It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?
You're suffering the mathematician's disease, ably satirized by Feynman in that quote I can't stop paraphrasing: "Mathematicians can only prove trivial theorems, because once proved any theorem is immediately seen to be trivial."
But I think Inception succeeds as a film only because following the plot thread in real time isn't of the essence, just as I was able to enjoy Beethoven's Fifth Symphony long before I was taught its formal structure. Without the education required to really dissect that structure, you nevertheless sense that it's there, and it enhances the emotional experience that the work is trying to convey – in Inception's case, the experience of being a man (well, two men, actually, and possibly also a woman) immersed in a dreamlike world full of symbols, mazes, masks, bluffs, and distractions, a world that he himself is creating to distract his own attention from the pure, simple, but unthinkably awful pain at the center of his life.
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EDIT: Fixed my prose, which got away from me. So tempted to just delete this whole thing, but I try to avoid erasing history even if it's really embarrassing and exhausting.
Meanwhile, sure, it's easy to understand that Inception is a cake. I'll concede that. But: it's not so easy to frost all three layers of the cake at the same time. The part where Inception gets tricky for me is where they start intercutting from layer to layer, and taking actions on one layer that have ramifications on the others.
My new hobby (in the XKCD sense) is upvoting every well-reasoned argument that I disagree with on HN. :)
Personal anecdote: My friend who is in marketing and is not at all a geek also thinks if you have half a brain the plot is obvious. She has no special math training beyond an MBA, and has done absolutely zero programming in her life.
So there is something about it that makes it hard to understand for some people, although my non-technical wife also had no problems with it.
Or a carpenter.
Or a secretary.
... chef, janitor, burgerflipper, librarian, bassist, cop.
I apologize. Let's try that again.
What I meant to say:
Some people do not claim to understand Inception all that well. Some do. And some understand it so well that they go out of their way to publicly state their annoyance that everyone on earth doesn't see how obvious it all is. I venture to guess that computer programmers are disproportionally likely to be members of the second and third groups. (Please note that I have said nothing about carpenters! I didn't mean to say a thing about carpenters!!)
EDIT: Incidentally, I'm upvoting you even though your razor-sharp criticism makes me do more work. ;) These downvotes! They are like mosquitoes!
Similarly my mother (not a dumb woman by and large) got tripped up because there was a line in the movie that the dream machines were military technology, instead of taking this a handwave she spent the rest of the film assuming that it was a secret CIA sting operation.
Basically not recognizing which parts of a universe you're supposed to just roll with and which parts you're supposed to puzzle out yourself.
Possible side effect: you spend the whole movie/book trying to solve it through a completely broken lens and nothing ever adds up or you're too busy (mentally) to notice the real- straight forward- breadcrumb trail and you come out thinking it was much twistier than it was.
If you want a movie with actual complexity, watch Primer. Oh, you’ll probably think you get it the first time through, because the writing is great. Then you’ll rewatch it a couple times and see just how much you missed, because the writing is brilliant.
...and the audio is pretty inconsistent :P
But seriously, seconded. One of my absolute favorite films of all time, and made on a budget in the thousands. Completely stunning.
What’s more stunning still is that most of the $7,000 budget was film stock. Because it was filmed. On film. Ain’t nothing like the 16mm look, truly.
And what's even more stunning is that most of it was done in one take because, well, they only had $7,000 to budget on film stock.
Edit2: originally said "obligatory" but maybe that's too meme-ish for HN.
http://www.screened.com/primer/16-61068/all-images/132-63755...
The complexity doesn't seem to arise organically out of the plotline. A lot of the confusion is generated out of not hearing the one time in the movie someone explained something, or from the movie not explaining something that is easily explainable. It's almost as if the writers could have made the plotline easier to follow while keeping the plot the same, but at times purposefully chose to obfuscate it solely for the purpose of making a "complex" movie.
One of the things I loved, though, is that the characters don’t bother to mention things they already know, or explain things they already understand. They say real things like “um” and “y’know” and “could you hand me the…no, the other—yeah, thanks”. This is undoubtedly a major source of confusion, but it serves less to increase complexity than to convey a sense of the characters’ relationship.
The plot could absolutely have been told simplier without changing it, but the feel would have been very different. I know the movie isn’t perfect, but I like it for what it is.
eXistenZ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/)
Naked Lunch (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/)
(And other David Cronenberg movies. While I'm at it, although it's completely linear, I'm going to plug: "Crash" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/).)
