Inception

If ever there was a movie that was about the stuff dreams are made of, Inception is it. Like "The Matrix" and "Dark City" it leaves you questioning reality itself. Just walking out the theater I almost question whether I could be dreaming now. The well acted performances, well crafted plot, and well done effects will satisfy those craving action, but its concept of dreams within dreams within more dreams keeps you guessing right until it's masterful end.

Please note: Entries about media reviewed in this blog are written from the perspective that the reader has already seen the work in question and desires further commentary or explanation. Plot twists and endings will sometimes be examined.

The movie opens with a scene it'll return to later. We see the main character of our story Dom Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) washed up on a beach where he's found and then taken to an elderly Japanese man. Looking only at a metallic top which aside from his firearm was the only thing Cobb had on him, the old man seems to remember him. Then we skip away to another time and place entirely.

Cobb and his associate Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are making a pitch to a Japanese man named Saito (Ken Watanabe) about how even one's thoughts and dreams and memories are no longer secure. Cobb is trying to sell his services as one who can help train Saito to guard and protect his own mind. Saito is reluctant, however, and says he'll take the night to think about it. We then see from a conversation between Cobb and Arthur that the two of them are actually thieves of some kind attempting to get at one of Saito's secrets, but when Cobb decides to try and steal them directly out of Saito's vault he is thwarted by Mal (Marion Cotillard who recently appeared in Public Enemies opposite Johnny Depp) a woman he apparently knows and cannot completely trust.

It is revealed that all we've seen is actually the inside of a shared dream in which the characters can connect to one another and control things to a certain degree thanks to a new piece of technology (I don't think the device is ever actually named in the movie). Cobb and his associates were attempting to literally steal secrets out of Saito's mind, the very thing he had actually been warning the man to beware of in the dream. Outside a riot brewing in the streets threatens to put all their lives in danger and Cobb and his men try using the encroaching danger as a reason to get Saito to divulge his secret. This too turns out to be a ruse, one that Saito is able to see through due to an imperfect detail in the room, and one of the first of the movie's secrets to be revealed to us as well: we are actually seeing a dream within a dream, such a thing is possible in this world.

Their job failed, Cobb and his men decide to leave Saito and begin to split up. He alludes at heading to South America to lay low until new work can be found, but is instead confronted suddenly by Saito who catches up to them and then offers Cobb a chance to return to the USA. The job is to acquire a specific target, enter their mind and rather than learn a secret of theirs, instead plant a thought or idea and consequently influence them to do something they wouldn't otherwise. The process of getting secrets by entering dreams we learn is called "extraction", and the characters seem somewhat familiar with it. This new procedure of planting a thought in an individual is called "inception" and it is thought to be impossible by Arthur, though Cobb says otherwise, confessing he has actually been able to accomplish it once before.

It is explained that Cobb has been basically exiled from the US when he went on the run after the death of Mal (who we now find out was his wife). Wanting more than anything else to see his children, who are still in the US, and therefore separated from him, Cobb decides to take the job despite the difficulties and dangers involved.

Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) is the man Saito wants to acquire. His father is the head of a "communications superpower" and apparently is on his deathbed, with junior standing to inherit everything. Saito, recognizing he can no longer compete against this rival company, wants Cobb to implant the idea to break apart his father's company inside Robert's head. To do so, Cobb assembles a team that includes amongst others, a chemist to keep them all sedated for longer, a master of disguise, and an "architect" named Ariadne (Ellen Page) to build the dreams they'll inhabit. Ariadne, over the course of the film gets much closer to Cobb than the others and discovers several important things about him. One is that his "totem" (a device whose physics and qualities only they know and can use to tell if they're in a dream or not), is actually one he acquired from Mal, a metal top (the same he had on him in the opening sequence) which will not stop spinning once started. One is that he keeps several haunting memories of his past "locked away" within his mind. One is that he cannot seem to remember his childrens' faces or bear to look upon them in his dreams (though he constantly sees their backs facing him in odd places when he does enter one). This is a result of his regret at leaving them to flee after Mal's death. More importantly than anything else, Ariadne learns that Mal sort of lives on within Cobb's subconscious and that she occasionally shows up in dreams he enters and screws things up. She's kind of like that horrible seed of doubt that exists inside us all and innerly makes us think we might be sabotaging our own chances to succeed.

