Sulphur on 9/8/2010 at 22:32
I'll have to confess to completely missing it at the time, as well as not remembering everything very well as I saw the movie years ago. So what does it mean, anyway?
demagogue on 9/8/2010 at 23:41
Quote Posted by Sulphur
So what does it mean, anyway?
You mean 'what does Mulholland drive mean?' The basic idea is,
the first image of the movie is a pov shot of Naomi going to sleep, then the first half of the movie is a dream about her life in LA, where everything going on has been "pinkified", given a positive happy (Hollywood-ish) spin where everybody she cares about is innocent so she can deal with it -- her aunt gives her a place in LA, why she didn't get the job even though her acting is brilliant (the mafia threatened the director! of course), her innocent connection to her gf, why the director had to move from his wife (his wife kicked him out; he was innocent); a curious "murder mystery" is going on, etc -- except for a few little dirty secrets that try to break in (the ugly guy, the key), then finally the theatre scene ("There is no band"; this is all an illusion) breaks the spell completely. Then the second half of the movie (blue) is her actual reality (technically also a dream, I think, but more like a straight memory of it, not an edited version) where nobody cares about her, her Aunt has been dead for a long time, where she didn't get the job because her acting sucks, her gf cheats on her and gets engaged to the director, and she paid for a guy to murder her gf. Then she feels so pitiful and guilty she wakes up (or dreams she wakes up) and kills herself. Edit: Hmm, you could interpret the first image as her actually killing herself then and her head hits the pillow, then the entire movie is the dying flashes of her mind trying to push the pain away, failing miserably, reliving it all and finally leaving her with that final image as consciousness leaves her. The movie drops some big hints that
the first half is an edited version of the second half, but IIRC you have to look at the movie as a whole and connect events across them to see it. It's not that tricky ... unless you're watching it at 4am after drinking or something like I did the first time.
Scots Taffer on 10/8/2010 at 01:56
Ahahahaha
Shug on 10/8/2010 at 02:07
Inception is a mess but Mulholland Drive makes sense, now? We surely are in dreamland
Stitch on 10/8/2010 at 15:54
Quote Posted by Sulphur
That may mirror and evoke dreamworld logic almost exactly, but I'd rather puzzle out something with a measure of coherence
One thing I don't understand is why anyone thinks there's anything to puzzle out about
Inception. I took the end as a clever "...OR IS IT?!" punctuation mark, but the literal interpretation of the film (i.e. the layer of Leo and his kids is reality) is by far the cleanest. The movie hangs together well as is and doesn't particularly invite re-examination. The theories I've seen online are kind of interesting but amount to reading between the lines and over-interpretation of casual details.
For example: in the grand scheme of plausible concepts, I'd rank Ariadne-as-Cobb's-daughter somewhere around the Boba-Fett-as-Luke's-father hypothesis that sprang from Star Wars circles before the prequels revealed it to to be nothing more that imaginative nerd fantasy.
Edit: Also, Angel Dust's reply to demagogue is pretty much perfect. Not all movies need an emotional core, but movies that at least attempt an emotional core should hit that mark.
Yakoob on 10/8/2010 at 18:29
Quote Posted by Stitch
For example: in the grand scheme of plausible concepts, I'd rank Ariadne-as-Cobb's-daughter somewhere around the Boba-Fett-as-Luke's-father hypothesis that sprang from Star Wars circles before the prequels revealed it to to be nothing more that imaginative nerd fantasy.
What???? How can anyone even think that after the whole, I dont know, "Look, Im yout father" sequence?
SubJeff on 10/8/2010 at 19:25
Because everything characters in films say aren't necessarily true? Or something craaaaaaazy like that.
Sulphur on 10/8/2010 at 20:32
Quote Posted by Stitch
One thing I don't understand is why anyone thinks there's anything to puzzle out about
Inception. I took the end as a clever "...OR IS IT?!" punctuation mark, but the literal interpretation of the film (i.e. the layer of Leo and his kids is reality) is by far the cleanest. The movie hangs together well as is and doesn't particularly invite re-examination. The theories I've seen online are kind of interesting but amount to reading between the lines and over-interpretation of casual details.
For example: in the grand scheme of plausible concepts, I'd rank Ariadne-as-Cobb's-daughter somewhere around the Boba-Fett-as-Luke's-father hypothesis that sprang from Star Wars circles before the prequels revealed it to to be nothing more that imaginative nerd fantasy.
It does lend itself to such because, regardless of the ending, there are little bits and pieces that seem built to invite speculation: (
http://www.cinematical.com/2010/07/19/dissecting-inception-six-interpretations-and-five-plot-holes/) http://www.cinematical.com/2010/07/19/dissecting-inception-six-interpretations-and-five-plot-holes/
Taking it all literally and being happy with that conclusion is fine if you want to see it that way, but it doesn't mean the open-ended bits aren't there for others to jigger an alternate interpretation around - demagogue's views of it, for instance, are fascinating because I would never have thought to have looked at the script from that point of view.
@demagogue: Thanks for the breakdown of MD, dema. I meant 'the blue' specifically, which SubjEff referred to. (And I did watch it at 4 A.M. after chugging a couple of the old brewskis back then, now that you mention it. But I'm still not sold on it being a profound and rounded out character drama. I'll rewatch it when I got a couple solid hours to chew on it in the near future.)
