Inception theories: Two key shots and others' thoughts

I agree about the expositional dialogue. I've seen it twice and still feel that there is a lot in the way of what could have just been shown to me.

I also think the movie is about movies (or "ALL stories"), sometimes in an unintentionally bad way, such as with the mark's who "militarized his subconscious" and I think there was so much unnecessary movie in here that it really only has an IDEA for a movie. The premise of the movie is about planting an idea into someone's head, but it neglects the fact that putting an idea into someone's head and them actually acting on it are two different things, particularly when the mark is about the rule the world. He was about to have a monopoly, and thus become a superpower, on the world's energy: so his acting on the idea they plant on his head means either he will rule the world or not; how he feels about some new idea matters very little. Yet, the movie plants the idea in his head and it ends there. The movie could have,perhaps, had some commentary about corporate greed and the Cilian Murphy character could have seen the good idea and just ignored it and went on with his world domination...but then they would have had to have taken him down in the real world or something. Basically, all the movie seemed like a first act...a two and half hour one.

Will I be the first to say that your continued analysis of the movie is evidence of the movie's worth?

Not that I really believe that, necessarily.

I just wanted to be the first to say it.

You're welcome.

More Inception!

I wish that similarly themed and vastly superior "Paprika" had gotten the kind of attention and scrutiny that "Inception" is getting. That would have been a lot of fun.

I haven't seen "Inception" yet, but regarding "Barton Fink"... perhaps the Coen brothers are right that explaining the contents of the box would add nothing to the film. The question for me, then, is what does the inclusion of the box in the first place add to the film. Is it just another layer of ambiguity that the Coens thought was missing? Their scripts are far too carefully structured for me to think that it was simply to manipulate audience members and make them scratch their heads. So what game are they really playing at...

Jim - terrific response to INCEPTION. I'm glad to find others out there (and professionals at that) who are as ambivalent about the movie as I am. You're spot on about Nolan the writer hamstringing Nolan the director by explaining everything to death and back. This tendency first glaringly caught my attention in the climax of BATMAN BEGINS where Batman, Liam Neeson and some previously unseen civil servant explain to each other/the audience why and how The Big Bad Evil Plan is going to destroy Gotham. I was content then to write the scene off as studio meddling - maybe early test audiences needed to be told three times instead of just once (or not at all), but each successive Nolan movie finds new ways to talk down to audiences about plot points that could and should be better explained through visuals.

A friend echoed your remark about finding the movie "more fun to theorize about than it was to watch." Following the theory that all of the events of INCEPTION occur within Cobb's dream (which I do stand by - why else haven't the kids aged a day or changed their clothes during Cobb's exile?), we started mapping out an alternate fiction that inspires the in-dream fiction of Cobb's (incredibly bland) subconscious, deciding which characters existed at all, what Cobb's actual occupation is and whether or not Mal ever really killed herself. After an hour or so, we decided that we would much rather have seen that movie instead of Nolan's; at least ours had heart.

What did you think of Memento?

I'd like to hear a recap of your impression of all Nolan's films, excluding this one and The Dark Knight, given how you've already discussed them to death.

Also, I hear you liked Fight Club..... heh.. enough said there.

Regarding both of the shots above, I share your sentiments.

The pinwheel, which is presumably meant as a powerful emotional reveal (it does serve to change the heir's entire emotional relationship with his recently-deceased father, after all), but it comes off with a resounding thud. I felt nothing at all upon seeing this, and I don't believe that I am lacking some sort of appreceation for something hidden in the picture. I'm not missing anything. I honestly wanted to care, but I didn't.

As I've said in another blog entry, what bothers me is that I don't think it is important at all to Nolan and his script wether we care or not. That bothers me.

As for the final shot, I must confess that at a few parts in the picture, I was convinced that the entire movie was essentially an inside job on Cobb to incept the idea that he must get over Mal. A few problems with that idea:

First, I don't see anything in the movie that would affirm this suspicion, aside from the final shot and the idea that Nolan could mean the picture as a dream itself (like all of his dreams, we don't remember how we got there, etc.). If that is the case, I find it cheap, as does the actor who played the chemist. But seeing as though Nolan uses the heir/father inception plot as the motor to a movie that isn't about the heir/father inception, I wouldn't be shocked.

And again, like in the case of the first shot you discuss, I just didn't care. In fact, my immediate reaction to the top spinning was that it was nothing more than a cheeky wink to the audience, suggesting that perhaps it was all a dream. This reading left no room for any deeper meaning to the top, because I don't think the picture deserves much more consideration. If it did, it certainly would have invited us to consider it on a deeper level during the 2.5 hour run time, rather than on just the final shot! If Nolan did intend the spinning top as a clue to a larger meaning (that is based in the movie, not on our own imagination), he ought not to have been so heavy handed with exposition and set up the dream-state/time-differences in such a rigid, literal, logical way.

Forgive me if my writing has slipped into an unreadable mish-mash. It's hard to talk about the picture (for me anyways), because it's problems are so deeply ingrained in the picture, starting with the script and ending with the final shot. Surprisingly, I still kind of dig the movie and look forward to giving it another look on DVD. It had great potential, and I think Nolan does as well.

"We know nothing about the characters except what's necessary for the plot, and we care even less."

I know that you are being abstract by saying "we", but I feel that you should be saying "you" in this context, because I did have an emotional pull to the film, especially the struggle of Cobb.

Honestly, I think the film is getting too much punishment for maximizing the blockbuster dynamic, which, even though it entails bigger budgets, is just as constraining as any form of filmmaking. I was at a school event in which Richard Linklater talked, and he talked about how no matter what level of filmmaking he worked in, there was always a struggle to get what he wanted on screen, and no matter how much money there was for the project, more could always be used. He commented: "I bet James Cameron gets frustrated too. 'Man, we have $300 million, but if we only had $50 million more...'". My point is that for a movie of this size it could only be something in the blockbuster vein, and in that sense, I think this film completely destroys other blockbuster's of recent years creatively, intelligently, and emotionally. And God bless Nolan for staying in this realm, where there is such a lack of soul, and utilizing big-budget filmmaking to its fullest. In an age where studios put everything in 3D, Nolan barely uses CG and creates much bigger thrills.

As I said elsewhere, I'm more interested in what a crooked premise does to the lives of the film's characters and not the possibilities of the premise itself. For instance, in Tarkovsky's Solaris, we are told that memories materialize. We needn't ask questions like "What if the materialized memory has memories?" or "What if he was a memory himself". The basic information is given within the first few minutes. The bizrre premise is a means and not the end. What follows is art, not science.

For me, the moment of epiphany was when father and son exchange glances for the first time - when son stoops down to collect those pieces of broken glass. It comes pretty close to a Fordian moment. That shot is a better movie than Inception. (But the vault scene didn't work for me. I was the only one laughing there. It felt like a Korean melo, Okuribito rehash if you will)

Personally, I thought that the ambiguity was emotionally wrong. You go to all this trouble to resolve your character's anxieties, and then it's all a dream? Disastrous, if you ask me.

Also, it was already there. There was something subtly wrong from the moment he woke up (more wrong than can be explained by the fact that he just woke up), like the early shot where he and Page segue into his dream. The top just felt like an unnecessary hammering in for me.
For example, how is it that Watanabe calls right after waking up? There were at least three of these glitches, but I can't be bothered to remember the other two.

(Ok, I can't stay away...)

When I was in first or second grade, my teacher told me never to start a sentence with "because." And it was smart, because first graders aren't big on complex sentences, and 99 times out of 100 when a first grader starts a sentence with "because," it's not actually a sentence.

Likewise, beginning screenwriters are taught "show, don't tell," because beginning screenwriters are prone to writing things like, "Boy, Brenda, I'm sure glad that we've been best friends since the seventh grade."

But like all rules of thumb, they tend to be placeholders that are slowly replaced by actual craft and intuitive understanding.

