10 April 2011
Inception
I just watched Inception and my only real thought on it is this: its claim to being a great movie depends entirely on the interpretation that, at the end of the movie, Cobb is still dreaming. If he's in the real world, the movie is a fairly straight forward thriller with nothing interesting to say.
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5 comments:
Since I happen to believe that he's fully awake at the end of the movie (subtle clues from the filmmaker himself on that score), I agree fully with your assessment -- a run-of-the-mill thriller with nothing interesting to "say". What I don't understand is why an ending in which he's still dreaming would somehow constitute a more meaningful statement. It wouldn't. It would just be a run-of-the-mill thriller with a deeply unsatisfying ending, insofar as one cares about the main character at all.
Inception is a bloated, incoherent mess that is a chore to endure, no matter its ending.
Interesting theory David (though doesn't the fact that it leaves it open that he might be dreaming also qualify it on your count?). I thought it was fun and clever in a totally stupid sort of way.
Skipper: Under either interpretation, I found it fun to watch for the spectacle.
Brit: I don't think so. If it is great (on which point I am agnostic), I don't think its greatness depends on ambiguity. I think that the argument for greatness would be that, if it's all taking place in Cobb's sub-conscious then all of the characters are some aspect of Cobb.
If that's the case, then I think that there is an argument that his salvation, such as it is, comes from grace rather than from works, but with exactly the confusion about the relationship between grace and works that bedevils Christianity. That is, it is the free act of a mysterious outside agency granted because when tested he showed himself to be worthy, but not earned through what he actually did.
Under either interpretation, I found it fun to watch for the spectacle.
The problem with Inception is the same as 2001 Minutes of Space Idiocy.
You could take great swinging whacks with a cleaver, chopping out entire scenes at random, without rendering the narrative any more incoherent. Doing so, however, would provide the considerable benefit of wasting rather less of the viewers' lives: the darn thing is at least an hour too long.
... his salvation, such as it is, comes from grace rather than from works, but with exactly the confusion about the relationship between grace and works that bedevils Christianity. That is, it is the free act of a mysterious outside agency granted because when tested he showed himself to be worthy ...
That relationship doesn't bedevil Christianity nearly as much as it should: when tested he showed himself exactly as worthy as he was made to be.
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