JOURNAL ENTRY 6 : INCEPTION

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an extraordinary thief, who gets the information from people’s mind through their dreams. His ability makes him an international fugitive and costs him everything he loves (his wife and his children). He leads to dead of his wife because of planting an idea to his wife’s mind and has to escape from his country leaving his children. He is offered a chance to go back his country and to come together with them again. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish it. Cobb and his team of specialists are not to steal information but to plant an idea in this assignment. Planting an idea requires to reach deep in the mind, therefore it is only possible with a series of dreams within dreams. He accepts the job although he has to deal with his emotions and feelings of guilt.

In this film, lucid dreaming is considered from a different angle. Cobb has already been successful in lucid dreaming. Moreover, he gets information from people’s mind, and also he can plant an idea in their mind by sharing their dreams though a machine. In that respect it is a worth-watching film. It should be watched in order to comprehend the lucid dreaming because there are mainly two remarkable points about it and a psychological problem it causes. Moreover, ambiguity at the end of film makes it unusual.

Firstly, Cobb has an effective tool, top, which belongs actually to his wife, in order to realize whether it is a dream or not. This top is special for him and it determines reality. If it continues to turn without stopping, he has a dream, but if it stops, he is in real life. In addition, he has another way to determine it. It is to question how one came where he was, because in dreams the dreamer finds himself in the events and does not remember the beginning of the events.

The other point is about a psychological problem. Cobb and his wife live in the world they created in their dreams approximately 50 years, according to time in the dreams. Cobb’s wife does not want to wake because she likes their life, therefore, she hides her top in a safe and loses her sense of reality.  As a result of this, Cobb has to plant the idea that it is not real life in his wife’ mind and they wake together, but she does not put this idea out of her mind. She thinks that they have to die to wake even in real life, so she kills herself. Dealing with lucid dreaming excessively may cause such a psychological problem.

Lastly, the film ends with Cobb's spinning top when he sees his kids by leaving viewers to wonder whether the top continues to turn endlessly, which means the scenario is all a dream, or stops.  Christopher Nolan, director of the film, says about the end of film that he tries to leave his movies open to interpretation. He says “There can’t be anything in the film that tells you one way or another because then the ambiguity at the end of the film would just be a mistake. I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film. That always felt the right ending to me." His leaving the film open to comment and ambiguity at the end appeal to viewers. As for my thoughts about the end of the film, turning of the top endlessly means that life is a dream and people wake to real life when they die.

In conclusion, the film is worth-watching in terms of being informative about lucid dreaming and open to interpretation and admirable in point of warning about a possible psychological problem mildly,so I chose it to share in my blog.