I bring this up not to defend "Inception" - though I liked it quite a bit - but to point out how in this age where everyone seems to possess so much conventional wisdom about how films should be made, there is a lot of hemming and hawing when these "rules" get broken.

Just as DVD special features have allowed film buffs to see how their favorite movies were put together, today's prevalence of screenwriting manuals have resulted in crop of moviegoers who are consciously aware of what a screenplay is doing.

Unfortunately, a consequence of this is that a lot of these people get incensed when they see a script (that someone got paid to write!) break some of the Screenwriting 101 rules that they've learned from the likes of Syd Field and Robert Mckee. And not breaking them in a subversive way, but in a casual hey-look-David-Mamet's-main-character-just-stated-the-subtext-WTF! sort of way.

I feel like a lot of the people complaining about how exhibition heavy Inception is are focusing so much on this one element and completely ignoring what was innovative about the film because they've been conditioned that ANY bald exhibition is an unforgivable sin. It becomes not a strike against the movie but an excuse to discard it altogether.

P.S. I find this especially annoying because my favorite movie scene - the "U.S.S. Indianapolis" speech in Jaws - happens to break not only the "show don't tell" rule about dialogue, but also the "less is more" rule and the "no monologues" rule.

Anyway, here's this too:

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=6625

Three points:

1. The talismans are called totems in the movie and in differentiating between dream and reality they would be unreliable as they are unchanging inanimate objects and could be duplicated by the mind on any level of subconscious. The real test for determining reality should be a bowel movement. People urinate in dreams all the time and it leads to urination in reality, but as far as I know, I've never heard of someone taking a dump in a dream, so if you were to have a bowel movement you would know that you are awake.

2. By framing the movie with the scene of Cobb talking to the aged Saito, is it possible that the entire movie is the inception of the idea for Saito to clear Cobb's name? It's an inception within an inception.

3. Perhaps the reason that Nolan's dreamworld is so straightforward is because the melding and shifting landscape of real dreams has been represented on screen before in such films as The Cell and What Dreams May Come, with less than stellar results. And, as explained in the film, the dreams in Inception are architected. They are built, they are rigid; they're not malleable to anyone but the architect.

Jim, I'd really implore you to check out this:

http://chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html

It's the single most valuable thing written about the film, at least as far as the "meaning" goes. I think you'd be hard pressed to argue with the conclusions he draws.

I think Nolan's films appeal to me so much - and this is true of "Inception" in particular - because I feel so much like him. Meticulous, mathematical and austere.

I adored my short fiction writing classes in college, but even after three years I could never shake the feeling that I was being taught propaganda. That the "truly literate" had bullied themselves into believing, deep down, that subtlety was more profound than opacity, that ambiguity was more intriguing than clarity, that silence trumped noise, that character was always chief to plot.

That, after believing it long enough, you could develop an instinctual revulsion to things like exposition, to simplicity, to obviousness.

I certainly can't disagree that "Inception" spends a lot of time using dialogue to explain what's going on. What I've yet to understand is why that is a bad thing. I rather liked the dialogue in "Inception". The Ellen Page character is the analog for the audience, and like her, I was thankful for the updates. I'd much rather be taught the world than left to grab at straws.

Does the totem idea make sense, at least as it's used in the film? It seems to me, no matter whether you're in a dream or not, you control your own dress and accessories. For instance, the team was in Cillian Murphy's dream, but they brought their own sleep machine and snow gear and whatnot. I thought the idea was that if your totem was off, then you weren't awake.

Can someone explain this to me?

"It's the same problem David Cronenberg ran up against in his 1999 video-game/virtual-reality movie, "eXistenZ": How do you make a compelling movie within the limited narrative possibilities of an immersive game?"

That's a strange criticism, Jim. Aren't all narratives limited by definition?

"Snarky" and "sarcastic" aren't synonyms, and the passage you quote from Zacharek isn't sarcastic. Sarcasm requires saying one thing but obviously meaning the opposite; it would be sarcastic if Zacharek said, "Oh, yeah, it was *totally* dreamlike. I mean, I know *my* dreams are exactly like action movie setpieces with no weird or surreal elements at all." What he said *was* snarky, though, which means something more like "biting, pointed, and a little meaner than necessary."

Anyway, good review. I agree with most of your points -- although I did find real emotional power in one element of the film, namely what happened to Mal.

I realized after the fact that Inception has a much smaller degree of character development than I would usually find necessary, and I couldn’t figure out why this time that didn’t bother me. I think the reason is that there is a great deal of non-traditional character development going on in Inception, in that everything you see during the dream sequences is part of the character. A good example is the scene after the infinite bridge sequence, where Ariadne is stabbed by the Mal projection. I found the scene, on its surface, very viscerally frightening in its similarity to a common dream of mine: where everybody is staring at me. It is also has the important function of revealing elements of Cobb’s character that don’t show on the surface (I read it as buried emotions/memories that want to manifest violently).

I would also argue that the dream sequence where Cobb is describing the last day he saw his children fits well with the list you describe from “Jaws”, “Aliens”, etc. Cobb may not be known as an emotionally complex character yet in the movie, but the experience of seeing your children’s faces is so universal that it still can be emotionally engaging. Dicaprio’s description was also very convincing in that scene: a sort of detached regret of a person who is (literally) trying to bury the memory.

Most of Inception takes place within the minds of the two characters that undergo an emotional transformation at the end. I think we indirectly learn a lot about their characters through the images we are presented with.

I have not seen this idea spelled out anywhere yet, but forgive me if someone has already mentioned it.

So if we assume that the whole thing is another level of the dream-state (i.e the whole film is in the first level and when they go into the raining dream-state to start to perform inception that is the second level and so on and so forth) the implication to me is that, when mal killed herself by jumping off the roof, she was woken up and sent back to the actual reality (just like how they got back from limbo by killing themselves with the Train) AND IS STILL ALIVE. This to me is the game changer for the entire story because the entire time Cobb was under the assumption that she was crazy and that the world he was inhabiting and trying to get back to was the real world and his children were the real ones.... but in actuality there was one more level to the dream-world he had to go up to and there mal is still there waiting for him at the end of the movie, but instead he is stuck with the projections of his children but he doesn't realize this still.

I'm sure there are some issues with this interpretation, but i wanted to know your thoughts?

I really hated Paprika. It has some pretty wild images, and it definitely explores dreams in a more "realistic" way than Inception, but it's kind of stupid. The plot doesn't really go anywhere, the characters are annoying, and the humor is really lame. Miyazaki has far better dreamlike fantasy images in his films that have far more power and beauty in them than anything in Paprika. Watch him instead.

I was relatively underwhelmed by the film for some of the character-development reasons discussed above, and I suspect a lot may have been cut from the film, especially involving Ellen Page's Character.

But the real issue for me was the excessive action sequences, which seemed overbearing and redundant. The dark sense of Menace from Nolan's batman films (and in many dreams) was missing, replaced by anonymous henchmen and stunt doubles. I was literally bored during the long fight scene at the mountain hospital.

But the film did make me want to watch again some other films that were particularly successful at conveying the interlocking layers of dreams and/or hiccups in space/time: 'Mullholand Drive,' 'Primer,' 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' 'The Science of Sleep.'

I think everyone is completely misunderstanding the final scene with the top. Its true intent wasn't really to add ambiguity over whether or not the whole thing was real or a dream. Rather, it fits with the theme of the movie--What is reality?

I interpreted the point of the spinning top as that even if the movie is set in what they call "the real world" and not a dream, Nolan wants us to consider whether the "real" world is truly any more real than the dream world.

On another topic--Faraci's article is interesting in the sense that it equates Cobb to a director and the other members of the heist to a film crew. That metaphor fits very well. On the other hand, the idea that the entire movie was a dream doesn't seem to fit in as strongly with that metaphor. I saw Mal's comments questioning what's real as intended to make the viewer question the nature and definition of "reality," rather than simple clues that indicate the movie is a dream.

