Inception has cast a shadow over all the other movies that have come out this summer. People’s facebook statuses can’t stop raving about the amazing complex idea that is interesting and highly entertaining.
While I was away on vacation in England all I heard were the rave reviews about the new summer block buster movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception. To my unfortunate luck I wasn’t able to go to the cinema there but once back in Alexandria, I leaped at the opportunity when a friend of mine suggested that we go and watch it.
I have never known Egyptians to be so quiet at the cinema whilst watching a movie. The entire audience was in deep concentration and was captivated by the story line.
Christopher Nolan the director and genius behind the script has definitely increased his following after this mind-boggling, entertaining film.
The balance of the movie was flawless! There wasn’t a dull moment, the cast was perfectly selected and it kept you questioning everything after the credits and after you left the theatre and tucked safely in bed.
I know there are several people out there who have not yet seen the movie, so I am not about to spoil it for them, but the question on everyone’s mind and the cause of many on-line debates is. Was it just a dream?
Here’s what I was able to conclude from the final scene;
1st point
The spinning top wasn’t his remember, it was Mull’s originally.
The golden rule is that no one should touch anyone else’s totem
2nd point
The spinning top continues to spin on a perpendicular axis when in a dream.
3rd point
In the final scene, in the beginning the top spun in circular motion and was about to topple, but it didn’t it continued to spin on a perpendicular axis, it defied gravity.
4th point
His children hadn’t aged since the time he had left them and they were wearing the same clothes from his memory.
So, dream or not a dream….what do you think?
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 3, 2010 at 12:26
TareX
Inception was cinema at its best, plain and simply put. I can’t remember when I enjoyed a “ride” in the movie theater that much, probably because I never did enjoy a movie that much. I still can’t believe how blown away I was by a super simple story movie like Avatar, calling it “epic”…etc…ah, those simpler times. Inception has set a new bar, a new “10″, a new 100% for which movies will have to compete with.
Now, to the movie.
I think it all depends on one thing: When Cobb and Mal were in Limbo, on that train railway, did they sink deeper in Limbo, or did they wake up?
After my first viewing of the movie, I was inclined to believe that they did indeed wake up from limbo, and that all the scenes were real, but I had my doubts. However, after my second viewing of the movie, those doubts started to fade away…. even though it’s kinda “cool” to believe in a “between the lines” interpretation of the movie (that this was all in Cobb’s mind, and that Mal was right), I believe the movie was indeed in reality, and that Mal wasn’t right: They went back to reality, and she -thanks to Cobb’s inception- still believed they were dreaming when they were not.
Let me start by saying two things:
1) I am not basing any conclusions on the last scene of the twirling top.
1) In the last scene, the top was wobbling like crazy, in a totally non-dreamy way. The scene may have cut to black right before it fell, for all we know. I think Nolan’s message was for us to “question reality”, not for us to think this reality was a dream.
Now that said, here is why I had my doubts:
1) Cobb’s father in law, played by Michael Cane, tells him at the beginning of their conversation: “Don, come back to reality.”
2) The way he would move from Japan, to Paris, to Mumbasa…. where he would just find himself “in the middle of the action”.
3) The narrow alley he was almost trapped into in Mumbasa (a common stress dream), and Saito’s sudden appearance to save him.
4) In Mumbasa, at the “Dream lab”, the old man sitting down there says two intriguing things: “They don’t come here to dream, they come here to wake up. After a while, the dream becomes their reality”, then he turns to Cobb and says, “Who are you to say otherwise?”
5) The scene where Cobb remembers how he and Mal grew old together in Limbo. When did that happen, if their last moments in Limbo was when they were “all young” with their necks on the railway, waiting for that train?
6) Could someone be extremely powerful enough to drop all charges with a single phone call?
7) Dying in Limbo, does it wake you up, or does it send you deeper into Limbo?
____________________________
But then, even though it’s cool to think he was still in Limbo, I believe not…
1) At the beginning of the movie, in Saito’s “audition”, Cobb shoots Arthur in the head to wake him up. Arthur disappears, and wakes up in the room (with the familiar carpet). When Arthur wakes up from the room, he disappears from it while standing next to Cobb. It’s evident that when you wake up from a shared dream, you disappear from it. When Mal jumped off the balcony in her “leap of faith”, she did not disappear. She died, and was flesh and bone on the ground.
2) Free-falling doesn’t wake you up from Limbo, it takes you up one dream level. That is how Fischer and Ariande went up one level from Limbo to the snow level. On the other hand, dying in Limbo is akin to a jolt strong enough to wake you up.
3) The totem doesn’t have any “powers” that are lost when someone else touches it. The idea is, if someone knows how it feels, weighs, he can “dream it” for you, and you can be trapped in this person’s dream thinking it’s reality. Cobb took Mal’s totem after she died. If he hadn’t taken it from her in reality, he wouldn’t know how it would topple, and couldn’t replicate this topple in a dream.
4) Growing old in Limbo is how you perceive yourself. The body doesn’t actually grow old, as it’s all a dream. It’s only when this dream becomes one’s reality (as in Saito’s condition, when he lost his grip and forgot over many years that he’s in Limbo, till Cobb reminded him) that you go with it and perceive yourself to be older.
5) There were transitions in his travels, just didn’t notice them in the first viewing. Cobb’s father in law may have just been saying “Get make to reality” as an expression of how he should find a real way to get back to his children.
6) Saito had his eye on Cobb, as he was “protecting his investments (i.e. Cobb)”. Also, in many 3rd world countries (I’m seen the same in Shoubra), many buildings are randomly built close to each other with no governing architectural design, which leads to many of those “narrow converging alleys” in the city.
That said, here’s one of the best -and most thorough- explanations I stumbled upon online:
http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/
That all said, the point of this movie was that Catharsis can exist, and be meaningful, even in a dream.
August 4, 2010 at 10:46
Magdi
Interesting but too complicated analyses! It is simpler than you both might think. Have a nother view of the movie and it is all summed up at the very end! I had confirmation on my views and that is that the WHOLE movie was not REAL and a dream of COBB to cope with Mull’s death!
October 6, 2010 at 23:32
aron
i think this is just to confuse people …. but nice TeraX