Inception (Christopher Nolan, dir; 148 mins; 2010)
Is it real or is it Memorex? Not surprisingly, for a Christopher Nolan film, Inception begins near the end as Cobb awakes on a beach and is hauled before a powerful, aged Asian man. Later, we learn that we are in Cobb’s—or is it the collective—subconscious? Cobb leads a team that raids people’s dreams/subconscious for their secrets.
International corporations and powerful individuals pay well for this service and also for training in self-defense against such raids. Cobb also has a troubled past. He is wanted for his wife’s “murder” and, therefore, separated from his children. Quite simply, he can’t go home until a middle-aged Asian businessman offers to help clear up his legal problems in return for a service—the implanting of an idea in the son of the businessman’s greatest rival. That rival is dying and the heir will inherit everything. The idea is the breakup of the heir’s company.
Accepting the job, Cobb goes three levels into the heir’s dream world, leaving a conscious member of his team behind at each of the first two levels. To return to reality, they have to coordinate a “kick” at each level at the same time. Failing at the crucial moment, his newest team member challenges him to go into the subconscious with her. They do and meet his dead wife. We learn the whole “truth” about Cobb’s past, and Cobb figuratively kills his wife by refusing her delusions and by refusing to stay with her in the subconscious. In short, he forgives himself for his part in his wife’s suicide. Cobb does stay behind as his associate leaves, however, to complete the job and to rescue his Asian employer who has been wounded in the heist and is now lost in the subconscious. This returns us to the opening beach and to the old Asian man (time passes more quickly at each successive dream level).
Successful, Cobb returns to his family cleared of all charges. But, in the film’s last scene, Cobb leaves a top spinning on a table. This top is Cobb’s talisman, the item that he carries with him so that he will be able to distinguish reality and dreams. In a dream world, the top will spin continuously. In the film’s last scene, the top slows and slows; it must stop; but before it does, the film fades to black. We have no talisman; we cannot distinguish reality and dreams. In fact, Cobb may not have one either. In the film’s climactic moments, when the truth comes out, we find out that Cobb’s talisman actually belongs to his dead wife. Or, is she?
The film is interesting on two counts. First, the play with dreams returns to the early days of film when filmmakers and theorists argued whether film should represent reality or whether should film should be the stuff of dreams. Mainstream Hollywood film largely chose the first option although the device of “this is just a dream” has a lengthy history in horror. In recent years, however, mainstream film has rediscovered the dream. This may have something to do with late capitalism or with what some theorists have referred to as the society of the spectacle or as the proliferation of simulations. Second, then, the film is a window into our culture’s uncertainty about truth and reality. We are no longer sure. We live in a simulated world.
I understand that although you and your daughter, who viewed the film with you, recalled that one talisman belonged to a wife, upon a second viewing, your daughter--looking for that detail--realized that was not the case. Feel no shame. Just read The Invisible Gorilla for an explanation of why we, including all those people hired to check script continuity, miss so much of what we "see."
ReplyDeleteThe first viewing of the film proved slightly unnerving due to mistaken talisman ownership. However (perhaps impacted by the larger imax viewing screen) upon further inspection, it became apparent that the talisman of Mrs. Cobb was in fact originally Mr. Cobb's. It is my interpretation of the film that Cobb used a top, of his own, to implant the idea of living in an unreal word into his wife's mind. In the film you first see her opening a safe locked inside a doll's house. It isn't until the very end of the film that you see Cobb himself enter the safe as well. Throughout the film the idea is emphasized that the inner most secrets of a person are kept in their subconscious locked inside a safe. Cobb opened his wife's safe and inserted his talisman for his first run at inception. The idea took hold and they were both finally able to escape from limbo, but from then on she would never believe her world was real.
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