Regret not Dreams

Rating: 10/10 (7 February 2011)

"An old man filled with regret waiting to die alone" It took five viewings before I truly appreciated the nuances in this film. An extraordinary achievement. The first viewing left me thinking there was just too much going on to make any sense - it's just a good action flick with great special effects and amazing cinematography - like my high school English teacher used to say, "you can read Moby Dick and think it's a story about a whale hunt." - but slowly with perseverance every thread connects for a beautiful story tightly woven with strong existential themes. Finally you begin to realize the film has little to do with dreams and everything to do with regret. You will understand this film fully I think when you can distinguish the memory of Cobb's wife from the projection of Cobb's wife because it is in that memory of her which lies all of Cobb's need for a past that is long gone. In the basement of his dreams Cobb cannot let go of his past, the one and only woman he ever loved but to survive, to rejoin his children he must come to accept Mal's passing. It is that acceptance - "we had our time together, we grew old together" the symbolic entrapment by living in the past of his dreams - that both defines the film and assures the audience that indeed the toy top has ceased to spin. As Fitzgerald said in his statement of lament 'born back ceaselessly against the past."