Either way I thought Nolan did a hell of a job on the film. It wasn't perfect, but it was exciting, awesome visually, has a complex enough script to inspire various interpretations, and has interested people to the point where they actually care about the interpretations.

Inception is first and foremost an action movie. And I think the main question posed should be is an all out action movie even capable of being the kind of high art that you and other negative reviewers of the film are faulting it for not being. My answer would be why not, though I have yet to see one(and don't get me wrong I LOVE a great action film).

So, does Inception achieve this high art status? Is it the cinematic equivalent of Ulysses? In my opinion no, but it gets about as close as an action movie is capable. Does it work on the level of a great suspense/thriller/action movie comparable to the other great achievements of the genre? Are the performances great and the characters well portrayed? Is the pacing and editing tight? Is it visually stunning? Does it keep you on the edge of your seat? My answer would be a uproarious "Hell Yes"!

Saying that the film's aesthetic shortcomings (not having the literary or psychological profoundness of say Shakespeare or Proust) results in it being a mediocre achievement is like complaining that the tunnel scene in Tarkovsky's "Stalker" not being as suspensefull as Hitchcock would have made it, makes it a mediocre achievement. Tarkovsky's main concern is not suspense, and Nolan's is not philosophy, psychology, or other literary themes. Christopher Nolan is no Ingmar Bergman or Charlie Kaufman, nor does he try to be. His gift is in using the medium of cinema the way a composer uses his. He hits those emotional buttons in the visceral, enigmatic way music does. A great action film is capable of providing cinematic experiences that no other art form can achieve. Kurosawa talked about this being the most important aspect of film, and his goal was simply to make a movie with as many of these moments as possible. And the way Nolan utilizes his tools, I say he aproaches the suspense/action film genre in the same way. He uses the complex story and dream theme simply as a device to draw you more fully into the experience of watching, listening and perhaps feeling his movie, not to make a statement about psychology, or dreams or other literary concerns. Inception is no more about these themes than Star Trek(the recent film) was about the laws of themodynamics. So Jim, if you'll only be satisfied with an action movie that makes those types of achievements, then you will most likely be dissapointed with that "jack of all trades, master of none" type of film.

One of the complaints I can understand however, are the ones complaining about how the dream worlds are not portrayed nearly strange, or menacing enough. But in response to those I would simply refer them to Ebert's quote above.

In short(sorry for the lenthiness), I think that Inception represents the best that escapist entertainment can offer.

I find the whole "it doesn't go deep enough" into dreams a bit BS.

I love films like Mullholand Drive, but I've never had dreams like that. The surrealism of Dali is beautiful, but those images don't come in my head.

Personally, most of my dreams like the dreams Nolan has. Dreams that feel real and seem to be grounded in reality, but something is a bit off.

Now, some may have the dreams of David Lynch (Lynch himself perhaps). Some may have dreams like Dali. But to say that "that's how dreams are" is just false. That's how THOSE dreams are; that's not how all dreams are.

I'm not saying that the dreams in Inception represent all dreams; I'm saying that no "dream movie" represents all dreams. They each represent dreams in different ways. There is no "right" way to present a dream onto the screen.

Also, I bet that had Nolan been more surreal and more like other dream films, people would complain and say, "oh, he's just made a generic dream film, nothing special."

Jim, I completely agree with that. That doubt was one of the many things that frustrated me during the movie. Sure, maybe there was some reason that Cobbs was not as immersed in the dream world as Mal and had a strong enough will to go so far as to incept his wife's mind in order to get back to reality - except that was never explored. It was just another piece of handout - husband wants to get back to reality, wife does not. I actually kept thinking about the 50 years Mal and Cobbs spent together and wondering what that would be like, building an entire life together, literally. Except, of course, we never saw much of that, the only shots we do see are of them doing unimportant things like walking around holding hands. How do they build? Do they "build" people into the world as they do buildings? I vented more on that in my blog but will digress here. But that could've been the heart of the film.

I interpreted the ending to mean that Cobb is still in Limbo, but not that he was there for the entire movie, just for the last act. Plus, I saw it coming, because the final scenes, with that building Hans Zimmer musical finale, seemed too good to be true.

There are also definite parallels to "Solaris."

"Christopher Nolan's persistent thematic idea, which is: 'What we see is not true, it's just a facade'. You see this in all his movies. But he never says 'Why is it a facade, or what's behind the facade?' And because he never really does that in any depth, it weakens the film and it just seems like a gimmick." Basically, there's nothing to 'get' in the first place.

I think this is pretty astute in terms of some of Nolan's work, but not in others. (massive SPOILERS for Nolan's entire body of work follow)

In Following, we are given several overt clues suggesting that not all is as it seems, from the beautifully iconic noir shot of the girl kissing Bill with her eyes open to the disquieting music and the time-scrambling editing which places seemingly innocuous early scenes against glimpses of nightmarish late ones. But this isn't pointless, or merely in service of a twist ending; rather, the point of the ending is in Bill's disbelief at how thoroughly he has been used and betrayed by a man he considered his friend. Following is the story of a writer wrapped up in ideas of himself as a hard man, a tough, confident rule-breaker such as Cobb. He believes that by emulating Cobb he can earn Cobb's respect and thus validation. The hints at the facade throughout the film contribute to an overall sense of doom and dread, even if we don't know precisely in what way Bill's weakness will be exploited. And at the end, when it all blows up in Bill's face, it is the devastation in his face and his voice, that not only his friendship but his entire self-image has been shattered, where the emotional and thematic meaning of the film can be found. As such Nolan's complex neo-noir fits in nicely with the classic foundation of genre work like The Third Man, which is also about a man too weak and innocent to exit unscathed from the dark depths of the human heart.

In Memento, we are given similar indications, including non-linear storytelling and the love interest's betrayal, that something is hidden here; and indeed the entire story is foregrounded and introduced as a mystery. What learn when the curtain is pulled back is that the game that Leonard (and the audience) has been playing is just that--a fiction, made to satisfy his/our need to participate in a story of bloody revenge. Instead of playing thief, this time the character is playing detective; running around with his photographs and his clues, not understanding that his quest has already been achieved and its continuation pointless. The truth behind Nolan's construction is not incidental but key to what Nolan is saying about noir and about his character.

In Insomnia, the conflict is more overt and Nolan relies less on stylistic tricks; instead, it is a narrative begun in media res, as well as Al Pacino's increasingly haggard performance, that clues us into the idea that this character is not as good as he may appear. Robin William's character appears as the demon on Al's shoulder, enticing him to admit the uses and pleasures of evil acts, trying to equivocate the two of them and their moral stances. As the facade that Pacino's character has set for himself crumbles, he begins to see how he can no longer duck responsibility for the choices he's made--but neither should he embrace them as William's character has done. So here again, the truth behind the falsehoods that the narrative raises and then tears down are not of secondary importance but are in fact the entire thrust of the movie, which is essentially a character study set within the context of a thriller.

In Batman Begins, however, I don't see the same thing. Again we have a character who is a facade, but I don't think Nolan ever really burrows into the question of what kind of man would actually become Batman. I think the criticism here is totally apt, and that Batman Begins lacks a deeper meaning along those lines. However, it is still emotionally engaging and a very well-made film that holds up to repeat viewings.

In The Prestige, there are numerous facades, but the key ones are again revelatory of character and meaning as well as plot. The answers to the question, "How do they transport themselves on stage?"--one by living a double life in secret, a life which costs him his wife and lover, and one by killing himself over and over again, an act which costs him his soul--are not there merely to surprise the audience or as an afterthought, but are instead the strongest and deepest representation of the lengths these men have gone to for their rivalry and for their art.

Like Batman Begins, the Dark Knight is also less concerned with facades than Nolan's other work. But I believe that movie works fully on every level... but that's a conversation that has been had many times here and elsewhere, and I see no need to rehash it, even in summary.

As for inception, I agree utterly.

So in summation I'd say it's incorrect to fault Nolan for being more interested in tricks and puzzles at the expense of character and meaning, since he manages to hinge the two together (or ignore the former, in the case of his Batman movies) in all but his most recent film.

