Inception

I will try to summarize the movie "Inception" in one sentence; the best movie I have seen all year.

Possibly one of the 3 best movies I have EVER seen, which is considerable. The cinematography, acting, editing, sound, plot, everything was spot on; there was not a weak spot to be found. Leo gives his best performance since the Departed, Ellen Page is surprisingly good, and the rest of the cast does an admirable job of not being completely overshadowed by the two main characters. Christopher Nolan seems to be on a hot streak; "The Prestige", "The Dark Knight", and now "Inception". In just his 9th role as a director, Nolan shows us why he is a genius writer, producer, and of course director.

**** Spoilers! ****

Now for the nitty gritty. The whole movie plays with our perception of reality and whether or not we are in a dream state. Similar in some ways to the Matrix trilogy, yet infinitely more understandable, Inception is the definition of a "mind fuck". Dom (DiCaprio) Cobb is a master of Extraction, going into a subjects brain, inducing a dream, filling the dream with the subconscious information that he needs, then stealing it and giving the information to whoever is employing him at the time. Page is a young architect that is hired on to his team for his final job, to plant an idea into the head of the heir of a giant energy corporation.

After discussing whether or not it is possible to plant an idea or not, and explaining the process, a full team is assembled and they begin their mission of infiltrating Robert Fischer Jr's mind (Cillian Murphy, who played Dr. Crane in The Dark Knight) and planting the idea of disassembling his fathers corporation. The team traverses through 3 or 4 different dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams, and at the moment I am still up in the air as to whether or not I believe Dom and Ariadne (Page) were in Limbo during the last scene with Mal. Also up for debate is whether or not Dom is in reality or a dream state during the final scene, where we see the top spin seemingly forever on the table as Dom is reunited with his children.

Personally I believe that the top was slowing down and beginning to wobble, which is Nolan's way of telling us that Dom was in the real world. Also, whenever Dom was in a dream he would never look at the children's faces; but in the final scene they turn and expose themselves to the audience (not in that way, sicko!). However, it still bugs me that in that scene, the children are wearing the same clothes that they wear in all of Dom's memories, and that they are still digging in the ground for the worm.

Another interesting twist that I had not thought of, until I saw it posted online, was that Michael Caine (Miles, Dom's father) hired Ariadne to infiltrate Dom's mind and use inception on him, to get him to come to the realization that Mal is long gone, and that he needs to realize it and get past it. A few indicators that this might be the case are that when Miles picks Dom up from the airport, he apparently says, "Welcome" to his son. However, some viewers reported that they distinctly heard him whisper, "You're" before saying welcome. Also, as Cobb walks by the rest of the team in the airport, they all give him the same grin, that "We know something you don't know" grin. Which could possibly mean that they all knew about it, and were glad that both of the inceptions that were planted had worked.

With Nolan, it seems plausible that this could be the case, though just as with the Prestige, he leaves much up to the imagination. There are many different scenarios that could be possible, and all of them fit in with at least most of the facts. That is the beauty of "Inception", that regardless of what you think actually happened, you're right. Because there is no one correct answer, we all make up our own answer to fit the facts as we see them, and that's brilliant movie-making.

If you have any opinions one way or another on the topic, leave a comment on this post and share your view.