The Key to Inception's Puzzle Film FAILURE

[@rottensquid]

I don't think I agree with your conclusion here. To my mind, the whole film is constructed to cast doubt on whether the reality we're watching is or isn't a dream, on every level. In fact, since the film models its dream-heist team on a team of filmmakers, the implication is that the film itself is a dream. The puzzle game of what's a dream and what's reality isn't absent, it's just so big, so all-pervasive, we miss it. The film doesn't cleverly point it out in key moments. It's standing on it. It's in every element of the plot, as we as the audience begin to notice the parallels between Cobb's situation and the rules of inception. It doesn't have Cobb explain why he keeps spinning the top, but we understand, because if we're really paying attention, we're asking the same question. Finally, Mal herself points out that he doesn't believe in any one reality anymore, that he can choose. But he can't get his kids back if he chooses her. I think Inception keeps people engaged even after all these years because we can tell there's a larger story going on, even if we're not clear what it is. The trick to seeing it is to step back even further, not to keep track of all the details, but to take in the whole. It's not simply a movie about dreams and dream heists, it's a movie about how movies work, and what they are. Movies are dreams that we share. And inception is the subtext we take from them, not because the movie explained it to us, but because we found it ourselves. From a certain point of view, all movies are puzzle movies, because they require our active engagement to pick up what they're trying to lay down. If we didn't have to work for it, it wouldn't feel like truth, just someone saying, "don't think about elephants."

[@chasefilmmaking]

Hey! Thanks for engaging with my video! I actually do agree with you that Inception wonderfully draws accurate parallels between film-going and dreaming! That's a long-standing Freudian/psychoanalytical mode of viewing movies, and Inception builds on that so incredibly. My issue with the film isn't in this large-scale thematic sense (that I do find interesting as well), but instead in actually presenting Cobb's obsessive, detail-oriented perspective on deciphering what's real and what's a dream around him. In Memento we're entrenched in its protagonist's perspective, in Inception we're not. By the standards of the strictly formal definition of a "puzzle film," because it doesn't maintain deceit with its editing, Inception lands short by failing to consistently present Cobb's frantic engagement with the film's game "what's real and what's reality." Similar to Christopher Nolan's view himself, stepping back and letting the film wash over you can bring the meaning you're describing. But, when you get into the details, you see Inception could've done more! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I love the large-scale sentimentality and mostly agree!

[@dillpicklesdad]

I am so distracted by your chain I can't watch this.