I saw Inception again. What mastery over the media form could Chris Nolan have needed to spin such a twisted tale! A movie that keeps the action going non-stop while making you think with every line of dialogue spoken. There are action movies, wham-bham every frame, but the premise is kept simple (Think Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson etc etc) so the audience can focus on the movement on the screen and enjoy it. And there are movies that make you think, take on a philosophical analysis after the last frame has flashed past. (Think really crazy film maker - who's name you never bothered finding out, but that strange movie that you came across accidentally, but was so evocative and is the first movie you think of when someone asks which was your all time favourite movie.)
But this movie combines both with such expertise, that from the very moment you begin to grasp what is happening, when the chinese guy's house starts collapsing and they show a sleeping Arthur while he is actually standing right next to Sato, the idea that this movie is about dreams, and manipulating people while they were sleeping, and stealing within dreams, and epsionage and has twist within twist takes root, and you willingly begin to suspend disbelief and sit up. And when the last frame is still running, and you are waiting with bated breath to see if the totem will topple, hoping that it will topple, and that the reality that Cobb thinks is reality is indeed reality as we know it, or perceive it, is so strong, that you want the director to give the principal character the ending that you would want for yourself, you actually want to find Chris Nolan and throttle him for leaving the movie the way he did it.
Then a few days later, or a few minutes later (depending on how fast your brain processes rational thought and emotions, your own and others', of course), you realise that of course that was the point that Nolan was trying to make. What if this world we live in is real, or what if it isnt? Are we real? The world and us, living things here and everything we have made, are real only as far as we perceive it to be. It doesn't matter one way or the other in the larger scheme of things. Assuming that there is a larger scheme, that is, and we can perceive it, but then, that doesn't matter too.
It is all going around in circles and now doesn't make sense to me either :D
