Inception (2010). Aside from the first layer of awesomeness and the second layer of basic psychological issues that we see dealt with, wrestled with, and overcome... there is also a working thesis presented... (spoiler alert)The Psychological Process of "Letting Go."
When you're in a relationship, living and building upon a shared dream together, and one person abandons or leaves, it takes a lot of work and layers to work through before you can let go of that dream you shared. In that process, you definitely encounter a lot of layers and psychological issues that may have been left buried (or imprisoned) deep below, that have never been fully dealt with. But before you can dream again, on your own, live freely, or be fully present for your children, you have to let that dream you dreamed together die. If you don't, it will forever sabotage anything you endeavor to do.... it becomes nothing more than an autonomous shadow self.
I appreciated how the shadow-self was personified in Mal, locked in the basement, as Robert A. Johnson writes, "The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house." Masculine psychology is everywhere in this film as well. I think it's important to note the transformation that took place with Robert Fischer, Jr. and his father. The memetic inception of the film was that we each have full authority and control over the deep wounds buried in our subconscious. And that if something is awry, all we need to do is to confront those old wounds, speak life to them, affirmations, and transform them into something meaningful to us. This is what we see (assuming that everyone in the film was a projection of Cobb's subconscious) when Fischer, Jr. reconciles himself with his father and the father-wound.
What really got my attention to evaluate this film as a work of pop-psychology was toward the end, when Cobb goes back to "save" Saito and they exchange a dialogue from earlier in the film:
Cobb : I came here to tell you... something.
[pause]
Cobb: Something that... you once knew to be true.
Saito: [remembering] Impossible...
It's the story of The Fisher King played out with different faces! Actually a lot of the film seems like it was built around this ancient story. I could even pull a Glenn Beck and say that it's an interesting coincidence that we see the last name "Fischer" in the film at all. But that's not the main crux. I would argue that what we witness is more like a journey through the three levels of masculine consciousness.
Dreams are where we work out a lot the mental and emotional issues that are too painful for us to confront consciously. A friend of mine told me that Christopher Nolan got the idea from the film when he was younger. He had a dream, woke up, fell back asleep and went back to where he was in the dream and changed it. I'm sure we've all had an experience like that. It was pretty cool to see it played out in a feature presentation. I loved it.
