Inception

Just so you know... this is a blogpost within a blogpost. Within a blogpost. Have fun finding the cutoffs. Hehe. :)

I've always been just a little bit fascinated with dreams, because they don't make sense at all. How do they seem so real? How can you feel pain and touch so clearly even though it's only a dream? Why do dreams happen? There's a million questions that I don't think science has quite figured out. It's not physical, but at the same time it is. And that anomaly is just really interesting.

So I loved this movie. Haha.

Really, Melissa? It's been out for, what, like a year now? And you hadn't seen it before now?

Nope. Not 'til last night. Crazy, right?

Anyways, for those of you who live under a rock like me until last night, the concept of the movie is a dream within a dream within a dream. Within a dream. Within a dream. Haha. Just kidding, I think that's too many. But you get the point. It's like subconscious espionage: these people (Leo DiCaprio and company) go into this man's dreams to try to plant an idea in his mind, but the guy has to think it was his own idea all along. Verrry interesting. It's kinda one of those things I wish I had thought of myself.

*There will probably be spoilers from this point on. You have been warned.*

WHAT I LOVED:

-The confusingness. (Haha. Spell check is telling me that's not a word. I don't care.) Here's the thing: it wasn't as confusing as I thought it was going to be based on how everyone was talking about it. I was never lost, but I had to think about it to figure out what exactly was going on. I loved the artistry in that, because the whole time Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) is talking about how you can tell you're in a dream when you can't remember exactly how you got to where you are. The whole dream within a dream within a dream thing made the audience experience that too-- I knew the van was the first dream level, but it took me a good few minutes to remember where they were before that. So it was confusing to an end.

-The underlying themes. Like I've said before, I love Christopher Nolan for his themes. The movie is never just a movie with a fun plot and lots of action and so on. There's always a "Hey, for real, this is important. Even if you can't save Gotham City or break into people's dreams." People don't realize how powerful ideas are. No one thinks about the fact that a simple idea can make or break your life. Ideas turn into actions, and actions are what keep the world going. Ideas are a big deal. Or, to put it how Cobb does, "What is the most resilient parasite? A bacteria? A virus? An intenstinal worm? An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate." Another thing Nolan's insanely good at is literalizing his themes... You have Mal, whose life has LITERALLY been taken over, and eventually just plain taken, by an idea. Awesome.

-The creativity. I mean, who comes up with this stuff? It's insane! The screenwriters deserve major props for good writing and whoever came up with the idea (Nolan, I assume) is brilliant. I'm jealous.

-Quotes! I love quotes.

Cobb: "You're waiting for a train...a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope the train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter...because..."
Mal: "Because we'll be together."

"Look at you. You're just a shade, a shade of my real wife. How could I capture all your beauty, your complexity, your perfection, your imperfection, in a dream? Yes, you're the best that I can do. But, I'm sorry, you're just not good enough."


Hehe. That was my sappy fix. I always need a sappy fix.

-The Penrose Steps. Ahaha! That was so ridiculously cool!

THE ENDING:
This is where I've heard the most debate. Did the top keep spinning? Did it not? Is he dreaming? Is he not?
I think he's still dreaming.
I can't really explain why I got that vibe, 'cause I'm not entirely sure. But at the end when he's talking to Saito and he says "Come back with me. We can be young men again," I felt like that was way too much like Mal talking to him right before she jumped. It never explains how they all got back on the plane. You never see Cobb and Saito somehow kicking themselves all the way back up. It feels like he wakes up on the plane with no recollection of how he got there. Which means it was a dream!!
But here's the thing: I don't think it matters. Cobb's goal was never to get back to real life. Even when he and Mal were stuck in Limbo, it wasn't real life that was driving him. It was getting back to his kids. And at the end, he gets back to his kids. We're looking at the top at the end, but he isn't. He doesn't care. He got where he was going, and whether that's reality or not, he's happy. Which made it oddly heartwarming for a sci-fi heist movie.

All in all, purty awesome movie. I'm a fan.

Much love.

<3