19 July 2010

Inception: Deception of the Supposedly Thought-Provoking Film


this article contains major spoilers 

Recently, I read the phrase "the medium is the medium" in reference to social networking and how fitting that I was treated to a trailer about that Facebook movie whilst I waited for Inception to begin. I'll get back to that. Given that there will be thousands of online reviews about the film, I'm going to offer some thoughts on one aspect of the film (and reaction to the film) which vexes me.

First, some quick impressions: 

• I liked the internationalist aspects of the film, Japan, Paris, Mombasa, Los Angeles, some rocky, snow-capped mountains; it this respect the film has been compared to James Bond movies, my favourite part of James Bond movies. The bit in Kenya had that post-colonial yet colonial feel, white men doing shady deals in a exotic and dangerous locus. No, it's not politically correct but I would have been fine with the film spending most of its time in Africa. More Hollywood action films should be shot there.

• No character was written to fulfill a stereotypical role (like comic relief or the best friend) except for the crazy wife who had to played be a French actress. But even then the idea is sufficiently understated to pass muster. Ellen Page is not only luminous but you can see her think about what a character had just told her. I was not familiar with actor Tom Hardy. Good find. The entire cast is great.

• Fisher Jr. having his subconscious trained against extraction. I love it when a movie is honest about setting me up for something, makes me forget it and then surprises me with it again later. Advantage Nolan.

• With so many levels of reality, what's at stake for the characters is watered down. Hitchcock could build scenes of almost unbearable tension with the simplest of ideas. When ideas get too complicated and a same life can be lost to limbo in three different levels of dreams, the effect nullifies itself.

• Also, limbo did feel like enough of a threat for me to feel a sense of urgency and danger. So many abstractions in the film gave you the notion from the get go (a notion confirmed in the last scene) that the entire thing could all be in the mind, thus reducing, if not obliterating, a sense of danger.

• I realise Nolan doesn't do sex, but are we to believe that men have such tame dreams?  Doesn't anybody realise that aside from Mal, the only woman that appears is a projection of Eames? But the dreams in Inception aren't dreams, are they? This made up world belongs to the world of gaming with a designer, different levels to complete, car chases and everything exploding all the time.

• I have a bone to pick with some of Inception's action scenes. It's clear that if any of us were to find ourselves witness to an epic battle or a car chase in real life, we would be so overwhelmed and confused, we would find ourselves unable to give the police anything like a complete description of what went down. Films have for a long time given us an objective view of such scenes, and even when the camera is positioned to make us feel as though we were in the scene ourselves, we are always given enough overall P.O.V.  to understand/verify that the stunt people and stunt designers have done a sound job. We are shown that what we saw makes cinematographic sense.  This contract between filmmakers and audience, that an action scene should make some empirical sense as understood within Hollywood suspension of disbelief, is breaking down fast. Now, under the guise of reality (I'm guessing) we are too often given the reality of what would be a partial view. We are given a camera P.O.V. of the shocked and the sense of being overwhelmed by fighters, gunfires, car explosing, glass shattering all around us. This  "more" realistic sense of disorientation is not entirely dissatisfying, I just hope filmmakers realise we know they are cheating and, in some ways, dampening our enjoyment. The satisfaction of a good fighting scene or a car chase is to see the artistry that went into making such complicated scenes make sense. Compare the eighteen-wheeler scene in Terminator 2 with the very confusing car chase scene in the second Matrix movie. Actions scenes don't need to make any geophysical (or for that matter scientific sense) anymore. I believe that is a pity. Inception is not the greatest offender in this but it is worth noting.