Jacob's Ladder (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/) is almost a great brain-bending movie, but for some damn reason at the very end there's a, "Let's explain what really happened!" scene. F'idiots. (I recommend stopping the movie when you get to the scene where the Jacob and his son (played by Macaulay Culkin) dreamily walk up a back-lit stairway together. Let the movie percolate in your brain for a while. Then, start the movie up again and see how they ruined it.)
The 13th Floor (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/)
A Scanner Darkly (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/)
Brazil (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/)
Time Bandits (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081633/)
Dark City (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/) - A little disappointing at the end though =/
It's worth watching for many reasons, but it'd be worth watching for this scene alone:
01. Eraserhead-- This feature film was the debut for Writer/Director David Lynch. The film is noted for its usage of sound as a theatrical device and "the baby" which is rumored to be created from an embalmed cow fetus. The films script is a scant 21 pages despite a running time of 85 minutes (script pages typically match runtimes).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074486/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraserhead
02. Dead Leaves-- Produced in 2004, this Japanese animated film clocks in at 55 minutes long. The films (thin) plot is composed almost entirely of a chase/fight scene that begins on earth and ends on a space station. The movie's weirdness climaxes when when the mutant baby of the the film's protagonists is born and proceeds to kill a giant space catepillar which is attempting to eat the earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Leaves http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439533/
03. House -- This 1977 Japanese film certainly ranks as one of the weirdest (if not the weirdest) movies of all time. It was unreleased in the U.S. until after a screening at the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival. In an iconic scene, a Japanese girl is consumed by piano monster as a green eyed catch watches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_(1977_film)
04. Jacob's Ladder- Fans of the game Silent Hill should well be aware of this movie from 1990 that inspired many of its elements. Tim Robbins stars as a vietnam war vet suffering from demonic images increasingly polluting his fragile reality. One paticularly gruesome scene includes Robbins being wheeled through a bloody hospital corrirodor filled with limbs and mutating torsos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobs_Ladder_(film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/
05. Barton Fink- This Cohen Brothers film stars John Turturro as a novelist. The 1991 film closes with a set of iconic scenes including John Goodman exiting a burning hallway (like a badass).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Fink http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101410/
06. Naked Lunch- The first of two Cronenberg films in this category. This 1991 film adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel features a protagonist who uses bug spray as a chemical escape from reality. Talking insects and failed "William Tell Routines" are just some of the madness this movie contains.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch
07. Videodrome- David Cronenberg wrote and directed this movie staring James Woods. The movie centers around Wood's character, a sleazy TV exec, who inreasingly loses touch with reality after he comes across a station which airs extreme violence and torture. Key scenes include his merger with a TV set and a VHS tape being thrust into his stomach.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome
08. Donnie Darko (Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall sp?)- Donnie Darko served as philosophical fodder for a whole generation of "Emos". Written and directed by Richard Kelly. The movie stars this brother-sister hollywood team. The movie covers a wealth of ideas including fatalism and time travel. Movie goers will inevitably remember the creepy bunny head that pervades entirety of the film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko
09. Human Centipede- This 2010 dutch horror film quickly became a meme rivaling Two Girls One Cup for gross-out factor. The film features a mad doctor who connects three unfortunate souls in the most unfortunate way possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_centipede http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1467304/
10. Brazil- The second installment of Terry Gilliam's "Imagination Trilogy". This 1985 film represents the dreams of adults including navigating beurocracy and chasing true love. Robert DeNiro also provides a notable role as a rebel repairman in the film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/
11. Black Swan 12. Paprika 13. Being John Malkovich 05. Teeth
The -confusion- around Inception is probably just because the narrative is fairly dense.
It does lend itself well to interpretation and general musing, but sometimes I feel people are reaching too far for allegory and symbolism. It's good to find those things, and to take art and run with it, to let it seed ideas and interpretation, but some are a little over zealous.
Seriously, get off your high horse.
Edit:
Am I the only one who sees the irony of the annoyed pot calling the annoyed kettle black?
At first watch it's clear (apart from the ending sequence) what parts of the movie are dreams and what parts are reality, but when you watch it again you may start to consider that it's a little more fuzzy than that.
But then I read trevelyan's post above and I feel stupid.
I recently re-watched David Lynch's Lost Highway. That is a wonderful and complex film that on the surface seems nonsensical and surreal, but - once you make certain revelations - reveals its beautiful and elegant construction.
