Images - Dreams

Colours of a dream sequence

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Obsession with Dreams

Why do we love hyper-reality so much?

Dreams

• "When you sleep, you don`t control your dream. I like to dive into a dream world that I've made, a world I chose and that I have complete control over." (David Lynch, director of Dune)
• source: http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/

That is exactly what Christopher Nolan's Inception offers: a dream world which we have control over. In these levels of dream (or simulacra) the buildings, the people, the sky even the weather is artificial. The real point is that we can drop into other people's dream as well, as if it was a network to which certain people have access to.

Preferred and Opposed Audience   

Most movies and other media products have a preferred or target audience, based on age (teen dramas, e.g. High School Musical), gender (chick flicks such as Bridesmaids) or other aspects such as brand (e.g.: Coco Before Chanel).   However, he key to the success of American blockbusters is that they try to entertain as wide audience as possible, therefore be the least offensive (apolitical, non-religious, preferably heterosexual). In order to slip through censorship more easily and expand the recommended age group, they offer entertainment for the whole family including adults just a much as children (no swearing, no explicit sex scenes, simple humour). The most recent big shots in cinemas were either comic-book based hero movies (e.g. Marvel's Avengers Assemble and DC's Batman) or slightly more original stories which are just relatively easy to follow. 

In the case of Inception, there is the originality, the opportunity to be thrilled. On the other hand, it is argued, that certain elements were 'borrowed' from other movies such as James Bond or Matrix. What is obvious for the audience that we get a hybrid fusion of noir, action, detective, thriller and sci-fi genres. The following review expresses opinion on how cliche-ish it actually is, but also discovers values which make the movie likeable. (Seemingly the writer of the review shifts more towards a negotiated than to an opposed audience.)

• http://likeawhisper.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/inception-a-review-spoilers/

Escapism

Many film fans argue that movies become less and less real. Most of us don't even want to see the real world, because it's too sad, complicated, dangerous, material, disappointing etc., shortly - hard to accept. We chose to hide behind the invisible bars of lies.

• article: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/sightsound/christopher-nolan-escape-artist

We even forget to ask ourselves: do we dream to live or live to dream? Dreams is where we control everything, we can have the power of a god or right the opposite: to disappear as we might not in reality. Diving into our  greatest desires or facing our biggest fears - it is all part of something we cannot do in an everyday environment. Inception plays with the unknown, the undiscovered areas of our own subconscious, reflecting one of the biggest fears of our day: the enemy inside us. 

Addiction

The ultimate theme of Inception is the same thing what philosophers asked throughout the last thousands of years: do we only live this world or is there another one? Is there life beyond death, a heaven or hell or our earth is the compound of the two? Being so confused, it is not a surprise that sometimes we cannot chose between the dream and the reality.

In Inception, you need to be drugged up to join the dreams of others.

The addiction - dreams connected to drugs in Inception

Spying

There are plenty of ideas of brainwashing and controlling of the minds of others in Art and Literature. The most known is Orwell's 1984. Similarly, Inception makes an effort in convincing us about the possibly of entering people's minds and influence their actions.  

Do movies really 'move' us?

Two-step flow

In 2000 the number of suicides increased in the western countries, especially in the USA. This was the period of the collapse of the American dream, when also films like Fight Club and The Matrix came out. A year later they experienced the biggest shock in New York's history: the events of 9/11. How much the actual movies influenced them, we will never have the chance to ask them. We can only suspect that the environment which creates such movies is itself filled with doubt and fear. The concept of the spinning top made many people doubt their reality at least in the form a few nightmares.
How many times have we chosen going to cinema instead of having another annoying conversation with our family our collegues? How many times have we decided to carry on sleeping for an extra half an hour instead of doing something useful in the morning? These are everyday examples which seem completely average. In Inception, we encounter the people who choose the dream life over the real one. They spend most of their time in dungeons drugged up, never seeing the daylight. It doesn't even surprise us that Cobb stays in his illusions instead of facing the loud of his wife and kids.

Hypodermic needle

Inception is exactly about injecting ideas. It might be a simple one as loving someone or a more complicated one as breaking up a company. Many critiques argue that the lately popular movie-violence affects the minds of the young audience in a negative way. Although, if it true, than the cinema-goers of the last 50 years had been psychologically influenced therefore our generation is already doomed. The most recent shock in America was the massacre on the screening of The Dark Knight Rises. Many parents considered taking their children to the cinema dangerous after the event and even made academics think of more severe censoring of films in the future. However, the majority of the audience reacted rather indifferently to the situation. Some walked into the cinema shredding their shoulders saying, 'Just because one maniac thinks himself The Joker, it doesn't mean that all of us do.'