Mental masturbation cannot be intellectually fertile

So, I come to the aspect of Inception which bothers me on many levels (hahaha). Simple: the idea that Inception is a thought-provoking film offends me. In my view, it's anything but. This matters to me because summer is still young and I've got BBQs and all manner of social events to go to and when Inception comes out on DVD before Christmas, it will be just in time for another very social season. This means roughly six months of listening to people, mostly guys, argue the minutia of Inception like they are participating in a truly philosophical discussion. They will argue about whose dream is whose, the implications thereof, is the entire film a dream, are our lives just about dreaming. Philip K. Dick and then Ridley Scott got there decades ago with Blade Runner and it was hardly a philosophical question then. Books and movies about solipsistic notions are attractive and it's easy to understand why. For the artist, it affords the ability to toy with boundaries of reality and to the young or geeky readers, it gives them the hope that their actual lives may be much better than the one they are entrapped in right now.

Solipsism is a seductive idea, but a circular one that doesn't lead anywhere. I believe this is why certain types are so enamoured with it. A movie like Inception derived from vaguely solipsistic ideas will give rise to thousands of discussions everyday because to talk about ambiguity in the film gives pretence to complexity of thought. 

Inception is only the latest fetish object in a long string of cultural items in a collection of subjects for a certain type of geeks. Trekkies have been around since the sixties and have always been deemed innocuous. It is however the elevation of geekdom which has brought obsession upon the mundane into the mainstream. It became cute to dedicate one's every spare moment, or one's every moment in life to the dismantling of every aspect of a TV show, scifi book or film. The advent of the internet and social networking allowed disparate geeks to "meet" and grow and validate each other. Asperger has become a desirable condition, one that many geeks satisfactorily brandish proudly upon self-diagnosis.

Asperger is a mild form of autism and one hallmark of this terrible disease is the inability and difficulty to bond. Autism is in part the difficulty to understand the human condition and to have empathy. A person with Asperger or autism may be able to recognise patterns, identify weak signs the rest of us would overlook but that maybe due to a lack of interference from the understanding of certain complexities.

We are talking about different types of complexities and ambiguities when we discuss, for example, David Lean's A Passage to India based on the novel  by E.M. Forster rather than Inception. When we engage in a discussion about whether or not a Muslim Indian man raped a white British woman, we plunge into far more challenging grounds. A conversation about ambiguity that touches upon real life and real life concerns can lead to enlightenment, self-knowledge and greater knowledge of the other. A conversation about details of Inception will likely be pornographic. Obsessed with meaningless detail and circular. Such forensics amount to mental masturbation and mental masturbation can never be intellectually fertile.

I'm not saying people shouldn't talk about Inception, I am saying that we should stop pretending the film is thought-provoking and that discussions about it have value.

In a sense, I'm as guilty as anyone else, for we speak and type words endlessly these days without putting much meaning in them. Whether it is in blogs, social networks, or on the mobile phone, we waste words every day. Inception proved effective to me on one level (ha...), it was a gigantic, hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars Hollywood hammer. Only a few minutes into the movie, I dreaded how Nolan, as one of our realm's major architects, had made the world outside just a bit more artificial with rooms across the world filled with masturbatory discussions about his film.

34 comments:

  1. In my view, you have no imagination. Stick to flipping burgers at your social bbqs...you shouldn't be writing dull articles.

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  2. Ok, you display your imagination to me. Tell me what substantive issues arise from this film, social, psychological, philosophical or otherwise.

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  3. Philosophers have been debating the nature of reality since the term "philosophy" existed. If viewers of INCEPTION engage in similar debate because of the film's premise, and not over more facile aspects of the film such as how a totem works or whether or not the top is still spinning when the credits roll, they may find their way into substantially "fertile" intellectual ground (even as narrowly defined by you).

    Your attitude toward the "validity" of various ideas is both condescending and pretentious-- only thoughts pertaining to the animal/physical aspects of the human condition are worthy of debate? If we discuss the human mind or dreams and not rape or murder, we're "masturbating"?

    Jung, Freud, and a thousand other great minds would beg to differ. After all, you spend more than a third of your life asleep, and therefore dreaming.

    You must be the life of every party you attend.

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  4. I'm not sure what the fuck nerds, Asperger's, Star Trek, and Muslim-white rape has to do with Inception (or even intellectual masturbation), but okay.

    Blog about whatever floats your boat.

