This post is going to interpret this movie as the story of how Cobb became a Cynic. The hypothetical reader, who has also read the other posts in this series (and I'm on statcounter, so I know that that is nobody. The rest of this paragraph is going to be on theory and this blog, so if you just want to read about Inception, you can skip it), will know that this narrative of someone 'becoming' a Cynic is basicly what I've said every movie I've looked at is about. There are two aspects of Sloterdijks theory, which lends itself to this: Cynics are supposed to be the dominant and most common personality in the world today, and Cynicism has entered the world to halt the development of enlightenment. So the story of a Cynic is really the story of a normal person, who has stopped developing. It is not the best story for a film. So I've found examples, where people struggle with cynicism, and in the end embrace it. Not really how it works in the real world, but more narratively satisfying. Only in the repetetive media of tv could a Cynic really be described as he really is, another reason why Don Draper is the most masterful example.
But anyways, Inception. I'm not the first to propose, that the film really isn't about Dreams, but about media instead. The inceptors create dreams, they don't just have them, and therefore it seems more precise to compare it to filmmaking. As Salon succintly put it: '“Inception.” Is not. About dreams. Not real ones, anyway. The dreams in which much of the movie takes place are artificial constructs, rational, rectilinear simulacra designed to achieve specific ends.' Several other people has realized this, and most articles I've read, including the one at Salon, then positions that the film is about filmmaking. Which is almost true, but it misses the part about 'designed to achieve specific ends'. Inception is about affecting peoples mind to implant ideas. It is about a specific form of filmmaking: It's about propaganda. It's about ideology. And it's about marketing. Surprisingly, I've seen several negative reviews of the film walking right up to pointing this theme out, but then backing down. The review at Frieze ended with the lines: 'There is none of the weirdness, creepiness, intimacy, fun, eroticism, bewilderment or plain neurosis that really fuel dreams. Ironically, the film’s visual style looks just like one which might be used to sell fast cars or luxury hotels to the sort of big business types the film depicts. Inception is science fiction, business class.' And in a discussion at Owlsmag, the participants say, amongst other things: 'Dreams should be weird and woozy and hot and fickle. Inception plays like a two-and-a-half-hour American Express ad' and 'I was intrigued – or rather confused – by the film’s starting notion that it’s hard to plant ideas in people’s heads. Isn’t that how publicity works?' I find it weird that smart reviewers could comment so clearly that the film seemed more like marketing than like dreams, and then not look at whether or not the film might actually be more interesting as a comment on this subject.
If a Cynic is a person who willingly submits to, and tries to exploit, false consciousness, then the dream-creators of Inception are truly Cynics. They create false realities in order to change Fisher. But they seem hardly to understand what is going on. Now, Inception isn't a masterpiece, and Nolan is even less of an auteur. But in some way, the feeling that Nolan isn't in complete control of his movie, and the hardly profound yet none the less riveting nature of the film, fits the subject perfectly. That is, if the subject is ideology rather than dreams and the subconscious. The best scene in the film comes when Fisher finally finds his way into the secret vault, and finds his dying father. We know that the tableaux has been created by the inceptors, and that it is all just a lie. It is the most clear example of Fisher being manipulated. Yet the film seems to momentarily forget this. The score by Hans Zimmer is just as dramatic as it always is, and the editing of the film is used to milk the melodrama for all it's worth. It is presented just like it was the sentimental climax that would always occur in a blockbuster at this point, that it is in fact supposed to be a lie is completely forgotten at the moment. I really can't tell if it's intended as a subversive critique of big-studio moviemaking, or if the movie-producing machine just wasn't able to create a language subtle enough to convey the irony of this scene. And that is kinda why this scene is among the finest created in the last few years.
As I said, I'm not sure Nolan really knows what he is doing all the time. One of the chief ironies of the film is, that so much of the time is dedicated to people simply spelling out the rules of the film, and yet there is never a person in the film who seems to fully understand the techniques they are using. The technique was invented 'by the military' to train soldiers, none of the characters was involved in this. They do not seem to grasp completely what is going on, and we never reach a position from which we can objectively point out what is going on. Therefore, the plot of the film can obviously be interpreted in a multitude of ways (btw, this does not necessarily has anything to do with the quality of the film. Some people seem to think, that the posibility to interpret a film in different ways means that it is good, but vagueness does not equal greatness. If interpretations has anything to do with artistic value, then it must of course be based on the quality instead of the quantity of interpretations). The most discussed aspect of the film is of course the ending, and any interpretation of the film has to deal with this ending. I'm going to present a reading, which main quality is, that it most perfectly fits my theme of Cynicism.
The ending with the spinning totem is a masterful slight of hand. As we leave the theater, everyone asks each other: 'Does it fall?' Yet through out the film, that hasn't really been the question. The actual question in the film has been more like 'Does it work?' This is Mal's problem, and she ends up thinking, that her totem has lost the power to define dream and reality. I say she is right. The whole of the film has been Cobb's dream, and the totem has never really worked. It has only indicated reality because Cobb wanted it to. So what is the film about? Well, if it is a false reality Cobb has created for himself, then he sure has created a lot of sad things to haunt him. The Cobolt people are hunting him, and he can't see his children. In this reading, the men who tries to kill him are aspects of his subconscious, trying to pull him out of the unreality he has caught himself in. So the whole vaguely defined plot of the film, with Fisher and Saito, which we never really get the conclusion to before the film completely turns to Cobb and his children, is simply a deception he creates for himself. He is Incepting himself. The important thing in the final scene, then, isn't how long the totem spins. It is that Cobb doesn't care to check it before he runs out to his children. Real or not, he is going to stay with his children. If seen this way, it becomes the story of a man willingly giving up on the search for the real world. It is about a man willingly accepting his own false consciousness. It is about the birth of Cynic.
Next week: More on modern warfare and terrorism, with Inglourious Basterds
[Part I: Introduction and Mad Men]
[Part II: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance & Police, Adjective]
[Part III: Brothers Karamazov and Melancholia]
[Part IV: Apocalypse Now]
[Part VI: Inglourious Basterds]
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