Continuous internal Assessment -3

Topic : Critical analysis

Submitted By Tanay soni

Register Number :2224236.
Subject:Understanding the visual
Language of cinema.
Course Code :BMED151B.
Submitted To :Arun D M .
 CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The film Inception is a movie directed by the widely-acclaimed director Christopher Nolan in
2010. With its lead star Leonardo DiCaprio, alongside other known Hollywood actors such as
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, and Cillian Murphy; the film
became both a commercial and critical success. On the commercial side, the film grossed over
$800 million worldwide. It also won four Academy Awards in the categories of Best Sound
Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. While the film has been praised for its
particularly excellent cinematography and visual effects, much of the praise has been given to
the story itself specifically for Nolan’s masterful exploration of the dreams and the subconscious
mind.

While there is a consensus on the film belonging to the science fiction genre, it also draws some
themes from other genres of films such as heist, thriller, and even film noir. It revolves around
Dominic “Dom” Cobb portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, a professional thief or an “extractor”
who uses an experimental dream-sharing technology to commit corporate espionage by breaking
into their target’s subconscious to extract information. Together with his friend Arthur played by
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, they try to extract information from a Japanese businessman Saito (Ken
Watanabe) only to be thwarted by the businessman’s ploy to recruit them into planting an idea in
someone’s mind – Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) – heir to the owner of an energy
conglomerate. The process, called inception, was deemed almost impossible but Cobb, allured
with the chance to get back with his children by having him cleared of a murder charge agrees to
do the job.
In a typical heist fashion, Cobb proceeds to assemble a team consisting of an architect – one who
designs the dreams, a forger who is tasked with forging identities of other people, and a chemist
who is responsible for concocting sedatives for the dream-sharing. Cobb first recruits Ariadne
portrayed by Ellen Page, an architecture student in Paris to construct dream landscapes and
labyrinths. He then proceeds to go to Mombasa to recruit Eames (Tom Hardy) as an identity
forger and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) as a chemist tasked to administer a powerful sedative to allow for
a stable “dream within a dream.” Saito also opts to join the team in order to make sure that the
job will be accomplished. In a stolen dream-sharing moment with Cobb, Ariadne realizes the
dangers that Dom’s subconscious projection of his late wife Mal played by Marion Cotillard.
The goal of their mission was to get Robert Fischer to dismantle his father’s company and they
soon find an opportunity to do so when his father dies in Sydney and Robert embarks on a ten-
hour flight to Los Angeles for the funeral. In order to wake up safely, they had to simultaneously
set up a “kick” similar to the sensation of falling across three levels of dreams, with each level
having a slower passage of time than the previous one.

The first dream level was a rainy Los Angeles by Yusuf where the team abducts Fischer only to
realize that he’s been trained against extractions by projecting armed men to protect him. At the
same time, a train from Cobb’s subconscious bursts into the scene jeopardizing their mission.
Saito gets shot but the team soon learns that they can’t safely wake up because of the sedative so
the team gets ready to dive into another level of the dream by fooling Fischer into thinking that
his godfather, impersonated by Eames has an ulterior motive to take over his father’s business.

The second level was a hotel dreamt by Arthur during which Cobb convinces Fischer that his
godfather was behind his abduction and that Cobb was there to protect him. He then tricks
Fischer to enter his own subconscious by having him think that it was his godfather’s mind that
they were entering. Arthur stays in the dream level to administer the kick.

The third level is a heavily defended hospital which Eames dreamt and is also where the
deathbed of Fischer’s father was located. When Yusuf sets up the kick prematurely, an avalanche
happens as the team tries to get Fischer inside his father’s chamber. Mal sabotages the mission
by shooting him and as the team was ready to give up, Ariadne proposes to go down another
level with Cobb, into the Limbo, an “unconstructed dream space.” There Cobb confronts Mal
and Ariadne learns that Mal’s death was a result of an inception that Cobb did on her. He planted
an idea that Mal’s world wasn’t real after she had forgotten that they were living in a dream for
50 years. When Mal woke up, she was still convinced that they were still dreaming and
committed suicide to wake herself up, framing Cobb so that he would do the same.

Ariadne finally kills Mal’s projection and wakes Fischer up by having him fall off the building.
He then proceeds to his father’s room where he, due to the work of the team, fools himself into
thinking that his father didn’t want him to be like what he was and that he must dismantle his
father’s company. Ariadne soon follows when Cobb insisted that he would come find Sato
whose injuries left him unconscious in the previous level. Cobb eventually finds Saito as an old
man and reminds him of their agreement. The team finally wakes up with the simultaneous kick.
Saito makes a phone call to honor their promise and the team, together with Cobb arrive at the
Los Angeles Airport with no hiccups.

Arriving home, Cobb tests whether he’s in the reality by spinning a top that supposedly doesn’t
stop spinning in the dream world but chooses to ignore what happens to join his children in their
yard. A rather ambiguous ending, Nolan himself claimed that he always intended to end the film
that way to leave the viewers to interpret it for themselves