It wasn't that the totems were off if you were in any dream, only if you weren't in your own dream (one of your design), as I understood it. That way, you can't be tricked into believing a dream is real if you turn about to be the mark/subject and somebody has kidnapped you/drugged you for extraction or inception. So when Ariadne is at the cafe, Cobb is the dream creator and she is the subject, presumably his totem would work as expected (this assumes against the possibility the whole movie was a dream) and he knows he is the dream creator, while she has no way of knowing until he tells her because she had no totem at that point and initially believes the cafe scene is real. I think the totems were designed to be a self-defense mechanism, though I may have slightly misinterpreted.

I just saw "Inception" for a second time, and it was really helpful for understanding the film better and developing my own opinions about it. Part of this may be because I saw it in a different theater. The theater I saw it in the first time must have had the bass really amplified on the speakers because the dialogue was much more comprehensible the second time.

I really loved the film on an emotional and intellectual level. Since I knew what was going to happen the second time, I was able to focus more on the filmmaking and the ideas. I still feel that Nolan is very impressive filmmaker. I loved the "Close Encounters"-style opening with the loud musical chord accompanying a cut from a black screen. I love Wally Pfister's cinematography. I don't think Nolan's action sequences are incomprehensible, certainly not as incomprehensible as Michael Bay's, or as self-consciously artsy as Danny Boyle's or J. J. Abrams'. I'm still impressed by the way that Nolan was able to cut between the four simultaneous action scenes at the end (I also love the similar but thematically different scene from "E.T.").

But I think that the majority of criticism has not been specifically about the filmmaking, but about the depiction of dreams. In this issue, I agree with Roger Ebert, that we should review the film on the screen, not the film that Nolan hasn't made. It's not fair for a viewer to review a film in comparison with the film that the viewer would have made. Dreams have been troublesome in film because no one really knows how other people dream. Usually dreams are used to give the audience a fake scare ("It's only a dream!") or to cause confusion at the end ("Was it only a dream?"). I know that some films deal specifically with dreams in the plot. I haven't seen "Mulholland Drive" yet, but I have it on DVD and I am going to watch it soon (I recently saw "Blue Velvet" for the first time and thought it was terrific). But no one can really say whether or not a movie depicts dreams accurately (that's probably not the right word).

But I think those questions are irrelevant for "Inception" because it is not about completely random dreams (unless the totem keeps spinning at the end). It's about manufactured dreams. But it is still about dreams, just not in a specific, literal sense. It's about dreams in a general sense. It's about human fantasies in general. Nolan makes deliberate parallels to common human fantasies such as movies, video games, even religion and the belief in the afterlife.

Jim, I know that you weren't criticizing the film for being "inaccurate" (my word from earlier) in its depiction of dreams (although you did seem to suggest that with the list of common dreams, such as the naked in public dream), but rather that the dreams were unimaginative, limiting its dreams to that of an action movie or an video games.

I think that was a deliberate choice by Nolan to compare the manufactured dreams to movies and video games. Planning for the heist involved story conferences ("What's his motivation?" "Positive emotions are better than negative ones.") and set design, just like a film production. The use of the word "levels" was deliberately used to draw a parallel to video games. This might also be why the sequence on the snowy mountain (the least interesting of the four levels) seemed so much like a video game. The image of the people who came to the chemist to be able to dream reminded me of people in a movie theater or playing a video game.

Nolan also draws parallels to other human fantasies such as religion and believing in the afterlife (Note: I'm not using the word "fantasy" in a condescending way. "Myths" might be a better word. Of course, the movie uses the word "dreams", but all of these words could be misinterpreted in discussion and analysis.) I thought that the repeated speech by Mal and Cobb about waiting for a train was a beautifully poetic metaphor for human belief in/hope for an afterlife.

I think that Nolan is saying something about human fantasy/myth/dreams, that they are important even if they aren't real. There can be problems with them, and Michael Caine is correct in the film when he tells Cobb to "come back to reality." We should not become addicted to dreaming and let "the dream become the reality." But dreams can help us to deal with ourselves. Fischer's resolution with his father was technically a lie, but his resolution with himself wasn't (I'm still in awe of how Nolan turned that uninteresting McGuffin into something really emotional). Something I picked up on during my second viewing of the film was that most of Cobb's conversations with Mal (the ones that aren't direct flashbacks) were conversations with himself, with his own subconscious. And even if the other characters were projections of his subconscious, they helped him with his problems just as much as any real person (this is set up in the wonderfully operatic sequence when Cobb simply walks through the airport past the other characters). The dream or false-reality helped him to deal with his pain and his guilt. This is why it doesn't matter whether the totem falls or not. Reality or not, Cobb has found peace with his own subconscious.

There are many other things I could go into about the film such as the relationships between parents and their children, and the interesting way that the world of "Inception" seems to be run not by governments, but by multinational corporations. But I'm not entirely sure about those ideas quite yet. I'll probably develop those after I see the film a few more times (something I'm very much looking forward to). Even though I disagree with you, I'm glad that there are reasonable opposing positions because they help me to develop my own opinions. It would be really depressing to see a movie with as much thought and ambition as "Inception" and simply say, "I liked it."

"Inception" may not be profound, meaningful, original, or compelling on any other level than its surface, but it was good fun for me. It gave me the same sort of pleasure that I would get from putting together a picture puzzle, which is not a bad thing.

Let me run with the picture puzzle analogy for a little bit.

I had a girlfriend in high school who loved to work on extremely difficult puzzles. Her mother once gave her a two-sided puzzle - one side all black and the other side all white - for her birthday and she ate it up. Bless her, but you could use that puzzle as a torture device on me. I like my puzzles to be manageable, self-explanatory even. I like knowing that I'll see a representation of Van Gough's "Starry Night" when I'm done. If I'm watching a puzzle movie, I don't want it to be so complex and obscure that I can't make any sense of it. This is where "Inception" wins me over. Seeing Leo resolve the (inner) conflict with his dead wife was a lot like seeing that picture of The Statue of Liberty coming together; you know what you're about to get when you put those final pieces down, but there's something satisfying about seeing everything lock together just so to create this picture...that you can rip apart and put back together again if you want. And since "Inception" is nothing more than a movie puzzle, there really isn't that much to talk about. Either the puzzle was fun for you or it wasn't. If you want a movie about dreams that's more like a dream, watch "Waking Life"...wait...now that I think about it, no one ever holds a philosophy conversation in my dreams. If someone were to really make a movie about dreams, it wouldn't make any sense at all...wait again...we already have "Un Chien Andalou", which has an approapriate run time of 16 minutes.

What was really disappointing to me is that Nolan avoided (with a lame air duct no less) the opportunity to have his characters get lost in their own dream constructions. All that fuss over architecture and mazes for nothing.

"Inception", and Christopher Nolan movies in general, could do with a better sense of humor, too.

I was only able to see the movie tonight, so I apologize if I'm merely repeating sentiments that have already been expressed in the 200+ comments that have been spread over your posts.

Jim, why don't you spend as much time writing about films you like than trying to tear down Inception. All these articles about Inception seem to be trying to make other people realize how bad of a film it was. I loved the film and felt that it was emotionally effective. The film was entertaining and meaningful. The truth is that most people and critics liked inception and i feel like your points are valid and your dislike of the film is truthfully but Inceptoin will always have its fans no matter how much you try to negatively discuss it. I hated Avatar but alot of my friends loved it and where touched by it. Who am i to say they are wrong and the truth is that i don't have to like avatar as much as you don't like Inception but i voice my disagreement and move on because I would never want to take away there enjoyment of the film. Inception will go away in a couple of weeks and soon it will be just another movie on the best buy DVD rack and you won't have to watch it ever again so leave it alone and realize your not going to agree with everyone and trying to tear down a film is kind of pathic. But i do want to say again that it is ok for you to not like the film and i respect your opinion. Not liking a film is never wrong and doesn't say anything about your taste in films.