Mal is something of a frightening presence in the film. In the first dream sequence we see her not only expose Cobb when he tries to rob Saito, but also begin to torture Arthur. Later when she appears in something of a tutorial Cobb is using to teach Ariadne, she shows up and physically attacks her as well. The plan, we learn, is something of extreme difficulty requiring multiple dreams within dreams, and the danger that Mal could appear at any time to menace the team hangs over their heads at all times. Ariadne agrees not to reveal Cobb's secret if only he allows her to come along with him to keep him and the others safe.

The team intercepts Robert on a plane and drugs him, then enters his dream. From the moment it starts, things begin to go awry. We learn that Robert has had some training or safeguards placed in his mind to keep him safe from people like Cobb and his group, and as a consequence, people in Robert's dreams will become suspicious of and violent towards them very quickly. Saito, who has come along to help and make sure his investment is secure, is shot very shortly after they enter, and his wound threatens not only the group's ability, but also Cobb's security in the US as all depends on Saito making a phone call once everything has been fulfilled. How real the danger of this particular dream is, is also made plain very early. Dying in this dream will not cause one to wake up but instead slip into the "limbo" of an unconscious coma, perhaps never to wake up.

The plot to this film is absolutely labyrinthine and twists upon itself again and again. The long extended dream sequence wherein the team tries its inception on Robert is the centerpiece for the film's many effects and plot twists. In addition to the gravity defying action there is also the psychological tension of whether or not the team will be able to effectively read Robert's mind (specifically the relationship he has with his father) and change it to make him break apart the company.

Generally when we dream, we succumb to the influence of our subconscious, believing all we see and getting carried away by more fantastical elements of our imaginations made real. The characters in this film don't act that way when they enter dreams, though it isn't made entirely clear if this is because of the machine or their skill at navigating this type of mindscape (I suspect it's a little of both). It is mentioned that the longer they remain in the dream, the greater the danger they lose their minds, believing it all to be true.

We learn at one point that certain rules are in place for the dream world we are entering. Hearing music and feeling the effects of gravity (the sensation of falling) in the real world and having it affect the dream are things the viewer may already have known about from dreams of their own, while some other elements appear to be made up, such as the passage of time being much longer within each level of dreams within dreams and the destructive effect we see when the subject learns they are in a dream. And while the perception of falling gives the film its greatest action sequences (a series of fights in a hotel hall way where gravity literally changes in real time) I also can't help but wonder if director Chris Nolan has used something of cheat here as well, given that we're also told that tipping over a person will still wake them up despite the effects of the sedative. The van sequence in particular has several points where the vehicle appears to fall or tip or flip over, but only when the plot demands it does it appear our characters will awaken from it.

Late in the film we learn the secret of Cobb and Mal. It turns out that the past success Cobb had at inception was upon Mal herself and that he got her to believe they were in a dream after they had spent too long within one and she had become deluded into believing it was authentic. The idea took root, too well perhaps, and she became convinced the real world was an illusion as well, in the end taking her own life to try and wake up. The whole ordeal has haunted Cobb and he seems to actually want her to continue to exist - in his own mind and dreams if nowhere else. When she shows up to ruin the plans of the team, he is forced to jump still one layer further into the dreams to confront her for himself. He does do so, and puts her to rest for good, finally acknowledging she is but a shadow of the actual woman he knew.

While the inception appears to be a success, the ending of the film is purposely left open to speculation. The final events of the film happen quickly and appear to lack a definite beginning or end (which it was mentioned earlier in the film are often indicators of being in a dream). Cobb stays behind when everyone else leaves knowing he has to find and rescue Saito so he can make the important call for him to enter the US. It is revealed that the elderly Japanese man Cobb meets in the beginning of the film is indeed Saito. He appears to have grown old, buried within the stratum of dreams upon dreams after passing out injured on their mission. Though we see details like Saito making the call and Cobb getting into the US, we never see exactly how the characters wake up or how the machine is cleared away so Robert will not become suspicious. I half expected him to quote Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz by the time he woke up: "I had the weirdest dream just now. And you were there, and you were there too, and... and... you too!"