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  5. Agreed on the ever-increasing annoying-ness of fanboys.

    Most fanboys--and the filmmakers they admire--seem to have this deep-rooted desire to marry Action/Genre Movies with Philosophy which is as pointless as trying to make Porn philosophical.

    And you'll notice how on many of the fanboy websites they keep urging people to go see 'Inception' to 'save Hollywood'. Which, to me, exhibits some childish desire to have all their likes mixed together: Philosophy, Action Movies, Popularity/Economic Success.

    After watching 'Inception' a second time, I will say that the movie only REALLY works because the Score and the Action and the Setting (the Aesthetics) are extremely well achieved. In short, just like 'The Matrix', the Philosophy/Semantics of it are all subservient to the Movie/Hollywood-ness of it...which is what makes listening to Philosophical discussions about it infuriating.

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  6. This is a good blog, it is encouraging to see people giving value
    through great post.Thanks

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  7. There are a lot of things I liked about Inception, it certainly was aesthetically pleasing to watch, I agree. And I also agree that to elevate the film and treat it like a cinematic philosophical essay is infuriating. The thing is I suspect Nolan has such pretensions.

    In discussing the meaning of life and the nature of life, the question of reality necessarily arises, but such a discussions are embedded in the other ones.

    It's the people who value purely solipsistic discussions who spoil the fun at parties.

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  8. Yawn. It's true what they say: Any idiot can have a blog these days.

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  9. Dull. The "M" word is so unbecoming and unnecessary... then to go on and write pointless paragraph after pointless paragraph displaying in your writing just what you accuse Nolan of doing. Or maybe you're right. You should be the writer/director/producer making the highest quality of film productions, and that hack Nolan should stick to writing crappy blogs.

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  10. It's interesting that people who disagree feel the need to insult. But in a way this confirms what I wrote. People seem less and less interested in substantive discussions/debate.

    Thank you, rehab-bingo!

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  11. What needs to be discussed is completely an individual choice...

    What is the most important aspect of movie making? to entertain!

    however if this entertainment comes with some meaning whether that meaning is a social issue or not is completely irrelevant...

    People discussing any movie are not doing so only because they are socially moved...they do it (most of the times) to settle things in their own minds...to search for answers they didnt get, to appreciate or criticise the different aspects (music, direction screenplay, story, etc) of the art

    Its a brilliant thought to have, lots of passion and urge to write a script and the balls to execute it...all films can be criticised...but some films are beyond all that

    BTW the last comment "It's interesting that people who disagree feel the need to insult. But in a way this confirms what I wrote" is as "Solipsism" as your criticism for others commenting on it

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  12. "What needs to be discussed is completely an individual choice..."

    Absolutely. I simply don't like the pretence that discussions about dreams within dreams Inception are as profound as many will deem them to be.

    Inception did entertain me to some extent and I think that's clear from my original post.

    "People discussing any movie are not doing so only because they are socially moved...they do it (most of the times) to settle things in their own minds...to search for answers they didnt get, to appreciate or criticise the different aspects (music, direction screenplay, story, etc) of the art"

    Not all those discussions are equal and I'm not one to judge such discussions but I think most of us have witnessed fanboys (as one commenter termed them) discussing obsessively about the most insignificant details of certain movies. All I'm saying is I fear Inception will give rise to such discussions under the pretence of great philosophical debate.

    In the great scheme of things, does it matter? No. I guess I've just heard these discussions since The Matrix and I'm just weary enough of them that I felt the need to mention the phenomenon.

    And with all due respect, me saying I would rather discuss than insult has nothing to do with solipsism.

    Thank you for your comment.

    Aside: I do believe the first Matrix film has more meat to the bone. The Messiah motif may not be the most original one, but the Matrix at least had that.

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  13. Cliff notes version:

    "I don't like the kind of person that liked Inception. Yesterday I read an article about Asberger's. Also one time I watched A Passage To India."

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  14. Why do you people hate this article so much? I thought it was well-written and interesting and I pretty much agree with what it's saying.

