Film Critique: Philosophical Analysis of Inception (2010) (Movie Review Sample)

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Philosophical Analysis of Inception (2010)
Introduction
Can you control your mind? Currently, are you awake or dreaming? To what extent do other people take part in our perceived realities that are different from the real environments in which we live, and interact? How far can one go in terms of manipulating the mind of another person? These are the fundamental philosophical questions that arise when one views the film Inception. Written, produced and directed by an award-winning film director Christopher Nolan, Inception stands out to be a remarkable film that is worth watching by anyone given its intrinsic feature of appealing to the broadest audience possible. This paper seeks to analyze the film based on the two philosophical articles, namely; Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes and Republic by Plato.
Part One
The plot of Inception revolves around the ability of some groups of people to undergo shared dream experiences. This enables some individuals in the dream worlds to conduct intentional actions that relate to the insertion of valuable information into the target’s mind such that the information appears to the target as internal and original. There are several philosophical themes, scenarios and concerns presented in the film relating to our ability to distinguish dreams from reality. In the film, an heir of the multinational energy corporation is targeted for inception by his competitor, Mr. Saito. Saito does not have the capacity to level an adequate competitive strength and hence resort to inception aimed at making the heir dissolve the company to Saito’s advantage. He hires Cobb, as a self-proclaimed extractor, to conduct the inception in exchange for his freedom. Cobb assembles his team comprising of a forger, a chemist, an architect and the industrialist. The team’s biggest dilemma is that to perform a successful inception, and then they will inevitably have to conduct a series of deceptions that from the face value to complicated and risky. This can only be achieved by the layering of dreams within dreams.
This layering of dreams within dreams raises the fundamental philosophical questions; how can one know if s/he is dreaming or awake? From the film’s target to Cobb and his accomplices and even the audience, not one knows for sure the difference between dream and reality. The film is presented in such a way that the viewer understands the dream-within-dream as reality. There is no reason whatsoever for one to suspect that all manipulations done by Cobb and others are a dream (Rinesi 3). Philosophically, the film is totally ambiguous; the same ambiguity people face in their daily lives as they attempt to distinguish a dream and what actually is real. The concern here is whether our perceived realities are always real. The philosophy of mind highlights that it is normally difficult for our minds to distinguish a dream from reality when we cannot tell whether we are dreaming or not. Inception explores this idea to another level by proving that when dreams are so powerful but manipulable, then it is difficult for an individual to tell whether or not s/he is in one.
Part Two
The film examines our ability to distinguish dreams from reality. Two philosophical theorists, Descartes and Pluto, intrinsically explore this topic as discussed below.
Descartes Dream Argument
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes pondered on the question of whether one can distinguish a dream from the reality. He wondered whether an individual can know if a dream and what is actually really (Descartes 1641). Descartes argued that as human beings we are predisposed not to tell whether we are dreaming or not because knowledge is uncertain or impossible. When a person is dreaming, the experiences are much alike with what is real and. Therefore, we can take them as the reality (Brueckner 436). It implies that all the experiences that we go through could only be a dream if our knowledge of the world, which is part of our imagination, is false.
Basing on Descartes argument, it is evident that Inception is premised on the contradictions in the sense that some of the characters are aware that they might actually be dreaming. For instance, Leo is aware that he is dreaming and seems to know everything going around him. However, it is impossible to prove that you are dreaming when you are indeed in a dream. To Descartes, this impossibility is a clear proof that you are actually awake. Descartes adds that rarely does it occur to us that we are dreaming within a dream. Based on this assertion, we cannot claim that the film ends when Leo is dreaming or awake. In other words, Inception proves to the viewers that dreams can be indistinguishable from reality.
Pluto’s Views on Dream and Dreaming
Pluto believed that dreams are not real and should be treated as shameless because they do lead to the generation of genuine knowledge. Pluto argues that each one of us has a subconscious part of our mind that takes over when we fall asleep. The contents of the subconscious are only known in abstract but not through senses. These may include feelings and desires some of which we hardly knew if they existed in us or others that we are aware of but are repressed so that we fit in the social order. Pluto argues that ...