I think that the process of "inception" has been done three times, not twice -- first is with Mal, second is on Robert Fisher, third is on Cobb making him believes that he's allowed to enter the United States. I make this conclusion based on the fact that he suddenly awake on the jet, and when he walks of the airport, everybody looks at him as if his conscious is looking for the dreamer.

The people who criticize Inception for being emotionally sterile are probably the same people who thought Solaris was emotionally sterile. I think the two films would make a great double feature.

@Jason Haggstrom (haggie).

In the Paris scene where Leonardo DiCaprio expalins to Ellen Page about the dream world, I think there are two distinct individuals talking to each other. The Page character is someone less experienced with the dream world. She is not aware about the projections who can attack her. Notice how DiCaprio slightly smiles when Page asks if the projections will attack them and he responds that they'll just attack her. He quickly grows concerned when it gets too out of hand. Page grows angry with him after she wakes up, not acknowledging her role in egging them on. After sarcastically calling Mal a "charmer," she probably becomes guilty when she learns that Mal is dead.

The point I'm trying to make is that even in a expositionary scene like the one in Paris, the audience does see genuine characters interacting. This is due to the writing and also the acting. DiCaprio and Page play the scene very well.

I liked the exposition because by having exposition it made the world of the film feel real. By having explanations, it both interests the audience and shows how commonplace the technology of this world has become. I feel that very subtly this film is a cautionary tale of sorts about interactions between technology and the mind, particularly when one thinks about Saito's goal in the film.

I also found the "kick montage" very humourous and the scene where "limbo" is explanined is very tense.

Also, on a side note, the ambiguity of the ending is so effective that it shows how Nolan can leave things up to interpretation.

Why must everything be intellectualized to death? We clearly do not live in a world defined by the cerebral we live in a world more fashioned by immediate animalistic impulses (more reptilian more limbic less neo-cortex) but when a film like Inception comes and makes utilization of the three people panic allowing all three elements to be judged by one rationality... the real point I wish to make is that I feel all critics are small little wimps only intelligent enough to acknowledge in art those things they themselves cannot create and by the very nature of that half ability they take an otherwise brilliantly entertaining film and flip it's ambition against itself... the same critics who feel negatively about this film most likely loved Hot Tub Time Machine (because it attempts nothing)...I just feel it is all about resentment in the end,period. Inception is a great film and it isn't dependent on the score the score is like a character in the film and maybe the only one that can be trusted as real and by the way "lugubrious"? really? you can't just write sad? I hate film critics.

Jim, you faulted Nolan because the "dreams" in "Inception" aren't very "dreamlike." Why does that have to be a liability. Why can't it be an artistic choice? You write that you had no idea what Nolan was trying to do, and you can judge only what's on the screen. There are some reasonable hints that he wanted to make "real."

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/07/16/movies/20100716-inception-aoas-feature.html?ref=movies

As for whether Nolan has been able to connect the dots, isn't that at least up to debate. I think this goes to the heart of some of the debate over the film. Some people just see twists and cool visuals, but others comprehend a story. I think the difference is somewhat in people's experiences. I did feel like the Paris scene did pay off in several ways.

(a) the audience's picture of Ariadne. She's comes through as a voice of reason and one person argued on Roger's post that she was the moral center of the movie. If she's to play that role, we'd need a convincing reason for her to do this mission, which is not legal. I think the "coolness" that we see here affords such a reason.
(b)many people who use the "dreams" as "movies" metaphor draw heavily on these conversations in Paris
(c) We find out about the mind naturally "rejects" or responds with hostility to outsiders that come from dreams in Nolan's world. It's funny because Stephanie asks about where these combatants that the team faces subsequently come from. It's explained in this scene. It pays off in the challenges that they face when performing their mission. We realize why there are these folks shooting on levels 1 and 3, and why people are staring and looking at them funny on level 2. This is especially critical, because they so dramatically thwart the original plans of the team.

I would share in the consensus that Nolan is a relatively frosty moviemaker, but I have to dissent on the notion that his movies don't (a) resonate or (b) constitute less of a complete, project than a trailer. "Memento" fits together much better as a whole than a few images. It's structure helps illuminate how flawed Lenny is. Although most of us have short term memory, I think we walk away with a sense that our own memories are imperfect and that we can't fully reconstruct our own existence. A lot of people have noted the relevance of Dark Knight's ideas to terrorism and its effects on cities. e.g. Chris Orr who noted the lack of emotions in his blog posts used the word "resonant" to describe "Memento" in his post. He deemed much of the material in the "Dark Knight" in the review he linked to as "rich and resonant." So,yes, some of us do find the work resonates beyond descriptions of the plot.

I just discovered that Stephanie Zacharek, the critic who you quote at the top of this piece, who basically accuses anyone who likes this movie of being a fanboy incapable of true critical understanding, gave a positive review to "The Last Airbender."

The. Last. Airbender.

I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks that an Inception/Celine and Julie Go Boating double bill would work.

fwiw, my husband and I both saw two shelves in the safe. One (the lower) contained the pinwheel, and one (the upper) contained the will. Thus, no will turning into pinwheel hokey-ness.

Okay, finally saw "Inception." Apologies if all I'm about to say has been discussed to death (in that case, consider this a dream within a dream :P), but I had to a wait a week to watch it, so phooey.

I quite enjoyed the film on its own terms -- but, yes, almost entirely on a surface-level, artificial way. Tellingly, deep into the movie, what I began comparing it to wasn't other movies but a video game: Portal. It's a mind-bending puzzle game where you have a "portal gun" to open passage ways from one surface to another, so long as you have line-of-site to that surface, and then use it to solve ever-more-devious closed-room puzzles. Conceptually they have nothing to do with each other, but in practice it felt like they did the same thing to my brain: Make it go, "Geez, this is nuts!"

So yes, the movie ultimately amounts to little more than a really cool puzzle. But hey, I like really cool puzzles, so that's fine by me. (And not for nothing, but there was also something very Super Mario Galaxy-esque about the shot of the city folding onto itself and Cobb and Ariadne walking onto the vertical street, as well as the shifting gravity of the hallway fight.)

But, that does bring me to my main point here, about shot number 2 (the final shot): It's a cheat. Not a cheat in the same way as in "The Prestige," which was more a subversion of the rules we thought we were operating under (a far worse cheat, in my opinion). No, it's more of an artificial cheat -- it has no reason to exist, other than to simply make people wonder if it's "all just a dream."

I think Dileep Rao hits the nail on the head in that interview: "But I do think it's real because it's an apostatic act on art itself to suddenly say 'Well, none of this happened, and I have no explanation.'" Exactly -- if you accept the "it's all just a dream" possibility, there's no explanation for it. Nothing in the entire movie, as far as I understood the events that took place and the rules that governed them, suggests in any way that Cobb is still dreaming at the end. The only thing that makes us less than certain is the existence of the shot itself. Which raises the question: Why does it exist at all? Answer: To make us wonder.

Basically, it's a final boss (to keep with my belabored video game metaphor) -- one last test we have to pass to solve the puzzle. I don't know if that's what Nolan intended it to be, but I believe that's all it amounts to. If Nolan really wanted us to think the "it's all just a dream" theory was possible, he would have (or should have) actually built reasons into the movie to make it possible.

I’ll begin by agreeing with two of the more popular criticisms of Inception, pretty much to establish that I have at least some perspective on the topic:

1: An elevator though the levels of the subconscious? What the hell?
2: The spinning top in the final shot is perhaps the least creative filmmaking decision I’ve ever seen made. To accomplish the ambiguity Nolan so obviously wanted, wouldn’t it be more effective to at least show a reaction shot than the top itself?