Note that having the whole thing be a dream completely drains it of all interesting dramatic tension, turning an interesting movie into one in which nothing (or very little) is at stake and nothing really happens for any particular reason. (Remember, if the whole movie is a dream there's no longer any reason to believe his wife is waiting one level up.) It's an awfully stiff price to pay for a painfully dull, obvious twist.
The final scene preserves this ambiguity, while underscoring the fact that the obsession with reality is no longer important to Cobb - he is finally at peace with where he is - real or not.
You're still right he meant to leave it up to the viewer, but it completely destroys the rest of the movie if everything is a dream. People want to play games with the rules the movie presented and hypothesize about the whether Mal is in the "level above"... but everything we think we know about the rules comes from that level. We learn about the multi-layer inception, the wife, the concept of limbo, everything in the movie, on that level. If it's all a dream, then there's no target to the obsession in the first place, no children, no wife, nothing.
Incidentally, note I'm sort of making a metapoint... if Nolan came out and said "Yes, it was all a dream" I would accept it. But it would still dramatically destroy the movie.
I'm also sort of hostile to the "all just a dream" idea, whereever it appears in fiction, because it's redundant. It's already just a dream, a movie, a book, a TV show, whatever. It's already not real. Saying that in the context of the not-real work of fiction the entire story was also not-real is silly. (Note the word "entire".) It started at the maximum level of not-realness from the very first word or frame. And it's a short trip from there to the Bergman/Braga incoherent style of ass-pull storytelling. (Or Tennant-era Doctor Who.)
>It's already not real. Dreams are real while we are in them.
(1) It would make a mockery of what Nolan seems very clearly to intend as a positive ending. In the script he actually tells us he is centering the film on a simple, positive emotional message. So what is that message?
(2) It would create a glaring inconsistency with the symbolic landscape of the rest of the film. Case in point, the dream worlds are strongly associated with water symbolism, which even creeps into the real world when the dream world intrudes: it is a glass of water that sends Fischer to sleep on the plane, while Cobb's waking hallucination occurs while he is washing his face. And yet... unlike any other dream... there is no water at the end of the film. In fact, we have the exact opposite, since we are told the events take place in a garden on a cliff.
(3) An aside, but anytime you have people who are named after apostles frolicking in a garden with Dad, you should jump to asking yourself if there might be Christian imagery lurking there. So what's with all the biblical imagery, or the constant references to "leaps of faith"? Is it really accidental when characters blaspheme, or invoke religious imagery?
(4) the visuals of the children building castles on the beach would suddenly serve no purpose. There would also be no explanation for why Mal is supposed to be bad, when her name clearly suggests she is a malevolent character. Likewise, the names of James, Philippa and Ariadne would be meaningless. Ariadne's mythological role is helping Theseus out of a maze, so what is Cobb still doing stuck in one at the end?
(5) Cobb clearly develops as a person. Why does Nolan go to such pains to show this, and what does it matter if these changes accomplish nothing of significance? Which brings us back to point one, why doesn't Cobb just stay in limbo with his wife?
(6) This is a bit esoteric, but you'll get stuck arguing that Saito's palace is destroyed by water because Cobb was pushed into a bathtub rather than the opposite: that Nolan engineered the bathtub scene in order to find a way to destroy Saito's palace in a storm. This requires a violation of the principle of Occam's razor unless you're prepared to argue that there isn't really any water symbolism in the film, in which case you would be wrong. :)
:)
I agree that resolving the entire film as simply a dream would be a huge let down. If it were another film, would be content to stop there. For my money though, resolving that the ending puts Cobb firmly back into reality is also highly unsatisfactory. The more interesting (and I believe) intended result is force the viewer to question their own sense of reality. Haven't you ever had a dream that was so realistic that you were certain it was real - until you woke up? How do know for sure that we are not simply living a dream that we will one day wake up from?
There is a book by Stanislaw Lem that beautifully explores this sort of idea. In the story, there is mad scientist fellow that has a room full of electronic brains, each being slowly fed a life story via a series of slowly rotating magnetic drums. To the individual brains, the story that they are being told IS their life - they have no idea that they are simply boxes in some mad scientist's laboratory. The book goes onto suggest that our own lives may simply be programmed by a mad scientist who exists a level up from us.
I believe this it is this sort questioning of reality that Nolan is trying to impress upon the viewer. Reducing the whole thing to just a sci-fi film about a couple of dreamwalkers makes it seem frankly one-dimensional and uninteresting.