I’ve watched Inception for two times now so I guess I can review it fairly. It is a great movie with a lot of life lesson to be learn if you open your eyes and minds. The movie has an open-ended closing and it is very up to the viewer’s understanding.

So I’m gonna review it based on these two things – life lesson learnt and the plot as I understand it. Beware! Spoiler’s ahead. Close your browser now if you haven’t watched it. Yes I mean it. Click that X on the right top of your browser now!

Life Lesson Learned From Inception:

• Your belief in your mind will determine your action.

All people have fears; scared to lose someone / something valuable, scared to lose security in life, scared to be in an uncomfortable position. Yet, those fears and scared should not be your limiting boundary. Most people subconsciously take their fear and embed (or incept?) in their mind and says “I can’t do it”. So, what you believe subconsciously will determine your action.

In the movie, the ideas being planted makes his son determine to eradicate his late father’s empire. It’s just an idea being put in his mind, yet that can determine what’s his next action. That’s the power of your mind.

So make up good believes inside you, and you will find yourself have more determination to do the things that you wanted to achieve in life.

• Always dream big; it never hurt.

Dream bigger when it comes to your belief. If you want to be a millionaire, you must dream big — maybe a billionaire? That way, you will always move forward towards your desire and dreams. After all, dreams are what you want to make your mind believe, so why not dream bigger?

In the movie, Eames said:

You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

And he takes out a grenade launcher that solve the sniper issue. Wicked.

• You still need to keep track of your realities.

Lost in dreams will not bring anything except – dreams. What you dream still needs to be fulfilled by action. That’s what it mean “to keep track of your realities”. Some people dreams that they want to build his or her own business empire, but it stays a dream without any action. Some people dreams to be a highly-skilled programmers, but too lazy to work on programming (or stuck in a job that doesn’t do programming, and not willing to change job) — that dream will stay a dream.

Oh damn, did I just reveal my own weakness?

In the movie, Cobb, Arthur, and Ariadne have their own totems to keep track of their reality — whether they are still dreaming or not. Cobb got stuck in limbo because he don’t want to believe that his wife is gone. Until the end, his wife keep haunting him till the end. Which brings me to the next thing..

• Some things are meant to be let go.

Cobb do not want to let go of his wife; and he prisoned his memory of his wife inside his mind, and it haunts him. In the end, Cobb said to Mal –

Look at you. You’re just a shade, a shade of my real wife. How could I capture all your beauty, your complexity, your perfection, your imperfection, in a dream? Yes, you’re the best that I can do. But, I’m sorry, you’re just not good enough.

It’s a useful principal in life. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we lost something so priceless. And we wept, we cried, we let it haunt us. I myself have lost many things that is priceless, and yes, sometimes I do let it haunt me. My current relationship nearly broke apart when I can’t accept that my aunt has passed away. sad (Honey, I do apologize for that. )

But to move forward, we need to let it go. No matter how hard it is. Because..

• Always believe that you can do it.

In the movie, Saito said in two different occasions:

Do you dare to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?

That is what can happened if you don’t believe that you can do it. Sometimes, a leap of faith is what we need to do to get going. If not, we will stuck in the little comfort zone that we have and.. filled with regret, to say the least. Never contemplate to be in your comfort zone.

• Learn, and get a mentor or a guide to help you.

Have you ever questioned what’s the function of Ariadne in the movie? And do you know the significant of the character?

Ariadne is actually a Greek story and the significant of the character is “assistance”. Here’s the story: Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos of Crete that helped Theseus to survive in the Minotaur’s labyrinth. King Minos has a Minotaur as a pet, and due to his grievance when his son was killed by Athenians, he conquered Athens and instructed that seven young men and seven maidens be sacrificed to the Minotaur every nine years. Theseus is Athenian who is willing to kill the Minotaur and end the Athenians misery – and Ariadne fell in love with him.

To help Theseus to survive in the labyrinth, Ariadne gave a ball of red fleece thread. Theseus tied the red thread at the labyrinth’s gate and go deeper inside to kill the Minotaur. After killing the Minotaur, Theseus found his way back by following the thread. That’s the significance of Ariadne.

In the movie, Ariadne is supposed to guide Cobb to the reality world after getting over of Mal. So, in real life – we always need a guide or a mentor to assist us to achieve the goals that we wanted in life. Dream big, believe that we can do it, and then get a mentor to help us in the reality check. That’s the way to do it.

P/s: Feel free to add more life lessons that you noticed in the movie by leaving your comments.

Plot as I understand Inception:

I think we are presented with Mal’s dream. Mal’s the dreamer and Cobb is the subject. Cobb is still in limbo and still dreaming until the end of the movie. The child that Cobb think is his real child is only his projection, which means that Mal has been unsuccessful to get Cobb into the reality. That can be quite a prelude later on (Inception: Mal’s Revenge? ).

At the start of the movie, we’re being presented with Cobb arriving at Saito’s limbo. And then, it goes to the dream where Cobb tries to take the confidential information from Saito. The reason I think we are in Mal’s dream is — why suddenly Mal can be there, and choose to side with Saito? (by telling Saito that Cobb is stealing?)

Then we are presented with all kind of Mal’s madness. The biggest clue for me is the totem itself. It was Mal’s, so Mal can control the totem if it is on her dream. She can make it spin, or she can make it stop. Cobb can’t differentiate.

Oh well, at least that’s what I speculated until now