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Telling a Story About a Character with a Wounded Psyche

a Review of Inception

by Bill Johnson

Creating a story about a character with a wounded psyche requires that what a story is about be made accessible to an audience. When an author has a deeply wounded psyche, the risk is that he or she will create a main character who is so wounded, they cannot act. Authors might do this out of a need to process their feelings about their wound, to relive it, or to experience feelings of anger around it, but it creates a story with an inert main character who acts for an audience of one, the author.

Inception is an example of a film with a main character who has a deeply wounded psyche. The breakdown of this film will demonstrate how this story operates to transport an audience.

The film opens with violent waves and a man, Cobb, semi-conscious on a beach. What he sees is a young boy and girl building a sand castle. This raises immediate questions, who is the man? Who are the children?

A second man in a uniform prods the semi-conscious man with a rifle. The guard uses his rifle to raise the semi-conscious man's shirt, revealing a gun.

This suggests the man is on a dangerous mission. The stakes have just been raised significantly.

In the next scene, an old man inside a pagoda-like house on the beach is informed about the man found by the guards; the old man is shown a small top and a gun.

When the other man is dragged into the room, the old man asks, 'Are you here to kill me?' The old man relates that he saw something like the top when he met another man years earlier.

End of scene.

We go to another scene, in a glossy office with three well-dressed men. The young man from the beach is explaining to a powerful man, Saito, that he is an extractor, able to retrieve information from another person's mind through their subconscious, and he can train this man to protect himself. This is Cobb, the young man from the beach. To do this, Cobb says he needs complete access to Saito's secrets.

Saito offers to consider the proposal and leaves. The room starts to shake, and Cobb's compatriot, Arthur, says, 'He knows.'

Raising the question, knows what?

Arthur asks, 'What's going on up there?'

Cut to next scene, rioting in a street and an explosion.

It's revealed that Cobb and Arthur are dreaming, and that they have taken hostage Saito, and are trying to probe his secrets through this dream they control.

We return to the dream world. Arthur notices someone and asks Cobb, “What's she doing here?”

Cobb goes to a woman, who asks if she jumps over a railing, will she survive?

This foreshadows a revelation about who this character is that comes out later in the film. An important seed has been planted, who is she?

She asks if Cobb still misses her, and he responds that he can't trust her any more. Again, another question: why can't he trust her?

Next, they are in a room together and he asks her to take a seat. She asks, “Do the children miss me?”

The assumption would be the children from the opening scene on the beach, and she is their mother, and perhaps he is the father.

He intends to use the chair she sits in as an anchor so he can repel down the exterior face of the building, but she leaves, and he falls and has to catch himself.

Cobb goes in through a window and kills two guards with a silenced gun. He opens a safe and is going to replace one envelope with another, but he's surprised by his victim and the woman who now has a gun trained on him. His compatriot is brought in under guard.

Cobb surrenders his gun, and Saito announces he knows he's asleep and in a dream world.

Saito wants to know who hired Cobb or Arthur will be killed. Cobb replies there's no use making such a threat in a dream, but Mal replies, 'That depends on what you're threatening,” again suggesting her history with Cobb.

She shoots Arthur in the foot and says, “Pain is in the mind.” This foreshadows a major revelation in the story.

Cobb shoots Arthur, who wakes in the real world as the dream world begins to implode. Cobb now tries to finish his mission, fighting his way out of the imploding dream world while reading a document marked confidential.

He's acting out here how dogged and determined he is to fulfill a job. He's not weak.

In the 'real' world, Arthur decides the time has come to awaken Saito and Cobb, who refuses to wake so he can finish reading the document. Arthur says 'dunk him,' and Cobb's pushed into a tub of water to force him awake, which to Cobb looks like the dream world being flooded with water.

Meanwhile, Saito pulls out a gun but is disarmed by Cobb.

It comes out that Saito considers what has happened an audition and that Cobb has failed.

But then it comes out that this scene, too, is a dream, a dream within a dream, and the men controlling the dream are sleeping on a train with Saito.

When Cobb wakes on the train, Arthur demands to know why Mal showed up. Cobb claims he has the situation 'under control.'

The men who set up the dream scenario flee the train car. Saito wakes and smiles. This raises the question, what is he smiling about?

This is the opening sequence for the film, Part One, so to speak, fifteen minutes and forty two second in.

A number of questions have been raised, some answered, but there is a clarity to the action even while much is mysterious.

Cobb now sits in a high rise with the top that he spins. We'll find out much later why he spins the top. He stares at it while it spins and holds his gun next to his head until the top ceases to spin.

He gets a call from one of his children, and we see an image of two children playing.

His children ask when he's coming home and he responds that he can't.

One child says he's never coming back.

This raises the question, why?

A child asks if he's with mommy, and we see an image of Mal. That answers the questions of who she is and if she's the mother of these children.

I call this process question, answer, question. We get an answer about Mal, but this sets up another question, why can't Cobb return to his children?

