Inception (2010) - Dreams Inside Dreams!

★★★★★

What makes you think that, every time you wake up or open your eyes, the world you wake up to or what you see is real? Is it just because you can see, smell, hear, touch and feel? If that's how you define reality, don't you think there's after all no difference between dream and reality? Why are you so sure that you and what's around you aren't just a dream, or a dream inside a dream?

This is a movie about dreams. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a kinda agent that specializes in stealing ideas or secrets from the target's mind. It's called 'Extraction'. This time he's asked to do something much more difficult, 'Inception', that's to implant an idea or a view within one's subconscious, so in return he can go back to his kids again. Why is he estranged from his children? What happens to his wife? Why does his wife keep showing up in his dreams? Since that's part of the story, you'd better go find out for yourself.

To perform an 'Inception' however, Cobb needs to reach the second layer of the dream world, meaning the dream inside the dream. There're 4 layers of dreams in this movie. The last one is called 'Limbo'. If you're trapped in there for some time, you could be brainwashed and become someone else even if you awaken later. When you're in the first layer, you can return to reality simply by getting killed. If you in the second layer, you need someone to give you a 'kick' to bring you back to the first one, and then to reality. If you're killed in the dream inside the dream, you'll go straight to 'Limbo'. In 'Limbo', you'll have to kill yourself so as to return to reality. But the problem is, would you realize you're in a dream when you're actually in it? I don't think so because 'dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange'.

We can never imagine what it's like when dream and reality collide. We tend to think that dream and reality are different and incompatible. That dream is not reality, and reality is no dream. Since when did we have this view? Are we here to dream or to wake up? I guess we'll never be able to find the answers. It's pretty much like we're already in a trap trying to prove we're not.

Everybody's talking about Cobb's spinning top, his totem (it's his wife's as a matte of fact) to tell him what's real and what's not. If it keeps spinning and doesn't stop, he's in a dream. If it stops eventually, he's not. People argue if he really goes back to his kids in the end; if the whole movie is nothing but Cobb's dream of finding a way back to his family; if his kids are already dead. I guess we will never know. We can never tell either, because that's something beyond our logic and way of thinking based on language.

Sometimes, I do feel like we're all here in a dream to share dreams inside dreams... just sometimes!