That being said, I feel as though most of the more damning criticisms of the movie are unwarranted. I don’t mean to attempt to solve the “problem” of the view that differs from my own, but I do think your disappointment with Inception stems more from your own expectations and a reaction to general fanboyism than anything contained within the movie itself. Specifically, I’m referring to the criticism of the structured nature of dreams:

In Inception, because dreams work exactly as they’re supposed to in the film, any disappointment with the way they play out is probably derived from one’s expectations when one hears the term “dream.” A film with dreams filled with non-sequiturs, loose cause and effect relationships and bizarre sexual imagery would more closely resemble real life-—I can even grant that such a film, if well executed, would make for a more rewarding experience-—but it would be impossible to make into a heist plot. In Inception, dreams are constructed by an architect for a specific purpose. The film sets up these circumstances so that there is a rationale for all the dreams to look like action movies. Making dreams parallel our own wouldn’t make any sense here. In fact, the only purpose this would serve is to satisfy the suppositions of a viewer or viewers, promises made by no one. If every filmmaker attempted to satisfy the most ambitious hopes of anyone interested in his project, nothing would ever get made.

It’s a heist movie, and a pretty entertaining one at that. Not every film can have dozens of different readings. Not every movie can be a life-changing experience. The world needs plenty of “awesome” movies, and just because some fans can’t tell the difference doesn’t mean that movies can’t be “great” anymore. I just feel that you should be able to still appreciate the awesome ones.

God it's nice to read this. I think on the exposition alone this fails as a 5 star movie. Seems rather vulgar to make the Matrix comparison, but it's both the most obvious and best. Both movies have a lot of theory to get down, but the Matrix did its best to dramatise every single bit. At times it was as if Nolan could care less, and poor Levitt and Page are made to look ridiculous drip-feeding the audience. I'm sure that can be put down to the whole, 'it was all a dream' nonsense. A cop-out that will no doubt get used again a few months from now and yet no-one will give it a pass. Admittedly Nolan is smart enough to lean that spinning top more towards reality, but it's that lack of surety that gives him an out.

I'm still confused about the Paris flip, and why that's the most imaginative dream construct. I'm still confused why it's the reality outside the dream, or the dream reality outside the dream that has the most effect on the dream. Surely the dream world should be more exciting than this, simply because it's a world of our own creation. Isn't it the one place we can be sure God is absent? So why does Nolan limit them so quickly, and bring God back into the process with the Architect? Whatever the reason, a bloody train crashing through traffic, an almost incomprehensible raid on a snowy Bond villain hideout, and a really quite dull bit of zero gravity just doesn't sync up with all this high praise.

So is it a coincidence then, that the "kicker" used to wake people out of their dreams is Edith Piaf singing "Je Ne Regrette Rien", as played most recently by... Marion Cotillard?

Whilst I don't disagree that it doesn't really matter if "it was all a dream" or not, I think there are a number of pointers that suggest, yes, Leo is still (and always has been) in his dream world, but perhaps now he has been "impregnated with an inception" to no longer truly believe that he is awake -so one day he will follow the route Ms. Cotillard has taken before him. ?

(I further believe that the reason this is not depicted in the movie itself is because it could easily be read as an incitement to suicide -quite a dangerous message to send!)

Whenever we, the film-savvy audience hear that song we are most-effectively pulled out of the clearly-defined undreamlike dream-unreality to see the layer above the layer (ie. "this is a movie -and she was in another one, singing this very song not too long ago" -she is calling Leo & the viewer from "another place entirely".)

In my view, Nolan deliberately uses this, as opposed to any other song, to do just that.

I must say I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It does involve what I refer to as a "Superman's Underpants" obstacle, but if it's possible to overlook and/or accept the stoopidness of certain situations/ scenarios/ exposition, then I believe there's a top-level action adventure to be enjoyed here.

Well, at any rate, it's still smarter than "Total Recall."

And I'm a guy who kinda *liked* "Total Recall"!

time out! At face value I agree with this review: meaning "yes if i took everything in this movie literally then it would fit the criticism of your review. The problem is: this movie has a lot of depth: The totems (the top, the loaded die, and the queen chess piece) are symbolic of their characters reality but truly have no connection. If you fall asleep with a top in your pocket is it there when you are dreaming? no, and if it is its not really there its part of your dream, this is true of the top in Inception, the problem that we face, and the problem that Nolan expertly harnesses is that we are quick to believe exactly what we are told about everything. The dreamworld is totally at the hands of the architect and subconsciously at the hands of the dreamer. Therefor Cobb's top is symbolic of nothing: if it stops spinning it simply means that he thinks he's awake, not that he actually is awake, so we cant be sure that he's not dreaming this entire movie.
The ending was meant to be shown at face value as well, but the true meaning is not at face value. Did you notice how Cobb spun the top and then left? the meaning here is that the top no longer has any meaning to Cobb, if he's dreaming or awake he doesn't care he's forgiven himself and moved on to be with his children, he's accepted something as reality instead of being stuck in between two realities. Its not about the top spinning and if were dreaming or not.

As for the mechanics of it, For the dreamer it was like a dream: Surreal and Disjointed, for Cobb's team it was mechanical it was like going into a huge machine and trying to change something, so yes it was mechanical for them. One of the reasons it felt so disconnected was the fact that the scenes had no beginning and the characters had no background, this was deliberate, making it all seem dreamy and unreal just as if you really were dreaming.

All in all this movie was very cleverly contrived, it weaves the viewer into the film by giving them some standards and then reminding them that standards mean nothing if your asleep. And it shows the viewer how dangerous it is to be caught up in something that isn't real until you forget the realities of life

If the career of Stephanie Zacharek is any indication, we've entered an era in which describing a film as "awesome" is meant as a dig. It's not enough for a film to be clever, ambitious and precise; if it's not Great Art it Sucks Donkeys.

I don't know 'bout you all, but while I'm waiting for the next "great" movie to present itself, I won't feel too bad tiding myself over with "awesome."

@grodman

I like your bit about Cobb not caring whether it's a dream or not, but you've lost me with your point before. You're saying one thing, but then proposing it doesn't matter anyway? I'm sorry, but at some point the trickery ends, and the emotional connection begins. This just feels like layer after layer of obfuscation. I can admire the puzzle until we spend more time following, and, potentially, admiring the kicks than we do delving into the emotion of Cobb's and Mal's relationship.

While I liked "Inception" I'm stuck on this one flaw(?) in the third act that takes place in the snow dream. Cobb all of a sudden goes against protocol by asking Ariadne if there's another way for Fischer to get to the vault, asking her for the details. Ariadne says she can't tell him the details (obviously because she's the architect, and she was hired as such so that Cobb wouldn't know such details and allow Mal to storm in and fuck up the mission). Cobb yells that there's no time to agure, demanding she tell him. So Adriadne tells Cobb that Fischer can go through the air ducts to get to the vault. After learning this Cobb tells Adriadne to tell Fischer this. She does, Fischer goes through the ducts, and sure enough Mal jumps through the ducts and shoots Fischer. It's the storytelling point where all hope is lost. Fischer is down, mission seems failed, and Cobb has lost his chance to get home to his children, while bringing back Mal to make way for the resolution between Cobb and his vision of Mal.

But this storytelling point is predicated on a wildly unfounded choice for Cobb to know the details of the air ducts. Considering that Cobb is risking his neck, and the necks of his team, on this mission so that he can be able to see his children why would be break protocol to know the details of the architecture of the dream? I saw it a second time to see if there was something else to the film that I missed, that would explain this senseless development, since Nolan could have done something like have Cobb accidentally overhearing Ariadne telling Fischer about the air ducts.

The second time yielded no further explanation for Cobb's explicable insistence on knowing the details, for me. It seems so contradictory in terms of character motivation that I wonder what the hell the direction was in that scene, what DiCaprio's motivation was when he was delivering a line that's such a contradiction to what his character is striving for.... It's seems so awfully inconsistent to go unnoticed.

I get the consequences of what happens with Cobb knowing about the air ducts. I just don't understand why he would want to know about the air ducts, when he knew damn well what the consequences were, and worked soundly to avoid them for over a hundred minutes of movie time.

Did anyone else see Mal sitting on the ledge through the window when Leo was splashing his face with water after sampling the sedation for the first time?

