The Podium - Inception. A Little More Logic, Please. Or a Whole Lot Less.
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 4:00AM The Podium
The Podium is an internet symposium where we give one person the stage to voice an opinion of their's on cinema. Do you agree? Disagree? Comments that agree must include a hearty "HARRUMPH!", and you can show your disagreement with a "RABBLERABBLE COUGH
This week's The Podium writer, Dorie Barton, worked hard not to actually spoil anything from Inception, but if you haven't seen the film and don't want certain story elements revealed, you should wait until after you've seen the film to read the following article.
A little more logic, please. Or a whole lot less.
By Dorie Barton
There was a moment in Inception where I realized that I had stopped watching the movie and had started wondering if I was going to be able to find my car in the parking garage later.
I’m always curious to observe how consciousness experiences itself, the mind watching the brain making the mind. An endless Escher-esque loop. And Inception is nothing else if not a great opportunity to do that: the film watches itself, and we watch the film about film.
When The Architect pulls one giant mirror around to face another, to me, this was the epitome of this film, as it reflects smaller, infinitely repeating versions of itself before shattering completely.
The film, like that image, can only stand so much examination before it collapses literally under its own weight. And when it did, my mind wandered out to the parking garage.
I remember thinking, “Huh. Look at that. I just totally lost interest in the film.” The film had just contradicted itself one too many times. I simply checked out.
The film is undeniably successful, both as a box office contender, and as an actual piece of art, discussed ad nauseam online, over dinner, at coffee. Anything talked of so much is having an impact on the immediate culture. When that cinematic tree fell in the forest, people heard it. It made An Impression.
But it is my own opinion that the film is barely saved from the weight of itself by a rather surprisingly convincing love story at the heart of it. The B-story, snuck in throughout the first two acts finally entirely overcomes the other, and becomes the A-story. This is Mal’s true victory: not only high jacking her husband’s heist, but stealing the film, to boot.
Their story I cared about. It moved me. It made me wonder about the sanity of a love that could withstand 50 years of being each other’s only companions. It made me wish for the clarity of their moment on the train rail, hands double locked together. And, between you and me, when the dying man’s safe was opened at the bitter end and the treasure was revealed, I’ll admit that tiny tears squirted out of my eyes.
But the rest left me cold. Bothered me at times. Irritated my sense of credulity.
I feel that it tried to explain too much. They tried to link too many things into an invented “logic” that makes no sense whatsoever. And then it changed abruptly, often in sharp contradiction. The “science” part of this particular piece of fiction is frustratingly wrong no matter how you slice it, and that dragged me out every time.
In the rotating bronze hotel hallway (filmed and performed achingly well) our team is weightless because in the dream of higher consciousness above them, they are also weightless. This is illustrated admirably. However, in the dream deeper than the hallway, the White World of Snow, normal Earth gravity applies. This makes no sense. And when the stupendous J.G.L. plans the elevator scheme, my mind snapped back to high school physics class. “He can’t generate a false gravity by any other means than propelling them upwards at a rate of 9.8 meters per second! What he’s trying will never work!”
Of course this is a ridiculous line of thinking during what is arguably one of the most beautiful scenes put to film in decades. I should be watching the movie! But if they had never bothered to explain the weightlessness, I never would have thought about how that worked or couldn’t work. If the chemist had never explained how he engineered the sedative precisely not to not affect the function of the inner ear but can’t do anything about the whole limbo/death effect thing (?!??!) I never would have thought about the contradiction therein.
One of my favorite films, Alien, is completely involving. Never for one second does my logic mind drag me out of the story. Why? Because they never once explain a damn thing. The world just exists. They move within it naturally. Their world operates on technologies that are still just dreams in our current world, yet in that film the people just use them the way we use toothbrushes: thoughtlessly.
I wish nothing in Inception made any sense. I wish it were casually thoughtless. I wish there was not one piece of “technology” explained. If it was truly all a dream, which is the only way I can understand the piece, then none of it needed to make any “real” sense, and in fact suffered as a result of attempting to create a pseudo science, consisting of only exceptions, and no rules.
I would really like to know where other people lie on the question of how much does one need to know for a story to make sense? What is the perfect amount? And if a serious lack of logic is enough to pull anyone out of a film? Can a film’s emotions really trump a flawed story? Well, it seems that sometimes they very much can. But maybe this is Christopher Nolan’s particular genius. He doesn’t care about perfection; he just wants to tell his story. And in the end, Nolan really does deliver the goods. Could anyone else get away with this? I really wonder.
Dorie Barton, a.k.a. D-Girl, is an actress, script consultant, writer, and it’s fair to
say is obsessed with movies. She can be found regularly blogging on her home site
DevelopmentGirl.com. She lives in Los Angeles with The Fisherman, Spoon, and
Hallelujah the Dog.