    For the record, I thought Inception was very clever, well-written and had an immensely likeable cast. It's a very good film. I just can't bring myself to agree with the poster who optimistically suggests that it will give rise to great Freudian or Jungian debates about the human condition. In reality, the vast majority of 'fanboys' will continue to spend months debating whether or not the spinning top fell and which 'level' was occurring when. This kind discussion is fine by me on its own (and can be fun) but it's the kind of po-faced importance that is given to it that's irritating (and often slightly worrying) and that is what I think the author is anticipating and objecting to.

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  15. Why get so caught up in other people's responses to the film? This seems less a commentary on the film itself and more of a damnation of cinema-goers in general. It seems obvious that you you resent the fact that a medium as seemingly low-brow (in your eyes) as a Hollywood Blockbuster has got people discussing something more deep and meaningful than your every-day chit-chat. In doing this they have dared to fancy themselves as intelligent and have stepped firmly amongst what you believe to be your turf which has got you somewhat rattled.

    What you really want is for everyone to stop getting so excited over what is only a film so you can go back feeling superior to them in pondering life's real mysteries. People enjoying this film irritates you because it gives people a false sense of intellectualism in discussing its more ambiguous points. The fact that you have overlooked that writing this blog is an attempt to one-up them in this regard gives it a sad sense of irony.

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  16. I'm not talking about chit-chat I'm talking about people who will go on about this film for months on end and almost make a religion out of it like they did with The Matrix.

    I don't want to overstate this. I highlighted what I've observed as a cultural phenomenon, that is all.

    How can anybody know what I think about Hollywood blockbusters from a few lines about Inception is a bit iffy.

    For what it's worth, I enjoyed The Dark Knight a great deal.

    And to the commenter who wrote this:
    "For the record, I thought Inception was very clever, well-written and had an immensely likeable cast. It's a very good film. I just can't bring myself to agree with the poster who optimistically suggests that it will give rise to great Freudian or Jungian debates about the human condition. In reality, the vast majority of 'fanboys' will continue to spend months debating whether or not the spinning top fell and which 'level' was occurring when. This kind discussion is fine by me on its own (and can be fun) but it's the kind of po-faced importance that is given to it that's irritating (and often slightly worrying) and that is what I think the author is anticipating and objecting to."

    I didn't enjoy "Inception" as much as you did but I agree with everything else you wrote.

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  17. The basis of the article is that Inception does not provoke actual thought. Yet you wrote an entire article about it. The people who have commented on your article are discussing what is in essence a deeply philosophical discussion about a variety of subjects. So I would say that though you may not see the deeper value of a film maybe it exists anyway, though possibly not in the way you think it does.

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  18. I tend to stay away from negative commenting, but you, Sir, are a douchebag. You need a new hobby. Leave 'thought provoking' discussions of 'value' to those of us with real thoughts.

    Nolan FTW!

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  19. this is pretentiousness at its best.

    let me make it plain as day for you.

    blogger believes his degree at a community college for sociology or film studies makes him a critic on "the human condition" because he's read a bit of some of the great scholars or because he's seen a movie like "A Passage to India"

    Congratulations!

    You are the most important person on the internet. Was that good enough to stroke your ego?

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  20. I think this was mostly a movie about directing movies. Which makes it art for art's sake, almost abstract impressionism in film. Certainly many shelves of obsessive and pretentious books have been written about abstract impressionism, and certainly many people are bored by discussing it. Does that make the discussion valueless?

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  21. But......Did the top stop spinning?


    < I LIKE TURTLES ! >

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  22. I LIKE TURTLES!

    That wasn't a surprising ending. And how circular...

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  23. I think it's a tad unfortunate that you've made such a quick and definitive judgement on the intellectual worth of this film. It's hard to enter into meaningful discussion now that you've planted your stake so firmly (and publicly). I also think it's a little unfair to characterise the dissenting commenters here as having universally resorted to insults. There have been some genuinely well made arguments to challenge your post.