When Cobb makes it to his kids he suspects he's in a dream still and spins the top on a table. But just then his kids turn around putting his doubts to rest and he leaves it as it continues to spin there for a strangely long amount of time. It appears to skip and slow a few times but continues to go... And then the movie cuts to black before we see if it stops or not, leaving the final interpretation up to us, the perfect ending in my opinion.

Whether or not Cobb is still dreaming, we know that when it comes down to it his mind has been put to ease at long last regarding Mal and that he can now look upon his kids and be with them again. Whether reality or not, his soul has finally found peace. If it is indeed all a fantasy he's better off not knowing and at least fading off into a happy and blissful delusion rather than one of torment.

Dreams

I just finished a Japanese lesson which involved me reading an article about dreams, and got my mind running. I've long had a lot of thoughts and opinions about dreams, and as it turns out, I've also had a lot of dreams as well, perhaps more than many others have. I should probably write as much as I can now while the thoughts are still there and before, like so many of the dreams I've had, all is forgotten.

Among the things mentioned in the article were a few I had heard before: we only dream at the "Rapid Eye Movement" (REM) State when we are in the deepest point of our sleep; it is not at all uncommon to have several dreams in one night; we remember very few of our dreams because, unless we awaken shortly after we have them (about 8 minutes after the dream concludes), we aren't likely to remember them. There were a few things I didn't know as well that I read in the article. One was that people who aren't very stressed out have a tendency to have more dreams, while those who don't worry quite as much don't tend to have them quite as much either. It makes a bit of sense when you think about it; the more stressing reality is to a person, the more likely they are to seek escapism, and in sleep I suppose that option is to dream.

It does strike me how often I have them. I suppose this all means that I'm a bit of a stressed out person when it comes down to it. I asked my language partner if she had many dreams and she said, "No, not really. I don't really worry about things much either, so I think that I generally just sleep easily and dreamlessly."

I'm left thinking of another quote from the book "Shantaram". In it, one of the characters said to another that we really don't feel sad when we're asleep; we might feel happy or even frightened, but never really sad. Though I cannot speak for others, I would have to say this is true for myself. At the saddest points in my life, I've often felt like wanting nothing more than for the day to end and simply to rest. I wonder sometimes if we have to be awake to be sad, if it takes consciousness or awareness to realize that things aren't going right for us in life and thus formulate the feelings of sorrow. I also sometimes wonder if sadness is linked to intelligence, that we have to be smart enough to know things are bad and that again our knowledge can sometimes only bring misery. For this reason I also wonder if animals, who are conscious only to a certain extent though perhaps not entirely aware of their existence and surroundings, can truly feel sad either (they certainly seem to have happiness, anger, and fear in them though I'm not sure about actual sadness).

I think that dreams are more or less your mind making vivdly real the random thoughts that swim around in our heads. Over the course of the day we find our minds wandering all over the place, thinking of other places and hypothetical situations. Even when we sleep we don't stop thinking. When we dream, we don't have our consciousness to ground ourselves in reality, and those hypothetical places and situations become real to us as we do so. The logic doesn't make sense, because people in dreams don't act as we do in real life, their actions are as random as any of us changing our minds or having a new thought enter our head. The scenery in a dream has us hopping from place to place, because no sooner do we think of a new one than we are transported there. Sometimes we dream of places we've been but the layout or geography is weird, slightly different than reality because our mind makes it imperfect. Sometimes in dreams, the way to get back where we came from disappears on us.

Though I've never felt sad in a dream, another conclusion I've recently to come to towards the ones I've had is that they tend to leave me feeling a little unsettled. I sometimes think that perhaps I ground my thoughts a bit much in logic or understanding while I am awake, and because I can never seem to understand what is going on or why things are happening as they do while in a dream, I think it leaves me a bit unnerved. I do think it's interesting to try and interpret your own dreams and try to use them figure out your own thought processes. While I certainly cannot disprove it, however, I don't know how much stock I put in the ideas that we can see the future in them or the people who say this.

