THE DREAM IS REAL.

(2010)

THE DREAM IS REAL.
In a world where technology exists to invade the human mind through dreams, a master thief is given a final chance at redemption which involves executing the most challenging job to date: Inception.

Why did I choose this movie for my research project? Three key attributes make my choice clear: memorable, visually exquisite and mind-blowing.

Not only is it visually appealing to the discerning audience, but it blows you away with the countless mind-bending visual effects, the plot itself, all the twists and turns, which make the movie memorable. Furthermore, the ambiguous ending left open to interpretation gives off an enigmatic vibe which titillates your imagination.

BASIC INFO

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writer: Christopher Nolan

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page

INCEPTION TRAILER


CAST


Leonardo DiCaprio
Cobb

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Arthur

Ellen Page
Ariadne

Tom Hardy
Eames

Ken Watanabe
Saito

Dileep Rao
Yusuf

Cillian Murphy
Robert Fischer

Tom Berenger
Peter Browning

Marion Cotillard
Mal

Pete Postlethwaite
Maurice Fischer

Michael Caine
Miles

Lukas Haas
Nash

Claire Geare
Phillipa Cobbs

Magnus Nolan
James Cobb

CHARACTERS


Dominic "Dom" Cobb is a professional thief who specializes in conning secrets from his victims by infiltrating their dreams. According to Hollywood Reporter, both Brad Pitt and Will Smith were offered the role. Who do you think would be the ideal Cobb?

Ariadne is an undergrad student of architecture who is recruited to construct the various dreamscapes, which are described as mazes. The name Ariadne hints at a princess of Greek myth, who aided Theseus by giving him a sword and a ball of string to help him navigate the labyrinth which was the prison of the Minotaur. Page said her character acted as a proxy to the audience, as "she's just learning about these ideas and, in essence, assists the audience in learning about dream sharing".

Arthur is Cobb's partner who manages and researches the missions. He makes Cobb's vision and dreams a reality (no pun intended).

Mr. Saito is a businessman who employs Cobb for the team's mission. He knows Cobb is the best extractor in the whole wide world. That's why he commissions him to perform the opposite of extraction - inception. It's one of the most challenging tasks, and nobody except Cobb is sure if  it's even feasible. Mr. Saito wants them to implant the idea of discontinuing the family business in the target's mind. This would allow him to get rid of his greatest competitor on the market.

Mallorie "Mal" Cobb is the film's main antagonist. She is a manifestation of Cobb's guilt about Mal's actual suicide. He is unable to control these projections of her, hindering the progress of his missions. Nolan described Mal as "the essence of the femme fatale."

Eames is a sharp-tongued and cynical associate of Cobb's. Eames uses his ability to impersonate others inside the dream world in order to manipulate Fischer. He prides himself in using his imagination and detests Arthur for his inability to think big.

Robert Michael Fischer is the heir to a business empire and the team's target. He lives in the shadow of one of the greatest Australian tycoons, his father. Although, materially-wise, he has anything he pleases, he is lacking emotionally.

Yusuf  is the team's chemist. Yusuf is presented as an avant-garde pharmacologist, who is a resource for people, like Cobb, who want to do this work unsupervised, unregistered and unapproved of by anyone.

Peter Browning is Robert Fischer's godfather and fellow executive at the Fischers' company. He acts as a "surrogate father" to Robert, who calls him "Uncle Peter." He spent more quality time with him than his father.

STORYLINE

Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming. Written by Warner Bros. Pictures

GENRES

Action, Adventure, Science Fiction, Thriller, Heist Film, Film Noir

MOTION PICTURE RATING (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout.

