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jlhMan, you guys are spoilery. I mean, I get the whole "there's a limit on spoiler tags" thing, and agree, but I think it should be longer than the day the movie opens.
Anyway I really liked it.
So I walked out of the movie pretty much not only thinking it was a dream, but thinking that Mal was right. I started getting that sense when Cobb was telling Ariadne about what happened with Mal, and thinking back on that whole crazy chase scene in Africa, particularly the bit where he was squished between two buildings.
I admit that part of this was unfairly extra-textual; I couldn't escape that they kept playing Edith Piaf, the role for which the actress who played Mal, Marion Cotillard, won her Oscar. But I also loved the Chud article's explanation of the link between that song and the words that Cobb keeps repeating in the movie, to himself and to others, the bit about regrets and dying alone as an old man and all of that.
But mostly, it was about how Cobb and Arthur tell Ariadne that she needs to have her own totem that no one knows about, but that Cobb doesn't—he has the one that belonged to his wife. Arthur does say to Ariadne, "notice how many things he says not to do but does himself." We don't even know what Cobb's totem might have been before Mal died; it's possible that like Mal, Cobb locked up his own totem in the limbo world so he wouldn't have to leave it.
The other thing I love in the Chud article that I did pick up while I watched the movie was the parallel between the roles in the film and the people who make movies. Obviously I'm interested in this right now because I'm writing a story about making a movie, so that parallel really excited me because it's one I've been making lately myself. I like the idea that in a way it was about making a movie.
I didn't think that the idea that it was all a dream means that there was nothing at stake. That said, I'm on record as not needing incredibly high stakes to be happy with a fictional experience; I probably loved the Community episode "Modern Warfare" precisely because there wasn't that much at stake, because I could have my silly action thrills without there being any real death. There were moments in the movie where the tension was so high that I actually had to take myself out of being in the moment by tweeting about it, else I might have crawled out of my skin.
But that is just one woman's opinion! It is tricky for me to talk about my reaction to action films without feeling like, as Harriet Wimsey once said, the comic female in Punch. So you should take it all with a giant grain of sea salt!
And to end it with a big fangirl finish: yes, I saw the slashiness between Arthur and Eames.
Anyway I really liked it.
So I walked out of the movie pretty much not only thinking it was a dream, but thinking that Mal was right. I started getting that sense when Cobb was telling Ariadne about what happened with Mal, and thinking back on that whole crazy chase scene in Africa, particularly the bit where he was squished between two buildings.
I admit that part of this was unfairly extra-textual; I couldn't escape that they kept playing Edith Piaf, the role for which the actress who played Mal, Marion Cotillard, won her Oscar. But I also loved the Chud article's explanation of the link between that song and the words that Cobb keeps repeating in the movie, to himself and to others, the bit about regrets and dying alone as an old man and all of that.
But mostly, it was about how Cobb and Arthur tell Ariadne that she needs to have her own totem that no one knows about, but that Cobb doesn't—he has the one that belonged to his wife. Arthur does say to Ariadne, "notice how many things he says not to do but does himself." We don't even know what Cobb's totem might have been before Mal died; it's possible that like Mal, Cobb locked up his own totem in the limbo world so he wouldn't have to leave it.
The other thing I love in the Chud article that I did pick up while I watched the movie was the parallel between the roles in the film and the people who make movies. Obviously I'm interested in this right now because I'm writing a story about making a movie, so that parallel really excited me because it's one I've been making lately myself. I like the idea that in a way it was about making a movie.
I didn't think that the idea that it was all a dream means that there was nothing at stake. That said, I'm on record as not needing incredibly high stakes to be happy with a fictional experience; I probably loved the Community episode "Modern Warfare" precisely because there wasn't that much at stake, because I could have my silly action thrills without there being any real death. There were moments in the movie where the tension was so high that I actually had to take myself out of being in the moment by tweeting about it, else I might have crawled out of my skin.
But that is just one woman's opinion! It is tricky for me to talk about my reaction to action films without feeling like, as Harriet Wimsey once said, the comic female in Punch. So you should take it all with a giant grain of sea salt!
And to end it with a big fangirl finish: yes, I saw the slashiness between Arthur and Eames.
