Inception Movie Critique - Essay Example

This is the fundamental concept behind inception. A dream inside a dream and the sharing of this activity enables Dom Cobb and his team to illegally steal information related to corporate espionage through extraction. It starts with the architect who builds the dreams and designs all of its intricacies.

This process goes all too well until projections, which are the person’s subconscious in action, become aware that what is happening is not real. These projections turn against the dreamer. The projections are part of the dream and comprise the whole feel that adds to make the dream more real but they are at the same time the most telling that everything is not in order and retaliates so that a search for the dreamer and the end of the dream ensues. This is why it is important to keep track of reality within a dream to avoid triggering the subconscious toward any suspicion. The main goal of extraction, or in this case inception, is to be able to create a reality that would allow Cobb to grab hold of information that the person hides intently. Specifically in inception, it is the control to let the person come to his realization to make the idea more compelling. In the world presented in the film, technology not only enables people to explore dreams extensively, but it has also instilled the value of protection from such thievery. This is where the inception of Robert Fischer with the idea to break up his father’s empire turned out to make the job difficult as armies are sent instead of the normal human projections. But this is not the most threatening of all the projections. It is the recurrence of Mal that threatens their lives while inside three concurrent dreams.

To keep off the animosity of projections, the architect plays an important role in the development and creation of dreams. From the start, the audience already gets a strong sense that Cobb is the best at what he does but he has been broken by memories of the death of his wife and constant running away from authorities. Ariadne proved to be the most helpful in keeping away the demons that haunt Cobb and in eventually allowing him to confront them and the reality of what happened to his wife. She was the only other architect who was able to parallel him in his prime. Initially, the film established that the architect plays an important role. When Cobb was supposed to extract information from Saito, the latter was able to tell it was a dream because of the carpet which was a lapse on the part of their previous architect.

As Botz-Bornstein aptly puts it, “The architect of dreams must create a place. Space is already there in the cacophony of the subconscious” (p.122). What Ariadne provided are the details, on a small or large scale, which was a way to make them partake in the dream. More than her initial task of creating an intrinsic labyrinth so that Cobb may shed away his projections of Mal, Ariadne created sequences upon layers of dreams that made for the believability of their alternate reality. Cobb had cautioned her vehemently, “Never recreate from your memory. Always imagine new places!” (Inception). But mostly this warning was directed by Cobb for his benefit since it is Mal’s projections that are the worst and ultimately had led them to the abyss that endangered their lives.

Ariadne, except for the recurrence of Mal, was the only pivotal female figure that exists in real-time in the film. The architect provides for the development of the story and her strength determines the survival of their endeavour and how poorly or effectively they will carry out the task. The architect’s power is comparable to God and where He can create the world according to his plan and his desire. The book “Inception and Philosophy: Because It's Never Just a Dream” gives an interesting notion in the supposition that if the architect of a dream can create a world without limits then he possesses a power that extends beyond that of God yet the laws of nature ultimately catch up to any design an architect would have such as gravity (p.255).

The architect plays an important role that is not bounded by her obligation to pacify the subconscious by creating a conducive environment. Ariadne was in essence the game maker who determines how each dream should look and feel. But her character transcended more than the routine role in the group which demands a specific kind of talent. She had become the voice of reason determined to bring all of them back including Cobb himself who was responsible for their predicament. The fuel of curiosity that instigated her to learn more about Cobb and his dilemmas allowed her to understand and guide him toward his realization. The architecture she created was not only of the dream they concocted but of the escape that they ultimately needed.