I once lost my phone and spent half the night looking for it before getting too tired to continue and having to go to sleep. I dreamt I found it in certain a place I hadn't looked and the next day, when I did so was surprised to find it there. A situation like this, however, simply makes me think that I must've still been pondering where I could've lost it when I went to bed -especially after searching so extensively the night before and having it weigh so heavily on my thoughts- and that I simply remembered a place I might've left it while I was asleep rather than awake. Because I was asleep when I did so, I think that it simply became incorperated into my dream. The mind is a funny thing in the end, and I find it interesting the different ways it will manifest external factors into our dreams. I've heard music in my dreams only to wake up to that music playing in real life. I've heard voices calling me in my dreams only to find it was whoever was trying to awaken me. I've used the bathroom countless times in dreams only to be left wondering why I still have to go, until the realization hits me that I'm in a dream and need to wake up and make a visit to a real toilet. In trying to interpret our dreams we can understand more not only about the inner thought processes of our minds, but the external factors in our lives as well and how we feel deep down inside about them.

I remember watching a movie called "Unsung Heroes" when I was younger where one of the main characters was telling the child in the story about his dreams. He was showing him a book, which he said was a record of the dreams he'd had. Kind of a quirky character, he had realized how fast and easily we forget our dreams and so, he said, that every time he woke up from a dream he would quickly run to write it down or draw a picture of it so he wouldn't forget. There are very few of my own which I can remember, but I thought I'd write a few down, some of the more vivid ones just for the hell of it. I woke up very shortly after each of them leaving a fresh impression in my head, though I remember each for very different reasons as well.

I only heard the term "lucid dream" recently while talking with some friends, though I realize I've had several over the course my life. It simply means a dream in which you realize that you are in one, change your behavior, and sometimes even are able to control it to some extent or other. I had one once where I was falling to the bottom a very large canyon. It looked a lot like the Grand Canyon -which I had seen when I was very young- and I think it was my memory of that place which inspired it all. Midway through falling, however, I somehow came to the realization that I was dreaming. Something about the whole thing just felt off, unreal, and for whatever reason I just sort of understood that I was still asleep. I was able to control it somewhat then, to keep myself from falling; the wind blew heavily and it was as if I was now falling forward instead of down. Gradually I drifted away and eventually out of sleep, only to find myself dangling halfway off the top bunk of the bed I was then sharing with my little brother at that point in my childhood.

I haven't had many nightmares at all when I think about it. My parents did their best to keep horror movies away from me and my brother and sister when we were younger which might have played a part in all of this. The worst nightmare I ever had actually occurred when I was just a year into high school. I had a friend at that time who was in a gang and constantly telling exaggerated stories about things he and his friends had done, though nothing to the extent which I saw that night. I think that a few mafia movies and extremely violent video games I'd watched recently -and the fact that I'd also gotten stoned pretty recently leaving my mind wide open to a childlike imagination- probably had more to do with it all. In the nightmare I had, my friend killed a person who mouthed off to him. I remeber that I felt very shocked and horrified, and then for some reason, everything around me just melted away and I was in a warehouse full of body parts stuffed into garbage bags and steel oil drums, a killing factory of sorts. I was surrounded by the carnage, and I don't know why, but I just somehow understood that a bunch of gangsters had done this, human beings mutilating other human beings. I remember shivering not simply from fear, but also because the air around me felt unnaturally cold, damp, and clammy. I awoke so shaken that I couldn't fall back to sleep, couldn't move out of my bed for fear, and so just lay awake there until, after some time had passed, I finally calmed down. It's strange how when we first regain consciousness, there's a lull between, where we're half asleep and sometimes don't realize it was all just a dream and still believe it to be real. Though I'd seen characters in movies and TV shows waking up in cold sweats scared out their wits from nightmares, I'd never actually understood this feeling until then, and to some extent had thought it was simply theatrics. Can only imagine what it must be like for those who really live through wars and true horrors to dream about it later.