Inception was a perfect movie. Mountain Dew is a perfect soda. Beyonce is a perfect artist. These are my perfect opinions.

It made me smile that you mentioned the mashed potatoes scene from CEo2K. That was a turning point scene that caused me to realize how much I dislike Spielberg's tendency to shamelessly manipulate your emotions in ways that are often not organic to the story or the reality in which the story takes place. "Anything for a gag or a tear," seems to be his ethic, and it rubs me the wrong way.

I very much enjoyed The Prestige and Inception. As a lifelong SF fan, I had no problem with the fictional science element, and Tesla was famous for inventions far beyond anything imagined (some of his machines are amazing even by today's terms). It was no stretch at all for me to imagine that he'd created the machine he supposedly did in The Prestige.

I hope it goes without saying that there is no absolute right or wrong view when it comes to appreciating and criticizing storytelling, assuming the storytelling has reached a certain level of quality. I hope we would all agree Nolan has reached that level of quality even if he (a) still has room to grow, and (b) doesn't always satisfy us in some way.

So much has to do with what we bring as audience members. You, and others, have objected to the level of detail and explanation; but I find that very satisfying sometimes. The world can be a confusing, difficult place, and sometimes the "purity" of an intellectual piece can be a nice break for the mind.

For another example of different viewpoints informing an opinion, you clearly revere Lynch for his "intuitive" way of making film and his dream-like style. I know many that share that view. But to me, Lynch seems to be something of a con-artist creating random ink-blot movies where people see what they want to see.

I could argue that his failure with Dune speaks to his real abilities as a filmmaker, but it is equally possible that Lynch is a highly-talented artist who makes films that I simply do not enjoy. Spielberg is another (and in his case, he's clearly a successful filmmaker). So much of our response to storytelling comes from us, not from the storyteller.

Which is not to deny the value of criticism in any way. The best critics help us see film in new ways and help us understand the language of film. Decades of reading Ebert have made me much more appreciative of, and cogent about, the art of film.

So, like, THANKS!! ;-)

A note on the ending: first, if the top DOES keep spinning, it doesn't necessarily mean that the entire movie was a dream. It could just mean that DiCaprio (and Saito) never woke up from limbo (but everyone else did).

But my bigger point: I think the spinning top is a clever thematic tie in. It is, itself, an inception for the audience: an idea planted in our head that what we saw wasn't real. Just as The Prestige was itself a magic trick, Inception is itself an inception.

Which I love. Clearly Jim, you're not a fan of movies that work like puzzles, but Nolan is one heck of a storyteller. (Or perhaps more accurately, a plotter? Either way, I dig what he's doing.) His movies do work on an intellectual level far more than an emotional one, I fully grant you that, but I see nothing wrong with loving a movie that works principally as an entertaining brain exercise.

Hey, I adore "The Seventh Seal" too. Film is a versatile medium.

Owsler,
What's confusing? After she bent Paris, the projections in Cobb's subconcious started to stare at her. When there were mirrors she made, soon after, the projections started crowding on her. When it make stranger, the subject became aware that they weren't in reality. That consequently makes it harder to fulfill the mission.

Should the subconcious be represented in a wilder way, because the human imagination is capable of more? Jonah Weiner wrote a terrific "Slate" article challenging this thesis.
http://www.slate.com/id/2261245/pagenum/all/#p2

I dont understand the concept of "limbo". Why is it that when Fischer Jr. gets shot by Mal in the snow dream (when Cobb fails to shoot her with the sniper rifle), he, Fischer, ends up in Cobb's subconscious and Cobb has to go into his own subconscious with Juno to save him from Mal? Also, why does Saito end up in Cobb's subconscious as well when he also dies in the snow dream (after throwing the grenade in the vent)?

Is limbo something that is subjective or a place that Cobb and Mal created for everyone? In the movie someone (cant remember who) suggests that limbo is an eternity in a place filled with ones own subconcious and memories and those who have been there before. Is this why they (Saito and Fischer Jr.) end up in Cobb's subconscious when they die?

Perfectly well reasoned post. Thank you so much. I was truly bored and annoyed by the flaws in this movie's own mythology. A shame really.

Besides the critique of the over-mechanized and non-engaging plot structure, which i find completely valid. It was a nerd fun to fallow the plot twists, but it had nothing to contribute to the movie in general.
Secondly, I was very disappointed by the inception storyline itself. After all, it's the title of the movie, right? And I had the feeling, that whether it would have been done other way, people wouldn't feel so annoyed by the shallow empty plot twisters.
The problem is that we don't actually see the inception of the idea into Robert's mind.
In the sideline we are being told how Cobb planted the idea into Mal's mind and the small briefing done by Eames in the beginning. So we are forced to believe that the whole process of inception is a highly speculative, risky, unpredictable venture. After all, what Cobb has done - had unforeseen consequences later one, far beyond initial scope.
And to the opposite, the whole Robert's inception process... doesn't look complicated at all. It just goes exactly as planned and explained in the beginning, now complications or unforeseen events whatsoever. Sure, there are those self-defense cardboard "bots" shooting guns, there is the freight train of Cobb's subconsciousness, but we don't see any resistance on Roberts side at all. He just does what he is told, acts justs as planned and is dragged across the plot like a fake President from a B-rated action movie: "Mr. President, they've penetrated our defenses, you are unsafe, we must leave. Now, where is your big president's key? Insert it here and press the big red button, only President can press". You'd expect that growing up such a crucial, definitive idea, would be preceded by a lengthy self-reflecting mental struggle of the incepted person, but there isn't any.
And in the end - how we are introduced to "the idea that the idea was planted". For all it looks like - it could have meant anything. And maybe it should have meant anything, but the way how calmly and approvingly Eames observes Robert in the hospital room and the final talk on the shore near the bridge, just say again: to the viewer: ok, idea planted, inception succeeded, nothing more to see here, move on.
I guess, it's just a more detailed way to say, that characters are undeveloped.

There is actually another emotional moment in this film besides Fisher's reconciliation with his father and Cobb's last spin of the top. It occurs on the plane when Cobb wakes up after having retrieved Saito from limbo. The awakening on the plane is shot wordlessly, Cobb's thrill at succeeding (and breaking free of Mal) undisguised on his face.

As much as I like this film, I must agree that Nolan misses the mark by overreaching and burying his narrative. The sequence on the snow level is absolutely confusing and unbearably long. Plus we get tired of Mal whining about Cobb's broken promises. Inception stumbles and jerks around, frequently interrupted by volatile projections; compare it to the smooth narrative flow of The Prestige, a much more artful film.

Funny, I really prefer Batman Begins to the ambitious Dark Knight; Prestige to Inception. One day, though, Nolan will succeed in reaching beyond his grasp...just not yet.

Wow. OK. I'm kind of a movie geek myself, and I like to analyze a film and stuff, too.
But I've never seen people actually try to squeeze--no, WRING---the fun out of a movie.
It's an action, heist/reverse heist, sci-fi, psych drama, film noir, love story, summertime movie, people.
Me? All I wanted to do was a see a movie more challenging than, oh.."Salt"...or any Will Ferrell dude movie silliness.
As much as I liked "The Dark Knight", "Batman Begins" (even bought the soundtrack!), "The Prestige"...all of which I own on DVD...I really really liked "Inception". These movies are all different, but all bear Nolan's 'mark', which I really like.
I thought it was beautifully written, directed, shot (a lot of in-camera/practical fx and minimal CGI also gets points from me), edited, scored, acted...
Someone here said the characters in Inception weren't "devleoped".
Me? Just like I liked not having opening credits, I liked that I didn't get a backstory on all of the characters.
Just by listening to them and seeing their relationships to each other, I learned what I NEEDED to know about them.
I don't know about y'all, but I understood what I was watching at first viewing. I wasn't trying to go to a film school lecture, either.
In other words: IT ALL WORKED FOR ME.
I saw it, went back for seconds, and went back again when some friends invited me to go with them, some for their first viewing, a couple for their second. And guess what? It still worked, plus little things revealed themselves to me with each subsequent viewing.
We all went out to dinner afterwards and had a jolly good great time talking about it.
And because of that wonderful conversation between 6 friends over dinner, I deem Inception a great success.
Don't hate...appreciate.