TECHNICAL SPECS

Runtime: 148 minutes

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

ALSO KNOWN AS


Inception
USA (orignial title)
El origen
Argentina / Chile / Mexico / Peru / Uruguay
Inception
Denmark / Greece / Japan
A Origem
Brazil / Portugal
Pocetak
Croatia / Serbia
Генезис
Bulgaria
Начало
Russia
Începtul
Romania
Algus
Estonia
Baslangiç
Turkey
Dasatskisi 
Georgia
Eredet
Hungary
Incepcja
Poland
Izvor
Slovenia
Origen
Spain
Origine
Canada (French title)
Pirmsakums
Latvia
Pocátek
Czech Republic
Pociatok
Slovakia
Pradzia
Lithuania

BOX OFFICE

Budget: $160,000,000 (estimated)

Opening weekend: $62,785,337 (USA)

Gross: $825,532,764 (Worldwide)

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS

Best Picture

Best Original Screenplay

Best Original Score

Best Art Direction

Best Visual Effects (won)

Best Sound Editing (won)

Best Sound Mixing (won)

Best Cinematography (won)

CRITICAL RECEPTION


Rotten Tomatoes
Metacritic
IMDb
All critics
Top critics
86 %
80 %
74/100
8.8/10

THEMES

Reality and dreams

The director of Inception, Nolan, wanted to explore the concept of a shared dream space. That implies the ability to access somebody's unconscious mind just like during hypnosis.

The majority of the plot takes place in interconnected dream worlds, or dream space, if you will. Whatever happens in the real or dream world has consequences in both realms. The dream is always in a state of production as the structure is designed by an architect but its space is filled with contents by the dreamer.

The often illogical objects or situations in the realm of dreams are presented throughout the movie. For instance, penrose stairs are incorporated into the movie as an example of impossible objects that can be created in a dream world.



Lucid dreams

A lucid dream is one in which the dreamer is aware of the dream. In other words, one is conscious that one is dreaming. In a lucid dream, the dreamer may be (to some extent) in control of the dream or may be able to manipulate the imaginary experiences in the realm of the dream.

In the Mr. Charles gambit scene, Cobb impersonates Mr. Charles to alert Fischer (who is the target) that he is dreaming. He points out the strangeness of the dream environment and gains the target's trust. Mr. Charles is a projection of Fischer's subconscious trained by an extractor who helps him combat the intruders. The gambit makes the target realize he is dreaming.



ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Warning! Spoiler alert! This analysis is a major spoiler for Inception. Please do not read it until you've experienced Christopher Nolan's movie for yourself.


ANALYSIS

In the beginning of the movie, you see two characters you have no idea about – Cobb and Saito. Then, in the next scene, Cobb tries to extract information out of him through his dreams. Saito is a wealthy businessman, who wants Cobb and his team to implant an idea in the mind of the heir to a multi-billion dollar empire. His name is Robert Michael Fischer.  Cobb gets a chance at redemption and in order to get back to the US and see his kids again, he has to complete this job for Saito. His team seeks the help of Yusef who prepares a powerful sedative which makes the dreams so stable that they can start numerous dreams within dreams. As they need 10 hours to perform the job, they sedate him on a flight from Sydney to LA and enter his dream.

Now the thing about dreams is that the dreamer fills it with the content of their subconscious, but the people sharing the dreams can alter the environment. If the dreamer's subconscious finds a person changing the dream,  it comes under attack by the projections of the subconscious (hordes of people). If you die in a dream, you wake up. However, in this case, the sedative is so potent that if you die in a dream, you end up in limbo, an expanse of infinite raw subconscious. It is the deepest anyone can travel into the mind.

Fischer's subconscious is trained to combat intruders like Cobb and his team so they have to resort to Mr. Charles tactic in order to gain Fischer's trust. Cobb impersonates Mr. Charles and alerts him about the dream he is in and thus Fischer breaks into his own subconscious. They manage to pull it off and Fischer along with the team burst into a hotel room where they enter another dream within a dream. Arthur stays behind to fight off the subconscious and protect Fischer and the team. 

The third dream level in the inception on Fischer's mind is dreamed by Eames. They arrive in snow-covered mountains (BTW. have you noticed the wallpaper in the background?) where they have to break into the security facility to access Fischer's and his godfather's secrets. 

