I’ve been mulling over the film Inception since I saw it last week, but I’ve found it difficult to pin down why I was so disappointed as I left the cinema. It had the spectacle, the cast, the action, and that mind-bending story, but I felt it was lacking something, and I didn’t know what. The torrent of praise for the film on the internet hasn’t helped in my search for “the problem”, as aside from being universally positive, it’s mostly focussed on the mechanics of the story.
I’ve been in the techno-doldrums this week, lamenting my dependance on technology (and an internet connection) at the expense of real-world experience. I know I need to be online pushing my book, and my day job is all about computers, but it’s too easy to become disconnected from real life. I’ve not been feeling very creative this week, and I think it’s down to not unplugging enough (yes, I can appreciate the irony of that as I type this blog post into my web browser…). Digging around in these thoughts, I realised what my problem is with Inception: it lacks humanity – that vital element that sits at the core of great stories.
Possible Spoilers
Aside from Cobb (he has Very Big Issues to motivate him) not one person has a reason for following him on the task. They’re all cyphers – character archetypes who fill a need in the narrative. There’s a mumbling that Christopher Nolan’s films lack heart, and are cold as a result, and I don’t entirely disagree with that, but Inception goes way further. It’s entirely concerned with the HOW? at the expense of the WHAT? and WHY? So I put on my thinking hat, and tried to fill in those blanks myself, and it was then that I realised why Nolan’s characters aren’t human, why they need to be only cyphers – it’s because the core idea of the film is so abhorrent, the only way to keep it under the radar of most watchers is to dehumanise it to an abstract concept.
Now, I don’t read the Daily Mail, and I’ve watched some seriously moody fare in my cinema-going life, so I’m neither easily offended nor a tub-thumping cine-fascist, but Inception pissed me off. It pissed me off bad. It pissed me off enough to write a pseudo-review on my blog, which is something I never wanted to do. And it pissed me off because of the answers to those two questions: WHAT? and WHY?
- WHAT? They kidnap a man, whose only crime is to be the heir to a globe-spanning energy conglomerate and, without his permission, fundamentally modify his personality by injecting an alien idea into his subconscious. If this were technologically possible, I imagine the crime would be swiftly classified as a form of rape on a par with date rape: the victim doesn’t have to endure the horror of the attack, but the after effects - the resulting knowledge – changes them forever, in fundamentally damaging ways. All rights to the contents of their mind (body) are dismissed as the attackers chase their goal.
- WHY? Money. Somebody pointed out the line Ken Watanabe says about the conglomerate nearing superpower status, but I’ve got one word for that. Antitrust. Maybe pre-Enron, pre-global-economic-meltdown, that would be a defence, but not now. Now it’s just about corporate greed.
So I’m not surprised that the characters were so lightly sketched; if you got to see their true characters, motivations and moral frameworks, you’d probably hate them, leaving only LeoNolan DiChristopher to root for as he wades through the guilt of having previously mind-raped his wife to death.
He’s one sick puppy.
Tags: Humanity, Inception, Technology
Oddly, I agree with just about all of this, but I think the movie worked because of these elements. It’s never questioned that what they’re doing to Fischer is wrong and immoral, but it’s the work they do and they’re comfortable with it, so there’s no need to dwell on that aspect. Even Ariadne’s motivation is made clear: the power to create without boundaries is too powerful to resist.
That said, I was discussing it with a friend who didn’t love it earlier today, and we agreed that Nolan never really gets relationships right, and it’s a notable flaw here as you have to completely buy the relationship between Cobb and Mal for it all to come together. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to seeing it again.
I think Michael Caine’s character sums up my main issue – he gave up Ariadne with almost no protest, despite obviously respecting her ability, and knowing what happened to Cobb and Mal (was Mal his daughter, or daughter-in-law?). That moment was symptomatic of the characters simply playing along, rather than their desires/needs/plans driving the story – that human element I’m looking for. The idea was everything in this film, and all other cinematic concerns were relegated, even to the extent that the nature of the crime has been forgotten in the face of the spectacle. I usually wouldn’t get so worked up about it, but when it’s being held up as a lesson in storytelling…
I think the ‘why’ isn’t just about money. Isn’t it also the thrill of it…can they manage to plant an idea (Cobb is the only one who knows he can do it, otherwise it’s an unknown)? Can they really go 3 layers deep?
I think Michael Caine gives up Ariadne because he wants Cobb to get his kids back (I wasn’t sure of their r’ship either…must be family somehow) and knows he’ll need the best.
What didn’t make sense to me was why did Ariadne craft a ridiculous snow scene for the final level of dream? And then why couldn’t she shift everything, when they were running out of time, to get Fischer to the safe quicker?
It seemed to me that, for whatever justification, the whole team were prepared to do something really, really bad, really, really easily. There was no pause to question it. I think the most impressive plot twist is the way Nolan has you rooting for the bad guys all the way through, and even after it ends, you don’t realise it.
I understand that the spectacle of the idea is the whole point, but the idea is also flawed. Time moves faster in your subconscious mind – I get that – but regardless of the level of dream in which you’re operating, it’s still the same subconscious, so while the time differential between reality and level 1 is acceptable, there’s nothing in that logic that explains the time difference between level 1 and level 2. Other than it makes for a tense, original action finale of course…