The last dream I can really remember vividly was one where I was more or less living out a pulp noir western of sorts. My brother and I went looking for some people (can't remember why exactly) and we found them in some abandoned village in steep, rocky canyon. I remember it looking a lot like an old western ghost town, except the buildings where made of stone like ancient ruins. When we got there, we found the people we were looking for, only to find they weren't willing to come with us. We argued with them briefly before one of them looked out the window and simply said something like: "They've come for us." I remember looking out the window to see a group of men wearing hats and long, gray dusters just arriving into the town. One of them had on a long black coat and a black hat instead as well as a long, dark rifle slung over his back and seemed to be leading them. It felt a lot like being in a movie. I think I remember this dream mostly because it was right at this moment, just as it was getting interesting, that I was awakened by an alarm and reminded that I needed to get up and go to school. I also remember quickly making a futile attempt to go back to sleep, wanting to see what would happen. There was no such luck, though, apparently you can't exactly return to your dreams like a scene on a DVD whenever you want to once you've woken up. I've never had a recurring dream, but if ever there was one I wish I could have this would've been it. How disappointing, it's like never getting to see the conclusion to something you started watching but were very intereted in. Then again though, they are just dreams. Most are destined to be forgotten and each time it happens, it's almost like a small miracle that some even get remembered at all...

"Reality" TV

I had a dream once that all of TV had been transformed into a strange version of reality television, every channel was a different person, and you could just turn it on and watch it anytime you wanted to 24/7. It was peoples' source of everything from entertainment and diversion to porn. In left me all in a strange way, and wondering what to make of it. A vision of what the collective secret desires of society as a whole could be at times, with its most honestly voyeuristic confessions granted. To surf through channels was to pick a random stranger and watch them. Some people were very popular and had many people watching them, others probably none at all. But it was all there if you wanted to see it, anyone else's life at the click of a button. Like all dreams there were gaps in the logic of it all. The idea of strangers watching them did not leave anyone unsettled, frightened, or trying to hide from it all.

Back when I was still going to State and studying communications, I took a class on the history of radio and television. I remember one of the teachers I had back then told our class that reality TV was the result of a writers' strike that made producers begin to consider alternative programming that wouldn't require scripts. While reality TV has certainly been around in some form or another for much longer than this actual event, I do believe it was a writers' strike that caused the real boom in reality TV in the sort of form we most commonly see it now.

Just where I stand exactly on reality TV is tough to say. I watch it very rarely, but in the end, I guess I am still watching it. On the one hand it often serves its purpose as a diversion. It can even be entertaining and sometimes even instructive, actually teaching its audience new things or making them aware. Usually, however, it's hard for me to look at it as anything other than the epitome of popped, disposable entertainment at best, the opium of the masses at worst. Too often it feels like, well, turning on the TV and watching a random stranger no different than in the dream I had.

Have the television producers won? I honestly haven't got a clue what those writers were striking over, but as a generally over worked, underpaid group of artists who have to endlessly come up with stories and characters and scenarios to try touch our hearts and minds, I have a hard time not siding with writers over producers who tend to see the whole thing as more of a means to make money.

No one ever seems to doubt that the invention of the television has enriched our lives. With it we don't just see how tomorrow's weather will be, find out if our favorite team won, or what's happening in remote parts of the world but still affect us. Through programming we learn what it is like to have a brother or sister even if we don't, to be in love before we ever are, to experience death and loss before we ever do. While I won't argue that the scripting on many TV shows doesn't get stale after a while, when I look at unscripted programming like what I see on reality TV shows, it's sometimes hard for me not to think: "They would kill off the writers altogether if they ceased to be profitable, while they simply dream up situations to put real people in rather than write up the dialogue themselves..." Who wouldn't argue that it is not only much cheaper to bypass hiring a writer but also easier to simply let the cameras roll on some ordinary people and record them unscripted?

