Gosh! First of all, I really don't know where to begin writing my review about this movie without giving anything away. Well, I'll try not to, but whoever hasn't watched the movie I suggest you not to read this, in case if some words might actually spoil the movie. Okay, second of all I don't know how am I going to elaborate what the movie is about. The movie is just too complex to summarize. My mind is still in between reality and dream. I think it's the part where I need to use Dom Cobb's line "have you ever wondered how you got to a dream? Do you remember how you get here?" Alright, I'm not dreaming as I'm writing this. Not at all. I hope! :D
Anyway, I'll try to explain what the movie is about without spoiling it. This movie is about a secret thief named Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) How could he possibly steal someone's secret? Well, by entering someone's dream and Cobb can't do it alone. He has a team with five people in it, each with their special ability. Ariadne (Ellen Page) is a young genius architect who's responsible for designing places in the dream where those places must not be exist in reality. There's also Cobb's regular partner named Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a forger named Eames (Tom Hardy), a chemist named Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and Saito (Ken Watanabe), a filthy rich businessman. It begins with the agreement between Saito and Cobb. Saito promises to fix Cobb’s legal problems if Cobb can successfully implant an idea in the mind of a business rival, Fischer (Cillian Murphy). So there's Cobb and his team begin to develop a complex plan where he creates the world within dream within dream within dream, and that's to give Fischer the idea of changing the business plan that inheritance by his father. "never recreate places from your memory. Always imagine new places." So, this becomes Ariadne's job where she has to create different places in each stages, each layers, each levels of unconsciousness. Pretty cool, eh!
Let's dream for a moment... zzz,.,.zzz,.,.zzz,.,..,
The theory of dream by Sigmund Freud.
I studied English literature in university and there's one semester where I had to attend psychoanalysis literature lecture. I read a lot about the theory of dream by the well-known philosopher Sigmund Freud. His theory about dream is not only interesting, but also mind-twisted, similar to mathematical study yet enjoyable. Complex, isn't it? :)
I remember slightly about his dream theory that I wrote on my paper back then; dreams are the guardian of sleep. When we're sleeping, the curtain in reality is closed and it is suddenly drawn, so there we are entering a surreal world. When we enter the dreamland, there are no rules. Location changes, people turn into other people and it's so strange when it happens, for example; your dad can turn into your boyfriend and shortly after that he turn into your scary neighbor without you noticing. Our dreams are so personal, we're the only one who can analyze them. The content of a dream can be anything, it can be something that occurred in the past that becomes a traumatic thing, or strong relation between you and your own memories, friends, regrets, desires, sexuality, and daily life.
What I learned from Freud is, he believed the dream is composed in two parts. The manifest
and the latent content. The manifest content can be thought of as what a
person would remember as soon as they wake up. Freud thinks this manifest content is meaningless
because it was a disguised representation of the true thought underlying
the dream. The second part is the latent content which holds the true meaning of the
dream – the forbidden thoughts and the unconscious desires.
Although the manifest and latent content can be
indistinguishable, Freud calls it as ‘Infantile dreams’. The process when the latent content is transformed into the
manifest content, it is known as the “dream work". Anyway, "a dream always feels real when you're in it", Like Dom Cobb said.
Back to reality,.,.,.,.
Christopher Nolan had done some extra ordinary artwork. This has proven in his previous movie such as "The Dark Night", story of a hero and criminal, good and evil, using a hedonism concept. "Memento", a story of short-term memory condition with a complex plots in every layers. After I watched "Memento" I don't know what to believe, memories or certainties and that's how I define good movie :) Similar to Inception, while watching that movie, my mind is being fucked up for two hours. It's been a week since I saw this movie but it keeps haunting me and I can't stop thinking about it. When the movie finished, I thought I dreamed that I watched it. Maybe I was just having a dream within a dream within the dream that I was watching Inception? Aaarrgghh..... I want to rip my brain off!! (no, don't! this is reality, don't do it!)
Anyway, as a lot of people has questioned about the ending, whether it is a dream or reality. Well, in my opinion it doesn't matter anymore whether it is still a dream or reality. It's a happy ending where Cobb got home and see his kids again, cause that's what the hole point of the movie from the very beginning. That's the hole in the movie. That's the plot. That's the problem that needs to be solved. I think, Cobb meeting his kids was real. His totem keeps on spinning but it can't spin forever. This is how I see it, have you ever felt that almost every time our dreams are about to end or reach the fulfilling point, we wake up before it does. That's called cut-to-black and it is used as a metaphor. When Cobb's totem is spinning, that's Nolan's cut-to-black point. It's just a metaphor in the movie. It just a happy ending with little cute little wink from the director giving us wake-up kick! And after that, find your totem and spin it, see if you're still in a dream or back in reality.
So, are you still dreaming?
:)
