I went to see Inception the other night, and while it was a visually stunning film, the plot was as layered and tangled as my thoughts have been of late. Fascinating, but confusing. Prone to wild variations in interpretation, and difficult to sort out. I genuinely wanted to like it, but I have a built-in resistance to films that encourage, or even require, secondary viewings. To me, movie-going has always been about entertainment. Whether to be moved emotionally with a drama; feeling uplifted and full of laughter from a comedy; a tugging of the heart-strings from a romance; the thrilling swell of excitement inspired by an action-adventure … I just enjoy the feeling of being transported, forgetting my own cares and concerns for a spell, and coming out the other end having been entertained. With Inception, I left the theater feeling almost unintelligent and discouraged with myself, wondering if maybe I’d not opened my mind enough to what was happening on screen. Perhaps other pervasive thoughts had kept me from being totally enraptured with the film, because surely if a movie (even with its heady, mind-bending premise) had been so well received, I must be a lesser-than moviegoer to have not understood it completely.
The mood stayed with me quite some time, and it wasn’t until a few days later that I found a few others with similar views, particularly Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly. I related completely when he said that he found the film difficult to review, because “how can you clarify, and justify, your feelings in precise language when those feelings are haziness, confusion, befuddlement, and a vague sense of missed connections?” Amen, Sir Owen. And in my case, Inception seems to have brought to the surface the feelings of haziness and disconnection I’ve been feeling in general lately. Those tricky harbingers of doubt, haunting my mind like misty apparitions – leaving vague impressions that something is missing in my life, but leaving behind no fingerprints or DNA evidence that I can present to the court. I told my friend E that I feel a bit like I’m at the center of a labyrinthine maze, surrounded by endless pathways but no compass to guide me or totem to ground me. It’s not a helpless feeling at all; there’s a certain thrill in feeling like you’re surrounded by possibilities. But every journey begins with a single step, and I feel a bit like I’m standing in molasses.
Another thing that Inception reminded me of were my own thoughts about dreaming. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been easily affected by the pictures conjured on the canvas of my slumbering mind. Most notably was a dream I had when I was 18, in which my home was on fire and I only had time to save two items from my bedroom. I selected my book bag (where I kept all my college materials, as well as my wallet) and my box of receipts (at that age, for some unknown reason, I was a voracious receipt-keeper). I remember waking from the dream and thinking that it was an odd one – not for the subject, but more for the details left out. How did the fire start? What happened in the aftermath? … Sadly, I didn’t have to wait long for answers, as about two weeks later, a candle ignited its holder in my bedroom and set my dressing table ablaze, its flames licking around my room in what felt like an instant. In the end, about 75% of our home was destroyed, and my room was completely gutted. But guess which two items I had the wherewithal to save?
I had trouble sleeping for months to come, torturing myself with questions like Are dreams actually prophetic? or Did my subconscious mind latch onto the dream and cause its real-life manifestation? I still haven’t sorted that one out completely, but after spending the last two or three years slowly immersing myself in modern philosophy and metaphysics, I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter. Just as I don’t really have the motivation to dissect and analyze Inception, at some point we have to observe the mysteries of life and be able to say “I don’t know the answers” without letting our natural need-to-know tendencies overwhelm us. So these days, my dreams have simply become fascinating curiosities. Maybe that also helps to explain my issues with Inception. The idea that someone can utilize your dreams to harm or manipulate you just doesn’t seem plausible. Not that I’d kick Tom Hardy or Cillian Murphy out of my dreams, mind you. But that’s a wholllllle different type of dreaming. ;)
Sometimes though, a dream is worth keeping around to remind you of something, like a token in your pocket or a picture of a long-ago memory. There’s one, only a few months old now, that I’ve been carrying close to my heart, and while its edges are beginning to fray, I can’t help folding and unfolding it from time to time. In this dream was a house, a home crafted of an assortment of random and wonderful materials that gave it a vibrantly unique look that could never be duplicated. Inside were dozens of rooms, each with its own flavor. One held a gleaming grand piano; another was filled with a dreamy assortment of books; there was a room full of vintage 1940′s pin-up art; yet another that looked like the coziest Internet cafe you could ever imagine. And there were people there, all happily engrossed in the rooms and activities of their choice, but no recognizable faces – more mirages or imprints than flesh and bone. But I was nowhere to be found, despite having a tremendous feeling of belonging to this place. I peeked and poked and tried to figure out where I had been or belonged, where it was that I fit into this scene.
Then after a while I realized … I was the house.
And it all made perfect sense … The different rooms represented the facets of my personality, and the mirages were memories and impressions made by people and life experiences. But the house stood alone in its own little slice of reality and edge of the world. It didn’t need neighbors and subdivisions to keep it company, but it also didn’t need locks or security alarms. Open to the public but its own private island. In the world and of the world.
So maybe that’s where I am at the moment … Observing the rooms and passageways within, trying to decide where to recline for a while, or what room to build next. Having my own moment of inception, if you will – standing at the beginning, the origin point of something greater. Interestingly enough, one of my very favorite words is denouement, a gorgeously-pronounced French word meaning the resolution or outcome of a complex series of events. But maybe I’ll grow to love inception as well – if not so much the movie, at least the idea.
Hmmm … Perhaps Christopher Nolan achieved his goal after all.
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