I wouldn't claim that the unscripted aspect of it all doesn't offer an otherwise unavailable opportunity to young and just-starting-out filmmakers in the form of the documentary. The documentary often stands at the height of what realism has been captured on film. It is a form which seeks to analyze what it takes in, to record it for genuine understanding and reflection. Some reality TV shows, such as "The Real World" has certainly done its homework when it comes to this aspect, and as such has tried its hardest to model itself after the documentary, even if its subject (in this case, young, uninitiated kids just barely old enough to even live alone basically) doesn't in actuality have a whole lot to teach us.

While even dull documentaries are plagued by shallow subjects, what's outright annoying is just how engineered the "drama" in "Reality" shows actually is. We decry movie writers for coming up with contrived situations, we would call foul on a documentarian who tries purposely to influence what they record just to make things interesting rather than observe it naturally, and yet we basically let reality TV get away with exactly this all the time. Part of the ability of reality shows to achieve any kind of an engaging narrative out of hours and hours of raw footage comes from editing. It isn't just an art of piecing together crucial and important moments and adding appropriate music. If one of the people filmed never manages to say anything truly offensive or edgy while drunk if not sober, it can always be edited it in such a way as to make it seem so, in essence "caricaturing" the person for the audience.

Very loud, quick to anger, overt, people are casted purposely because they make for memorable personalities, even if we wouldn't ever wanna talk to someone like them in real life. I often wonder though, just how much the "characters" on reality shows are actually encouraged to confront or fight one another or confess their attractions just for the viewing audiences' entertainment. Generally in real life we tend to keep things bottled up inside rather than say things we can't take back, and the whole thing also seems to get heightened even more by having bystanders (if not other cast members then at the least rolling cameras and camera men) present at all times to witness what would otherwise take place privately behind closed doors. People tend to get much more emotional when they know they're being watched. People often feel like they're being ridiculed or are losing face if they become embarrassed in front of others. In fact, people pretty much stop acting the way they really are the moment you put a camera in front of them which in itself seems to defeat the whole purpose of calling it "Reality" TV. They have a tendency to try and be amusing or charming or lively even when there's nothing really going on, nothing worth saying, until you just basically wanna tell them to shut up.

Perhaps most agitating of all are some of the "stars" to be born of this whole medium. I'm not gonna try and disguise this one at all. I honestly can't stand the idea of society having celebrities purely for the sake of having celebrities. So often people like these have no real, discernable talent at all whatsoever, and yet they rise. They achieve fame as result of notoriety, luck, advertising dollars, and I'm sad to say, the public's lurid desire to see more. And far too often it is from the crucible of reality TV that impurities such as these rise to the surface to be first glimpsed by the public. I don't know how many times or with how many people I've collectively wondered exactly why Paris Hilton is a "star" or "celebrity" or whatever else you'd call her (the word "celebutante" was at one point floated around to describe the ones likes her but it never seemed to catch on). Too often the general consensus was that she basically screwed on camera and that gave her her big break. Regardless of wether she meant for it to get out to the public or not, it's hard not to argue that it was the best thing which could've possibly happened for her career. More troubling, however, is the thought that by doing this, she may in a way have just been giving the public what they wanted. To stare and gawk and talk badly about the whole thing while secretly wanting more.

Sometimes I wonder if they really have won. Nobody has any interest in what's going on in the world, the politicians run wild while we're all distracted, bad things happen, we don't pay attention, we get lied to and cheated, and all the while we're just more concerned about the next episode of American Idol than any of that. The public is completely hooked and has an insatiable appetite for what has become the new opiate of the masses, and it's even cheaper and easier to produce than something that actually requires writing and imagination. They say there is truth in dreams but the logic is missing, and I now begin to wonder how different we are from those in the dream I had. Perhaps we are all just luridly obsessed with watching and people like Paris Hilton are just indulging us, giving us what we want without having to channel surf till we can find other people acting shallow, crazy or bitchy or having sex just so we can watch them. When we're not doing that, we are just watching total strangers, and in a way, the producers just selling us our own lives back to ourselves and we're actually paying them to carry a camera around and follow people so we can watch...