These questions and answers are easy to track. If all we had were questions and no answers, at some point the story would be a chore to watch because the audience would be required to remember every detail.

Arthur shows up. Because their mission to extract information from Saito failed, they need to flee. But on a roof top, they find Saito waiting for them in a helicopter.

Saito says he wants inception, the planting of an idea into someone's mind instead of just extracting information.

He's told it's impossible, but Cobb says it can be done.

This is setting up the second track of this story and the question, will Cobb be able to do inception?

Note how the first track – the attempt to extract information from Saito and the aftermath – is dramatic unto itself.

Cobb wants to pass on this job, but as he leaves the helicopter, Saito asks if he would like to go home. Cobb responds that that can't happen, which again raises the question, why?

Saito suggests he needs to take a leap of faith or end up an old man filled with regrets who will die alone, which foreshadows a scene to come much later in the film.

Cobb tells Arthur he's already done inception, but he won't answer the question of who he did it to.

Arthur and Cobb go to Paris to line up a new architect, the person who creates the details of the world of the dream.

Cobb goes to visit an old professor, who asks why Cobb is a thief. He responds that after 'what happened' he didn't have many options. This again highlights that question, what happened to Mal? What did it have to do with Cobb?

It comes out in their conversation that Cobb is here to recruit one of the professor's students to be his dream architect, and the professor is the grandfather of Cobb's children.

The professor lines Cobb up with his student, Ariadne.

This part of the film tracks the set up for the job. This gives more background to the process of creating a dream.

A note, Ariadne has no inner life, and neither do the other minor characters. This is what makes Inception a film with great spectacle and a finely detailed puzzle, but not a great film. None of the minor character are more than plot devices.

Cobb realizes Ariadne's building a dream world from a memory of a real place, which is dangerous. She wants to know if that's what happened to him (and Mal). This is where it's said that Mal is his ex-wife. Ariadne becomes the person in the film who wants answers about Cobb's history with Mal and why it's affecting his dream world. This kind of character is often seen in this kind of story. In other films, it might be a friend or confident of the main character who is a conduit for information to come out.

Cobb's totem is explained here, that a totem is something that can tell the dreamer they are in a dream.

It comes out that Ariadne doesn't want to work with Cobb if he's emotionally unbalanced.

Cobb must now go to Africa to recruit a forger, and he must escape pursuers from his failed job.

Saito shows up to rescue Cobb, to 'protect his investment.'

Ariadne returns and is told she'll need to create three different dream levels. This will be the three levels of the subconscious of the man who will be the victim of the dream process.

Cobb continues his recruiting. He tests a new anesthetic and has an image of Mal and a train track. She says, “You know how to find me; you know what you have to do.”

He sees Mal sitting in an open window, a memory of what happened to her that will be revealed later.

This movie does a masterful job of planting clues and foreshadowing the meaning of events.

The details of the job are set out by Saito.

The plan is set into motion with the gathering of information about the victim, the son of a business tycoon.

Cobb reveals that he uses Mal's totem, that in a dream it will spin and never topple.

It comes out that Cobb can't know the architecture of the dream being set up for this job, because then Mal would know it, a grave threat to the plan.

Cobb is asked, “Why can't you go home?” His response, “Because they think I killed her.” This answers the question of why he can't go home, but not what happened. So the answer to the question raises a larger question.

The crew talks about inception requiring an emotion to accompany the idea being implanted to make it more deeply felt.

The crew works out the logic of the three ideas to implant in the three layers of the victim's subconscious.

They work out plans for how to get out of the dream worlds.

Ariadne finds Cobb asleep and joins him in his dream in his deepest subconscious. She discovers that Cobb is using memories to fuel his dreams of his wife, just what he warned Ariadne not to do, and there is a basement level he will not allow her to explore.

She flees from Cobb and goes to the basement level, where she speaks with Mal. During the ride down, she sees a train traveling on some tracks, an image also suggested earlier.

When Cobb arrives, Mal flings the words at him that he promised they would grow old together.

It comes out that Cobb has build this dream world as a prison to contain Mal. This raises the question, will he be able to keep Mal in this prison?

It now comes out that the dream victim's father has died, and the plan to do inception must be put into action.

Ariadne insists the she accompany Cobb or that he tell Arthur what he's doing with Mal.

At an airport, Cobb tells Saito that if he gets on that plane, he could be arrested when he reaches America. But not, Saito assures him, if he pulls off the job.

This frames the question for the next track of the film. Even in a complex story, there can be stages that each have their questions to resolve.

In the first level of the dream, Cobb's team kidnaps the victim, but while Cobb rides in a trailing car, it's hit by the train from his personal dream, intruding into this dream world.

When gunman attack the cab with the victim, Robert Fisher, inside, Cobb has to get around the train to rejoin the group. Meanwhile, Saito is shot.

It turns out that Fisher has trained his subconscious to protect himself from an extractor like Cobb.

And, they can't 'kill' Saito to wake him from this dream because he's too heavily sedated.

So, the big question becomes, now what?

