they are a couple who lost their children. almost all is imaginary. deeply psychological

Rating: 8/10 (16 September 2010)

Dead children don't grow up or the real story of Inception
I cannot claim that this is the real story of the film but I think it would be nice if it were. Cobb and Mal are a married couple. Their two children had died because of an unknown reason. The couple denies this enormous trauma, and act as if they are alive. They try to console themselves by imagining that their children are still alive and are living with them . But every great loss brings with it a good portion of survival guilt and it sometimes causes a hostility between the couple. After a while Mal begins to understand that imagining her children as if they are alive doesn't satisfy her. She understands that their children are in the "other" world, i.e. that they are dead. This new stance of Mal causes a big gap between her and her husband. Lack of communication and insensitivity increase. Mal begins to think that she can only reunite with her children if she dies and goes to the other world. She is hoping to meet them in the other world. We never see the children with the couple, which indicates that they do not exist anyway. At the suicide scene of Mal we see the materialization of the gap between the couple. Mal is seen on the border of the window opposite of the room they checked in at a hotel. Below, there is an abyss, the end of which cannot be seen. Mal jumps, but Cobb does not follow. This new trauma affects Cobb deeply. He cannot live in his old imaginary world, he cannot even imagine seeing the faces of his children. He believes that the reason of him not being able to imagine his children's faces is that he couldn't have a last call to them but this cannot be the sole reason because he knows their faces well. One of the reasons is his survival guilt. (Because of his guilt feelings he imagines himself as an outlaw in his fantasy.) He doesn't have the courage to face his children, he believes he was responsible for the deaths of both his children and his wife. He feels guilty because he had convinced Mal that she was living in an imaginary world. He believed that their children were alive, living with them. However his wife believed that Cobb's was the real "imaginary world", it was Cobb who insisted to live in an imaginary world. But his wife's suicide had made his imaginary world unsustainable. Thus he is angry to his wife. His hostility against his wife lead him to expect hostility from his wife. It's natural to expect hostility from somebody you are hostile to. It's not a coincidence that his wife's name is Mal (evil). It's the name that is given to his wife by Cobb. There isn't any real name like Mal, there cannot be such a name. (By the way Cobb means both chief and spider. Maybe spider is a reference to the Cronenberg's film, Spider where he tells the story of a schizophrenic.) One who expects evil finds it, at least in the dreams! Mal follows Cobb and turns his dreams into a nightmare. Cobb needs not a new reality but a new imaginary world in order to survive. After all, the imaginary world is a part of the reality. In his new imaginary world he should be able to say farewell to his wife and remember his children's faces. For these reasons he convinces himself that he kept his promise to his wife and they got old together. It was the only way he could get free of the evil ghost of Mal. He in fact gets free of her (his wedding ring on his left hand is not there anymore). Following this transformation Cobb could dream being together with his children again. He remembers his children always at the same location, dressed in the same way and at the same age, because as the poet Nazim Hikmet indicates "dead children don't grow up". I really don't know if it is me who wrote this story or it is the film that told me. But I find it sound. After all who can claim that we all see the same dream in the movie theater? If it were true, we would all agree on the film and there would be no need for the critics. PARALLEL CATHARSISES What about all those action scenes? Or the other characters? It seems that the film emphasizes catharsis, the basic function of classical drama art, a kind of healing and release. The catharsis of the main character goes parallel with the catharsis of the audience. The imaginary world of the main character identifies with the film so both the characters of the film and the audience find their inner peace. After all one cannot expect such a big production, not to provide catharsis to its audience. According to Devin Faraci, Cobb represents the director, architect Aridane represents the script writer, Saito represents the movie financier who noses, Arthur represents the producer (Not the one who finances, but the one who makes the research and provide sleeping facility), Eames represents the actor and Yusuf represents the technician. These people make up the crew who realizes the dream that is the film. Resolution? Find a way to make peace with your regrets. Don't be an old (wo)man who dies alone with regrets! This is the idea that the film cultivates in our minds (after all 'inception' means that). And one thing more, don't follow in your father's footsteps, build your own dream. Or are these my ideas also? Inception is not an ordinary film. I wish those action scenes were shorter, but I also accept that our minds resist to new ideas. However, I hear somebody is playing "Non, je ne regrette rien" (no, I have no regrets); I'd better get up now.