Is there an opinion you need to share with your fellow film fans? Drop us a line on our contact page, and maybe one week YOU can have The Podium.
Reader Comments (6)
I agree that the explanations were overly simplified, but for a complex film like Inception to be accessible to the LCD of people, even at a cursory level, they almost had to do it. In my mind I just assume that they do use these things like a toothbrush and because of that their explanations are simple and not completely correct; like saying "You know what I mean, right?"
And now is when I link to a favorite 'explanation' page that I think does a little better than most of the rest (not just simply trying to keep track of everything but actually trying to understand the deeper meanings).
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/07/the_ultimate_explanation_of_in.html
Great article, Dorie! Harrumph! I had not even caught the gravity issues. I was so enthralled with the scene being as beautiful as it was. But to be honest, since physics and science are really my strengths, it doesn't surprise me. :)
nice work Dorie. harrumph! the first thing I said when I walked out of the theatre was, "I need to watch that at least three more times." NEED. I certainly WANT to see the film again, but I was more fixated on understanding the over-elaboration of technology and process then simply enjoying the the narrative. But how much was there to enjoy? Besides the exquisite relationship between Cobb and Mal, is the audience emotionally invested in any other relationships? I think David Denby says it best in the New Yorker - "Who cares if Cobb gets back to two kids we don't know? And why would we root for one energy company over another? I would like to plant in Christopher Nolan's head the thought that he might consider working more simply next time. His way of dodging powerful emotion is beginning to look like a grand-scale version of a puzzle-maker's obsession with mazes and tropes."
Word.
RABBLERABBLE COUGH!
I'm sorry, but i can't help but disagree. Everything you pointed out as illogical is, in fact, illogical. It's supposed to be, however, because the whole film is a dream.
"Dreams feel real when you're in them, it's only when you wake up you realize something was strange"
What you've done, I think, is pick apart the films dream logic without realizing it's meant to be vague and inconsistent. Like a dream.
You wrote: "If it was truly all a dream, which is the only way I can understand the piece, then none of it needed to make any “real” sense, and in fact suffered as a result of attempting to create a pseudo science, consisting of only exceptions, and no rules."
It's true, the only way to understand the piece is to accept that it was all a dream, but I don't think it suffers for trying to present the world as real. You mention how Alien treats its world thoughtlessly, as though it exits despite the audience. While true, I think don't think it's a valid argument...
If the world of Inception is completely Cobb's dream, a character who is struggling with reality, then it only makes sense for the character to have to explain the world of the dream in order to understand and distance one's self from it. What Cobb doesn't realize, however, is that even his "reality" is a projection of his subconscious.
Yes, the logic is faulty, because Cobb's perception of reality is faulty. As tragic as Mal's story is, Cobb's is moreso because he was wrong, and never accepts it. He's so guilt ridden that he doesn't realize his reality is false, even when his own "rules" are confronting him at every turn. Cobb is the one that makes "exceptions" in order to prove to himself he's not dreaming.
The rules of the dream are framed for the audience. The exceptions, however, are character motivated and are meant to clue in the audience as to whether or not Cobb's reality is what he thinks it is. Hence, the leaps in logic, inconsistencies, so on and so forth.
It's too bad these elements left you cold. For me, it was these things that reinforced Cobb and Mal's story at the core.
Best,
Alex
always great to dialogue about film, even if, or especially when, opinions differ!
i suppose ulitmately, it doesn't matter to me if it's a dream, or if the logic is intentionally faulty because of this, or even if there's a logical argument to be made for the lack of logic.
it's still a movie. and i've always believed that films were meant to communicate. if i have to consult a lexicon to be able to understand what a film is trying to say, then it's not truly communicative. it's landed in my brain, not my heart.
interesting to compare this to "primer" which laid out all the logic in its own secret language, yet clearly communicated the idea that the technology wasn't the most interesting part by a long shot.
Harrumph!
Let me start by saying I absolutely adore Nolan. I think he's become one of the best technical film makers of all time, and his foray into 70mm will do more to save the theater going experience than 3D EVER will.
That said I absolutely agree that the overly-explained middle of 'Inception' tends to distract from the stories I cared about. I even wrote into my review, while the film ultimately is a triumph of altered states sci-fi, I kept wanting to push the middle of the movie to move it along faster.
LOL Primer is a tough comparison. They joy of that film IS the fact that the "secret language" of the movie is in fact pretty well laid out advanced physics. To the point where researchers at CERN recently announced that it might be possible to send particles back through time, and their description of the process was almost EXACTLY the process detailed in Primer. A REALLY high water mark for hard sci-fi...