Eames, as the one who knows the dream and can navigate the maze, leads Fischer's projections on a chase as Fischer and Saito make their way to the hospital.  However, Saito dies of the gunshot wound he had received in Level 1. The musical cue warning that the van in the first level will hit the rail of the bridge begins to sound, but the sleepers in the Mountain fail to hear it. When the van does hit the rail, it causes an avalanche on the Mountain. Cobb realizes that the only other kick from Level 1 will come when the van hits the water, so the team needs to hurry. Ariadne tells Cobb about a shortcut, which allows Mal to enter the dream. She shoots Fischer and kills him, sending his mind to Limbo. Cobb then kills Mal.

With Fischer dead, the team is prepared to give up on the Inception attempt, but Ariadne suggests that she and Cobb rescue Fischer from limbo, administering a kick to sync with another kick in Level 3 to wake him. Eames agrees and sedates Ariadne and Cobb. Eames then plants the charges that will trigger the mass kick later. After completing that, Eames uses a defibrillator on Fischer, which in unison with the kick administered in limbo, wakes him up.

Fischer, now awake and alive, enters the vault of the hospital which contains a projection of his moribund father, who tells Fischer that he was only ever disappointed that Fischer wanted to be like him, considering it an unworthy fate for his son. At this point, inception has occurred and Ficher is convinced that he must split up his company.

Once inception has occurred, Eames detonates the charges, causing a mass kick that, in combination with a kick from limbo, wakes Ariadne. The kick also allows the sleepers in Level 3, including Ariadne and Fischer to all wake from Level 3.


At the beginning of the movie, Cobb says that an idea is the most resilient and contagious parasite out there, growing and taking hold of the brain until it's impossible to eradicate. His wife is long dead, but his subconscious still projects her throughout the whole movie because of guilt. Dom blames himself for the death of his wife because he planted an idea in her mind that the reality was a dream. She consequently committs suicide by jumping off a building in order to wake up, despite Cobb's pleas. Accused of murder, Dom must flee leaving his kids behind in the US with his parents.

One of the last scenes shows Cobb waking up in the airplane and everyone smiling at him with pleasure. Mission complete! Saito keeps his promise to get Dom back in the US, and they end up at the airport and go through immigration control without a single problem.

Cobb arrives home and sees his kids faces for the first time in many years. His father greets him and they are all happy. At this point, Dom spins his top and approaches the kids. The movie ends with the top still spinning, but wavering a bit. It's ambiguous because if the totem continues to spin it could mean that it is a dream. We'll never know if it's a dream or reality because the scene stops suddenly and doesn't show the top toppling over.

There is a possible explanation for this. The first one involves Cobb testing Yusef's sedative for the very first time. After he comes out of the dream, he goes to the bathroom and tries to spin the top. He never gets to spin it because Saito interrupts him. This means that he doesn't verify that he came out of the dream. As a result, the rest of the movie was Cobb's dream entirely.

INTERPRETATION

A plausible interpretation of the movie that appeals to me is floating around the Internet (or limbo!). It claims that the movie is a metaphor for the way Nolan, as a director, works. Catharsis found in a dream is as real as catharsis found in a movie, and as real as catharsis found in life. 

Therefore, Inception is about making movies. Cinema is the shared dream that is of interest to the director.

There are many indicators that Inception is a dream and even dream sharing might be a dream. This would mean that Dom isn't an extractor and can't infiltrate other people's dreams. At one point, his dead wife, Mal challenges the authenticity of his world where he's being chased across the globe by faceless corporate goons.

Let's take a look at totems. They're personal items unique to the dreamers, used to tell if someone is awake or asleep. Cobb's reality is defied by the totem he uses. His top spins endlessly when he's dreaming and topples over when he's awake. The problem is that the top wasn't always his totem. He got it from Mal who committed suicide. Cobb remembers her death. It's unusual that she is sitting on the ledge of the building opposite the rented hotel room to which Dom was lured. When you think about it you might say that she rented another room across the street, but what are the chances of planning it out that way? It's very plausible however, in dream logic.

So is the whole movie a dream or reality? Or maybe both, interweaved? Do you dare to jump off the ledge to find out?

REFERENCES

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