Suspending Inception

I usually don't have a problem suspending my disbelief when watching a film. Part of that is because one of the first steps in my deciding whether I will watch a film is based on whether or not I can believe in the particular dream. I readily recognize films as consciously constructed dreams that we delude ourselves into sharing, and how wonderful that is. But we don't all share in the same delusions, so, rightly so, there are some films that I just don't see from elevator pitch, let alone getting to the point of a trailer.

Therefore, I don't find it hard to comprehend that a person might not be able to hold themselves in suspense long enough to get to the exploding fruit stands and buildings suspended in the middle of explosion.

However, the film isn't that hard to appreciate whether it is placed in the context of history or genre, a very specific kind of history in both cases.

In the former, a particular and appropriately conspiratorial view of the world lends some credentials to "Inception." In this case, we need to remember that the film is situated in a world that really does have conspiracies. There is a good reason that the Spy-Fi of 007 has been invoked in reference to this film, especially "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." But "Inception" plays out like a more sentimental version of the real secret angent man's, the danger man's Spy-Fi: "The Prisoner." This makes a particular ounce of sense if you've read my last piece, since "The Prisoner" is another example of a "real" conspiracy to disenfranchise a person of their mind and to take thoughts from a person. "The Prisoner" is based on a world that already has and uses a powerful understanding of chemistry and psychology, the mind's chemistry, to manipulate, more often than not--to break, a person's spirit. The particular fantasy that a person can construct dreams not unlike a person constructs a video game--a virtual reality--to extract secret thoughts becomes less difficult to stomach if we already believe that the powers at work in the world are unafraid to plumb any and all methods to ensure that they get what they want.

In the latter, we swim well known waters as well. The question of a fictional scientific concept illuminating the fragility of our own consciousness is not uncommon. The film strikingly reminds me of PKD's short story "The Minority Report," which has never been adapted to film to my knowledge, since both stories deal with self fulfillment of prophecies and the ends of our own acts. Methinks there are two routes for this impetus: one for those who want a bigger spectacle and one for those who want to discuss ideas. In the case of the former, the film delivers in spades thanks to the film's literal situating in dreams. The one rule that the films sets up for itself for designing a convincing dream is that the laws of physics must be respected, and thus guides this spectacle into a marvelous firework, as opposed to a more raging and wild inferno that burns the audience, and the time and money that they invested. More importantly, detached from the messy implications of circumstance, "Inception" offers us the chance to dream a bit on our own consciousness and the unreliability of conclusions derived from it. The raw material of reason, the dreamed world lets us set ideas into motion within the system that the story grants, so that we may see how its theories act and develop in motion. Science fiction is the home of ideas and it is from its tool chest that we can exhibit the imagined.

Either way, exploding fruit stands and French bistros and cyclopean, twisting cityscapes are tantalizing enough gestures to believe in.