    With that out of the way, I'd just like to throw a few more thoughts into the mix - please take these in the spirit in which they are intended. I'm not trying to flame, but I do think there may be some hope to convince you of the meaningful themes explored in Inception yet.

    I'm interested to know, are you familiar with the artwork of Escher and do you judge his work as puerile, derivative and pointless? (Pornography for the parietal lobe?) Escher's work is intellectually fertile ground, and I believe in many ways the ground that Inception occupies is similar. Probably no coincidence then that Nolan adds an overtly Escherian reference to the film with the Penrose stairs.

    By appraising the value of Inception on purely sociological grounds, you've created a straw man to knock down. I agree this film doesn't explore meaningful social themes (or ask meaningful social questions, or make meaningful social statements), however I can't accept the conclusion then that Inception is not both thought-provoking and ripe for worthwhile discussion.

    Although you may have a tough time accepting it, Inception is genuinely not an exploration of solipsism (I know this will be hard to accept and square with your initial reaction, but it's true). I believe you may have missed the real complexity and beauty of the scenarios created by Nolan; they don't have much to say about the day-to-day problems of us fleshy meatbags, but luckily our brains are also free to explore and ponder much more abstract concepts.

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  24. God, why is everyone being such a dick? From my understanding, the main thrust of this guy's article is that sometimes a certain type of person (and I'm sorry but it is a certain type of person) becomes obsessed with a certain film and, perhaps forgetting that it's a piece of fiction, insists on scrutinising every single detail with an almost religious fervour. I'm not saying film can't be thought provoking, of course they can (and I guess Inception was more thought-provoking than the average blockbuster) and I really don't think the author is arguing this either. The issue that he is identifying is 'fanboys' who will discuss the film completely on its own terms without any attempt to relate it to the real world (i.e. Escher, Freud, Junge and the other names that posters have dropped). This is annoying, unhealthy and, whilst it might be fun, ultimately worthless

    Some of the other comments on here are really facile not to mention arrogant:

    'blogger believes his degree at a community college for sociology or film studies makes him a critic on "the human condition" because he's read a bit of some of the great scholars or because he's seen a movie like "A Passage to India'
    Umm, no. Ever heard of freedom of expression? I'm pretty sure the only qualification you need to comment on the ''human condition'' is being human. Conceited asshole.

    'Yawn. It's true what they say: Any idiot can have a blog these days.'
    Oh look at you, rising above it all. You are so world-weary and cool, I wish I was as enlightened as you.

    'douche' And the Oscar Wilde award for Intelligence, Relevance and Wit goes to...

    Christ, Every time I go on the internet I hate people a little bit more.

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  25. Excuse me but am I the only one losing the thread here? What exactly makes you say that the basic concept of Inception is not thought provoking or depth of dream within a dream isn't deep enough? Why have you come to generalize majority of people's level of awareness and understanding of movie who's discussing the movie into just mental masturbation? What makes you believe there isn't more than what meets your eye right now?

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  26. @thewritestuff:

    You seem to be confusing the main thrust of the article with the comments below it. The comments may have strayed onto the topic of nerds tediously obsessing over every inconsequential detail of a film, but the article itself makes much harsher accusations. The author absolutely *is* making the case that inception is not a thought-provoking film (just start with the title, then continue to read the rest).

    The main thrust of the article is:

    "Simple: the idea that Inception is a thought-provoking film offends me."

    "...to talk about ambiguity in the film gives pretence to complexity of thought."

    "...we should stop pretending the film is thought-provoking and that discussions about it have value."

    @E.C. Chevalier

    There is a simple explanation available - you haven't understood the film on anything but the most facile level, so you conclude that the film is shallow. Sorry, that feels like a low blow, but is it possible all the same?

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  27. Does it matter that some people talk about films such as Inception with an almost religious-like passion? Some people play golf, some people pay hookers, and others like to discuss films and music that they enjoy. Why is that, because YOU don't like to discuss those things for the same reasons as the 'fanboys', that it's suddenly not worth anyone talking about them at all, ever?

