Inception is one the most fantastic, complicated, and surrealistic movies that I have seen in quite some time. Inception follows a team of corporate espionage spies who possess the technology to enter into the dreams of top business executives and extracting their trade secrets, which can then be used by the competition. Extraction is considered a relatively simple procedure but becomes much more complicated when one is asked to insert an idea, a procedure known as Inception.
Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the best extractor there is. He's asked by an energy tycoon (Ken Watanabe) to implant an idea in his competitor's (Cillian Murphy) mind that will cause him to split up his empire making competition easier. Of course, Cobb is up to the task, even though his teammates tell him it's nearly impossible. But, you see, Cobb has done this before... This job holds much more meaning than his team is aware of, and quite possibly, a chance for redemption.
The dream sequences are simply mind-blowing and surreal as elements in the environment transform and reorganize themselves creating unstable situations that the characters must navigate. Floors become ceilings, trains barrel through a cityscape, and zero gravity are just some of the things with which the team must contend. The movie can be a little complex at times, as one dream flows to the next. The viewer has to pay close attention to what's going, and any trips to the bathroom or to refill your popcorn or soda, may leave one wondering, "what the hell just happened while I was gone?"
The acting from all parties involved are excellent. Leonardo Di Caprio continues to show the maturity and range that he's recently shown in movies such as The Departed, Shutter Island, and Revolutionary Road. His partner, Arthur, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns an equally impressive performance. And...let's not forget the venerable Ellen Page, who plays the team's dream architect and who is excellent, even though she's given limited material to develop her character. Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy do respectable jobs as the two competing energy tycoons. Look for a cameo by Michael Caine who plays Cobb's father in-law.
Bottom Line: This is a must see movie in the theater.
4 out of 4 stars
Spoiler Alert! The following description which explores some of the psychological underpinnings dealt with in the movie touches on key plot points and reveals.
Inception works really well within the world of Ego psychology, which extends Freudian drive theory by expounding on the ego within the tripartite of id, ego, and superego. The main conflict explored concerns Cobb. You see, Cobb and his wife used to spend inordinate amounts of time in the dream world, a paradise of their own creation. When Cobb learns that his wife begins to have difficulty differentiating between what's real and what's not, he decides that it would be best if they leave their imaginary dream world behind. The dream world, in large part, represents the dreamer's unconscious. Cobb implants the idea in her subconscious that this world is not real, and that the only escape is death. They then kill themselves in the dream world and come back to reality. What Cobb doesn't anticipate, though, is that the idea in her unconscious begins to dominate her entire experience. She now begins to believe that her current world (the real world) is also not real, and that the only escape is death. He tries to convince her but is unable to prevent her from ultimately killing herself.
In the dream world, other people exist as projection's of the dreamer's unconscious. When Cobb infiltrates other people's dreams, his wife often appears, and when she does she is usually possessed with a murderous rage and attempts to sabotage his missions. Images of his wife actually represent projections of Cobb's own guilt and anger toward himself for the death of his wife, for which he feels responsible. Cobb initially doesn't quite understand why she keeps appearing to disrupt his work. In addition, he tries to holds on to the positive memories he has of her, while using the defense mechanism of denial to keep the negative outside his awareness. This is illustrated quite poignantly with the metaphor of an elevator. The positive memories are more readily available to his conscious, but the actual death of his wife is buried in the basement, the deepest part of his unconscious and a floor he never travels. He is eventually forced into the basement and to confront his own guilt and anger toward himself for what happened. His projection of her reflects his unconscious and unstated idea that "If I mess with people's minds, it could have far reaching implications, including those of life and death." His unconscious guilt, thus protects him from doing further damage to others by sabotaging his missions. It isn't until he confronts his guilt, that he is able to see the projection for exactly what it is - an illusion, an aspect of his own psyche.
This touches on how the unconscious plays in our own lives. We all have unconscious wishes, dreams, fantasies, etc. that motivate our behavior outside of our awareness. In some cases, those thoughts and feelings are unacceptable in light of how we view ourselves, and so we create defenses to keep those things from surfacing into conscious awareness. Most of the time, this works well. However, when defenses are fragile, become overwhelmed, or are not working properly, the unconscious seeps into consciousness in ways in which we may not even be aware and that can act to disrupt our lives in undesirable ways. This is usually seen when someone exclaims, "I don't understand WHY I keep doing this!!" as they describe a pattern of behavior that seems to imprison them and sabotages their conscious goals of success. By confronting those aspects (thoughts, feelings, fantasies, memories, etc.) of the unconscious, it exposes our true motivations and frees us to choose the direction of our lives we want to lead.
No comments:
Post a Comment