It comes out that if Saito dies (or anyone else on the team), they'll be trapped in a dream limbo they can't escape.

They have to make an escape from this dream they are in. The stakes have just been raised significantly. According to Cobb, the only way out is 'down,' deeper into Fisher's subconscious.

Since we don't know what the plan to escape is, the audience is more caught up in the action.

They now need a combination to a safe, and a member of the crew takes on another identity to convince the victim a confidant is being tortured to get him to talk.

Ariadne tells Cobb that as the team goes deeper into the victim's subconscious, they'll also get deeper into Cobb's subconscious and Mal, and another train might appear.

Cobb relates that when he and his wife went into a dream world together, they spent 50 years their, and when they came back, Mal became convinced that they'd woken into another dream, and to really wake, they'd need to die together.

On their anniversary Cobb found her on a ledge wanting him to jump with her. Note that why Mal would feel this way has been set out by the earlier action and revelations of the story.

To force Cobb to join her, she's written a letter saying he'd planned to kill her.

Mal leaps to her death. Cobb flees to avoid prosecution.

Ariadne explains he'll have to forgive himself and confront Mal.

They now have a new plan, to turn Fisher against his godfather while they are in a van being chased by gunmen (in the dream world).

Cobb now convinces Fisher he's in a new dream and Cobb is his protector, but during this scene Cobb sees his children, which means Mal is close.

Cobb convinces Fisher that his godfather set up his kidnapping, and that he must go into a new dream world to protect himself, which will allow the team to get the combination of a safe. While this is being set up, Cobb sees the curtains from the hotel room Mal leapt from. She's close.

A team member must protect the sleeping crew, so he gets into a terrific fight scene in a hotel hallway.

Meanwhile, the others go to a frozen wasteland to assault a fortress in a deeper dream world.

In the time it will take the van with the crew to land in a river, they must complete their mission of Fisher getting into a safe in the fortress.

Mal shows up and shoots Fisher, who dies, which means the crew will be trapped in limbo.

Ariadne comes up with a plan to revive Fisher and ride back up the layers to reality.

Now the urgent question becomes, will this work? On this lower level, Cobb will have to deal with Mal. He and the girl go to the place where Cobb and Mal spent 50 years together.

They find Mal, and she asks the question, which world is real? Is his dream of being on the run just another dream? Should he stay here with Mal?

Mal tells Cobb to trust his feelings, and he relays that what he feels is guilt that he planted the idea that led Mal to doubt their reality. Cobb found a way to plant the idea that her world wasn't real; that's how he knew inception could work, because it had led to his wife's death.

To get Mal out of that dream world they spent fifty years in, they commit suicide on a train track, waking up in reality, but not one Mal believes is real.

Back in Mal's limbo, Cobb agrees to stay with her if she'll let Fisher leave.

Cobb also realizes Mal is not alive, not herself, just his projection, but he must stay behind in limbo to find Saito.

Fisher comes to in the fortress and opens the safe.

He sees his dying father who tells him he was only disappointed that his son tried to be like him (implanting the idea that he break up his father's business empire and start over with his own company).

Fisher opens his father's safe and finds a toy (to generate an emotion) and a will. The inception has taken hold.

One of the crew now destroys the fortress.

Ariadne, who is with Mal and Cobb in limbo, tells Cobb to find Saito and bring him back.

This is the next track for the film. The question is set out clearly.

Cobb relates a dream to Mal of their growing old together, his promise to her, but now he tell her he must let her go.

She dies, acting out that he is free of his guilt over her death.

We now return to the opening scene of the film, Cobb being found on the beach and being taken to the old man, who is Saito, who has grown old while trapped in limbo.

Cobb convinces Saito to return with him, a leap of faith, and Cobb wakes on the plane with his crew.

Saito makes a call. Will it allow Cobb to make it through customs without being arrested?

He does make it through.

A guard, “Welcome home, Mr. Cobb.”

Cobb is met by the professor who takes him to his home and his children. Cobb spins Mal's totem, then looks up to see the faces of his children for the first time in the film.

He goes to his children, and the last shot of the film is the still spinning totem. Is it about to fall over?

The screen goes black.

Cobb has made the journey of healing, but is it real?

We don't know.

This 'works' because Cobb has freed himself from the limbo of his guilt over Mal's death, which was his journey in this film.

(A film called Limbo, by John Sayles, also ends with three characters having worked through their personal states of limbo, with another ending that doesn't resolve that story's central plot question, whether the characters will live or die).

Although there are many dream landscapes in Inception, the questions raised on any one track of the film are clear and accessible. I do admit that watching the film a second time with an understanding gained from a first viewing helped me to fully understand the plot. This film is a great example of a puzzle piece.

I've mentioned that this isn't a great film because the minor characters lack an inner life. Someone could suggest that that's true because in the end, Cobb really is living in an elaborate dream world, and everyone is a progression of his mind.

This is a question Nolan could answer (or not).

Whatever his ultimate intention, Inception is a great spectacle to watch and was a pleasure to review.

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