    I don't understand why this is such a big deal. If people want to air their views about points Nolan was making, or about the ideas behind the film, or about the questions about life in general that they were left with after seeing the film, then why shouldn't they? Sure, you can have you own opinion that there was nothing that came out of the film that was worth discussing, but that's YOUR opinion, but clearly other people disagree.

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  28. I have to somewhat agree with the author.

    As the movie ended, I looked over the theater and every single person in the room was trying to explain to others what really happened in the movie, and that just irritated me. The fact that everyone is amazed by the complexity of the thing when it's really not.

    Inception is a mathematical problem that involves n unknwown quantitities but only p equations that link them, with p<n, which makes it impossible to solve, and not even worth trying.

    As much as I enjoyed myself during the movie, I felt that a lot of questions were being raised in the movie without ever find answers and thus giving a large amount of different interpretations, which is here a substitute for understanding.

    I don't know if Nolan knows exactly what happenned in his movie, and have answers every question about it, but if he dosn't, then his creation is woth nothing. It's too easy to give an incomplete problem to solve to someone and watch him whilst he bangs his head on it for eternity.

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  29. E.C. Chevalier wrote: "I realise Nolan doesn't do sex, but are we to believe that men have such tame dreams? Doesn't anybody realise that aside from Mal, the only woman that appears is a projection of Eames? But the dreams in Inception aren't dreams, are they? This made up world belongs to the world of gaming with a designer, different levels to complete, car chases and everything exploding all the time."

    While I would agree that much of the argument against, and opinions about, the film are relatively grounded, I have a hard time with the quote above. Beyond the assertion that many men dream frequently (and only?) about women, the main glitch here is that indeed, the dreams in Inception are not dreams at all, but are in fact sedative-induced states of architecturally conceived and purpose driven subconsciousness. Regardless of being a convenient structural tool for action sequences, the realm of the story would be hard-pressed to accommodate, much less explain, a sex dream, which I believe is what the quote is alluding to.

    Also, solipsism is an odd choice of philosophical certainty to cite in this essay because it is the interactions with others in the dream states that influence the decisions (and to a certain extent, help define the existence) of the self. Moreover, the "totems" in the film are the physical items that interact with the (external) world in a solely realistic fashion, lending tangible proof to the totem-bearer that they are indeed aware of and a part of the "real world". Such an understanding is the antithesis of solipsism.

    Lastly, please proofread.

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  30. i think you just happen to be some iconoclastic self-proclaimed sophisticator who hates pop culture trends. so you disagree with nolan's screenplay and cinematography because it provokes inane discussions about existence on the other side of your cube wall? let's be honest - you shouldn't be going to multi-million dollar hollywood blockbusters then! i know how fun it is to bitch about movies, but the next worst thing to films with shallow concepts are the people that go to movies like these and complain about every single one thereafter. stay home then! stay home and have another barbeque! or go have a des cartes-inspired discussion with your intellectual friends.

    “in a sense, [you’re] as guilty as everyone else…” no, i wouldn’t say “in a sense,” i’d say your dissertation is about as yawn-deserving as any movie critic’s. in fact, this culture is perhaps saturated with too many critics and not enough creationists, which might actually contribute to your argument about lack of depth in the entertainment business.

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  31. rarely are films thought provoking, nolan's films are like the joy you get out of solving a rubiks cube, now 'd you call a harmless activity like that intellectual masturbation, c'mmon you got to show more empathy, the world is a complex thing, dont you see that it aint that simple, the world, can you explain every thing with the BIG BANG theory. Dont be stuck with simplistic ideas. solipsism is better than simplism [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/simplism ]

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  32. I quite liked this movie, myself. However, you had a different viewpoint and questioned the obsessive reactions of some viewers to it, which I think is a completely rational line of thought. I wonder though, if you've ever had a movie impact you in a tremendous way and some people just didn't get it? Just food for thought.

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