When the movie Inception came out in 2010 (there will be mild spoilers here,) I was in middle school in America, and the only movies I was watching back then were Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. But even now, I can still feel the profound impact of Inception. Other kids would make references to it all the time, like the famous Inception “BWAAAA”. And whenever there was any kind of thing inside of another thing, kids’ eyes would go wide, and they would murmur in tones of reverence: “Inception.”
In 2013, during family movie night, my father entered the room and announced something exciting: “We’re going to watch a cool movie called “Inception”. I would finally find out what all the fuss was about.
My dad brought in his laptop and hooked it up to the TV. Together with my mom and sister, we sat down to watch. We streamed the movie on a sketchy illegal site, and it would often buffer, dropping the frame rate to about one frame per second half the time. My mom left the room a third of the way through, and my sister fell asleep.
But me? I was completely riveted.
My life changed that night. I had never seen anything like that movie before. The plot was fascinating. The visuals were unbelievable. The soundtrack was transportive. Inception awoke something within me that hadn’t been there before.
Using a giftcard, I secretly bought the movie on YouTube, and I’d watch it under the covers with my iPod touch when I was supposed to be sleeping. I also invited friends over to my house to watch Inception.
Since that fateful night, my dad showed me Star Wars, my friends showed me Lord of the Rings, and I saw many other movies in between. Some of them were really good… but none were Inception.
I grew up. The fire that burned within me from Inception motivated me to look for other things that could wow me, and as I grew up, I found them. I discovered A Storm of Swords, book 3 of A Song of Ice and Fire, and I was forever changed. I watched Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival and I was forever changed. I watched a walk through of the Last of Us on youtube, and I was forever changed. I watched a walk through of the Last of Us Part 2 on youtube, and I was forever traumatized-and forever changed.
As I grew up, through all of these stories that I had fallen in love with, I realized that I had a love for stories. A love that, looking back, was ignited by Inception.
I started trying to write stories of my own. I labored over outlines and diagrams, trying to figure out how to turn an idea or concept into an emotional reaction for an audience: how to guide them through an invented world in a way that leaves them with some kind of catharsis at the end, maybe even a new perspective on life.
I learned that just when I think I have my story figured out, I often find a problem while writing it, forcing me to rethink my whole story to make it work. I realized that writing was more than just making up cool stories. It was a way for me to learn about myself, to process things, a therapeutic exercise through which I could guide myself toward my own personal forms of catharsis.
At the time I was realizing these things, I was studying Engineering. Eventually, I realized that this didn’t make any sense, so I stopped studying engineering and switched to something more in line with my love for writing: Communication and Media. As of writing this blog post, I have officially completed my first term at Erasmus University. In the free time that I had after the first round of exams, I decided to watch a couple of movies.
Including Inception.
I hadn’t watched Inception in a while. Before I started watching it, I was a little worried. What if it didn’t live up to my memories? What if, instead of being amazing, it was simply great? Or, heavens forbid, just good? But I brushed those worries aside, pulled up the digital copy I had bought on youtube all the way back in 2013, and started watching.
Again, I was riveted.
Of course, I still saw the same movie I’d seen as a teen: a sleek, exciting, action heist movie with mind blowing visuals, a captivating plot, a great soundtrack, and phenomenal performances. But, watching it now, I saw something more than all that.
I saw a group of characters led by Cobb (the main protagonist) laboring over outlines and diagrams, trying to figure out how to turn an idea or concept into an emotional reaction for an audience (Fischer). I saw these characters trying to guide Fischer through an invented world in a way that they hoped would leave him with some kind of catharsis at the end, giving him a new perspective on life. And just when they thought they had things figured out, a new problem would arise, and they would have to rethink their plans to make it work.
At the end of the movie, I watched as Cobb (the main protagonist) uses his work to process things from his past, transforming it into a therapeutic exercise in which he guides himself to his own personal form of catharsis.
My love of writing had led to me appreciating Inception in a way that I hadn’t as a teen. A love of writing that had come from… Inception.
Now that’s Inception!
Who knows, maybe the next time I watch Inception (I’ve seen it over 30 times by now) will finally be the time that it leaves me underwhelmed. But until then, Inception is the dream that is becoming my reality.