You bring up some valid points in your review of "Inception", but I think EVERYONE - lovers and haters alike - are missing the BIG picture. Nolan makes films about journeys - more specifically spiritual journeys. "Batman Begins" was about Bruce Wayne overcoming his fears, "Memento" was about a man dealing with loss, "The Dark Knight" dealt with Batman understanding his role in society. Both "Insomnia" and "Inception" focus on the psychological struggles of men overcoming guilt.

That's it. Case closed. Perhaps people want more, which is why they discuss it so much. For me I was blown-away, even enthralled by Nolan's vision.

"Inception" is less about dreams than it is about a man attempting to forgive himself for the death of his wife - it just happens to be set in a dreamworld. There's nothing to "get" or decipher. It's all there. Nolan isn't interested in the twists and turns as much as the pyschological aspects of filmmaking - how cinema can tease us, trick us, and play with our minds - he takes conventional filmmaking techniques and turns them on their head: the backward storytelling of "Memento", for example, essentially transformed a run-of-the-mill revenge story into a classic, Hitchcock-ian allegory about morality. His more grounded approach to "The Dark Knight" offered a new spin on an old idea - good vs. evil - making it more relatable and engaging in the process. The trick to "getting" Nolan is to not try so HARD to get him. And yet, the genius behind the man is how much HE gets US. He knows we won't fall for the same trick twice, so he varies a concept, or an idea, and in the process redefines it.

"Inception" is about a man on a quest to get home - the heart of the story is Cobb's inner-turmoil. The point of the film centers on whether this character will change/should change. All of the exposition/dialogue is set-up for Cobb's ultimate denouetment ... The dreams needn't be fantastical (why copy "The Cell"?), because that's not what Nolan wants you to see - he wants you to see Cobb's struggles, and, ultimately, his redemption. The movie is less about dreams much in the same way "The Prestige" was more about the deadly consequences of obsession than hocus pocus and magic.

Nolan isn't trying to trick us, but he knows how to get us to trick ourselves.

I think Nolan is a better storyteller than a writer. I enjoyed Inception a lot and it was a big step up from The Dark Knight which I felt was turgid and over-long. One question bothers me though - Who puts the headphones on Joseph Gordon-Levitt during the Heist?

I assume I will probably be the first to say, this movie sucks, & I hate that I spent my money to go see it. Reminds me of an English I assignment to write about all the symbolism in the story, & the more weird things you could come up with, the better grade you got..I did like the special effects, but other than that, blah....if you have to keep telling me the "rules" of the movie over & over, then that's sucks....I was down to level one in the first hour, down to level two in the second hour, & then I was pretty much gone in level three by the end............what a waste of time & money, for me, & the movie-makers.......what a scam..

What did people do before Twitter? Suffer? Presumably, they suffered.

First off, let me say that Inception is a brilliant screenplay and very well executed direction on his part (Chris Nolan) as well. I very much liked Momento, thought The Dark Knight was well done, but neither can hold a candle to Inception.
All of these different interpretations are interesting to read, but they all miss what this movie is really about. The underlying theme of Inception seems so clear cut to me, but maybe that's due to understanding it from a certain point of view. Inception is quite simply about people overcoming their emotional baggage. Obviously, Fischer overcame his issues of living under his father's shadow and feeling like he was never living up to what his father wanted, but this was involuntary, it came to him as a gift from Mr. Saito and the crew. Mal's issues are never specified, but "she hid something deep inside, a truth which she had once known, but chose to forget". Cobb tried to help Mal with her issues by exposing them, but Mal was unable to deal with them, which is why she choose to leave reality and return to her dreamworld, which was actually death. Cobb's issue was letting go of his dead wife (or wife that abandoned him and her children), and the guilt that accompanied that. He achieved this and was able to return to his children and be emotionally available to them so they can return to their lives.
Dealing with emotional baggage's that is holding one back and adversely affecting their life is scary, but the payoff, catharsis, is well worth the risk. And anyone who has ever taken that journey knows, makes your life before the catharsis seem like you were wasting your life up until that point. The only thing that holds people back is not what happened to them in the past, but the fear of dealing with it.
Mal is an example of someone who couldn't face the fear of dealing with her emotional baggage. It was Cobb who wanted her to overcome it, but Mal was never invested in it, because she never wanted to change, and you can't just plant the seed (inception) in someone's head and expect them to change just because you want them to.
I found it interesting that more than just a few film critics accused this film of lacking emotion - when that is what it is actually about (albeit wasn't done in an overly emotional way, but that was to make a scary thing less intimidating)
People who have themselves overcome difficult emotional issues in their life will likely agree with my interpretation, while people who have resisted working on their issues (choose to stay in their own dreamworld) will likely not see the

OK, "inception" is a very clever movie crafted like a great bank heist that no one can solve because everyone is looking at it in the wrong way.

"Inception" is not about Cobb and whether or not he is dreaming or whether or not he gets back home at the end. That is a only a diversion and if you were not following closely, throughout the entire movie Cobb is wearing a wedding band while in a dream state and he is not wearing a weeding band when he is in reality. The movie does shift between dreams and reality and his wedding ring is the "tell" there. We never get a glimpse of his wedding finger after everyone "wakes up" on the plane towards the end of the movie. There is one instance where Cobb goes to grab his bag after customs but Nolan does not show us the finger. Very clever. Is he still dreaming or is he really home… will his spinning top fall… Saito, the real criminal does not care.

In the opening scene, a very old Saito says to a very young Cobb, "Are you here to kill me?" Have you ever thought about why he says this to Cobb? It is simply because Cobb has realized he was duped, incepted, and left in limbo so Saito could further his business empire. He is wearing a ring, thus still dreaming, in Limbo, young; whereas Saito has aged… This opening scene is very important and is chronologically that last thing that happens. Which answers the question, Cobb is caught in Limbo, still dreaming while Saito performed his task of breaking up the Fischer empire. Cobb never got home to his kids, we never saw their faces, never saw his top fall, never saw his ring finger so we really have no proof except this opening scene. Where else chronologically could this scene fit in the movie if it is not the ending. When did this meeting take place?

Nolan did a very clever job by making Cobb the main topic of focus for the audience, but it is really far simpler. Consider this, Saito performed inception on Cobb in the interest of furthering his empire and dividing up a rival company, Maurice and Robert Fischer. Its very simple, when Cobb was leaving the helicopter he had made the decision to either lay low for a while or retire, I forget. In any event Saito has other hopes for this talented dream extractor. Saito is a real business man interested in making real money and is having real competition problems with the Fischer's and wishes to break up their businesses. When Saito (in the helicopter) yells to Cobb as he is walking away "I can get you home!" Cobb's world changes. Saito performed "inception" on Cobb by offering him this chance at redemption, thus turning Cobb's entire world into a focus on getting home. The inception formed his life. Nolan diverted our attention from the fact the Saito is the real master and used Cobb to further his business empire. Saito simply used inception on Cobb.

I personally believe the ending to Inception is easy to figure out if you are willing to take 24 hours to put the movie in slow motion and turn on captions to figure out what actually is happening. I have two threories which both prove that Leonardo is in the 'real world' and not a dream in the end of the movie.
First, if you go to the very end of the movie and turn on captions you will hear the little boy say something like "daddy come look at the house we are building on the cliff". In Leonardo's dream world, he had already built a house on a cliff so why would the kids be building something that already exsisted (if they were in their dream world).
Second, the movie was filmed in reality and most likely the people who shot the film waited for the top to fall and then slowed down the clip and chopped it off in order for there to be a mystery at the end, meaning yes, the top did fall because in reality (sorry to crush your dreams but) tops do not spin forever.

CASE CLOSED