a tumbling vehicle; the other isn't but is safely in bed or something. So in the dream-within-dream, is one of them experiencing variable gravity, the other constant gravity? Or do they both experience the same, according to which one's imagination or sense of gravity impresses their dream-environment most? Or would the gravity depend on who's winning the fight, for that reason...?

3e. Note that the age discrepancies, face-significance discrepancies, getting-out-of-Limbo discrepancies, gravity discrepancies, &c. lose a lot of their significance if it's assumed it's all an intricate, cathartic dream of Cobb's and he's missing a few details for the sake of the gist of it. Although this feels like a cheat explanation, if an interestingly metafictional one which allows us to blame any of the filmmakers' omissions on the character...

4. Dreams have their own logic, so...

--

5. And on seeing it again: note the different "leaps of faith" people are asked to take. Saito asks Cobb to take a leap of faith in the helicopter - but it's plausible that Saito might have the influence to deal with the problem. Cobb asks Saito to take a leap of faith in Saito's palace at the end - but Saito has had reason to believe it a good idea. (Note that this is very close to C.S. Lewis' discussion of faith as holding on to something that made sense and commended itself to reason, but the reasonableness of which has been obscured by the turmoil and debris of life.) Mal asks Cobb to take a leap of faith - but he knows she's asking him to place his faith on an idea that was originally his own invention.

6. The curious parallels.

6a. The two scenes with Saito, old: once without Cobb saying anything, once with very similar dialogue but parts of it coming from Cobb. I don't have a clue what this means. However, it does occur to me that this is very like in a dream where, on some level, you decide to redo a certain part - and then you do, and it's a bit different, and goes off on a different tangent. Possibly, then, everything is a dream; another obvious explanation is that this is a rescue mission in a dream-world and Saito and Cobb aren't sure how they got there (being inside a dream) - so they simply imagine a (rather fanciful) story about it and redo the scene, with Cobb sharing the dialogue this time. And then wake up. (Or not?) On this reading, maybe the final plane/airport scene is real; nothing else is; we know nothing about the mechanics of dreaming except that there is some kind of "Limbo" place one man needed to rescue another from (and that they both knew it); everything else is dream-story invented to bracket the encounter, complete with fanciful explanations of how dreams can possibly be shared. Who the other characters really are, and whether they were in the dream or Saito and Cobb were simply projecting them, we have no idea - and note that they do not speak on the plane, so we have no way of telling. At the end, Cobb spins the top for amusement and curiosity, remembering that he'd dreamed it was a totem and a diagnostic indicator of reality - but is distracted by his children, and naturally isn't going to look back at a frivolity whose importance he'd only dreamed.

6b. Mal spins her totem and locks it away in a safe without looking to see what happens - she didn't care if what she was experiencing was real or a dream anymore. (I remember Cobb tinkering with her totem as a way of planting the idea that she was in a dream but can't remember exactly what he did - argh!) It was a gesture of despair, or weariness - she simply couldn't make the effort to keep remembering the unreality of their world any longer, and chose to become indifferent. In the final scene, Cobb spins the totem (their totem) and similarly looks away - but he's distracted by his children. Possibly he just knows now; possibly he'll check later; possibly he's walking by faith - in this life, there's many things you can't know for sure. But he lets go of the fierce need to know, empirically, because of love; whereas Mal, who'd invented that way of checking the reality of your world, let go out of despair.

7. Cobb presents Ariadne with a gridded paper notepad to draw a maze and she fails; when she gets serious, she flips over the notepad, no longer drawing on the paper he'd presented her with but on the cardboard back - she begins to make her own terms for the challenge. (And succeeds.)