Why do people say inception is confusing

In this world, dreams have layers upon layers upon layers, and sometimes it's tough to keep up. To celebrate the film's fifth anniversary, I decided to rewatch the movie and take you through what the stages of watching Inception are.

You'll follow me through thinking I understand the movie's plot to wondering if I ever did and if even know anything about life at all. Thanks, Christopher Nolan. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, an "extractor" who steals corporate secrets from a very complicated place — his target's subconscious. Inception — ahem, the film's title — refers to the practice of planting an idea in the subconscious via a dream.

But there's also the matter of Dom's dead wife Mal Marion Cotillard haunting him and the whole threat of "what if we get stuck in a dream" thing. It's 20 minutes into this movie and I'm already confused about reality. I feel like I need a map. Luckily, those exist to guide me in this viewing. I'll concede that. But: it's not so easy to frost all three layers of the cake at the same time.

The part where Inception gets tricky for me is where they start intercutting from layer to layer, and taking actions on one layer that have ramifications on the others. There seems to be a pervasive misunderstanding that downvoting is for what you disagree with, rather than for comments that do not add to the discussion. That is, downvotes are for noise, upvotes are for signals, and "signal" includes things you disagree with.

It is actuLly interesting, may be the demographics of hn users is changing gradually, meaning that programmers people with cs degree are becomming the minority? So people get offended when you talk about cs education Maybe Common Lisp continuations could be a good example in that you go up the call stack, then down, then up again and so on. Avshalom on March 21, parent prev next [—].

Or a secretary. It's so exhausting to have to write bug-free prose. I apologize. Let's try that again. What I meant to say: Some people do not claim to understand Inception all that well. Some do. And some understand it so well that they go out of their way to publicly state their annoyance that everyone on earth doesn't see how obvious it all is. I venture to guess that computer programmers are disproportionally likely to be members of the second and third groups.

Please note that I have said nothing about carpenters! I didn't mean to say a thing about carpenters!! They are like mosquitoes! Don't worry, your explanation did sound perfectly reasonable and I have a feeling that the source of these downvotes are attempts to be holier than thou.

Avshalom on March 21, prev next [—]. A couple years back one of the people on the Writing Excuses podcast described reading science fiction as a skill and used as ancedata his friend who spent the entire length of a space opera book wondering how the teleporter worked.

Similarly my mother not a dumb woman by and large got tripped up because there was a line in the movie that the dream machines were military technology, instead of taking this a handwave she spent the rest of the film assuming that it was a secret CIA sting operation.

Basically not recognizing which parts of a universe you're supposed to just roll with and which parts you're supposed to puzzle out yourself. If you want a movie with actual complexity, watch Primer. I recommend stopping the movie when you get to the scene where the Jacob and his son played by Macaulay Culkin dreamily walk up a back-lit stairway together.

Let the movie percolate in your brain for a while. Then, start the movie up again and see how they ruined it.

All great movies. I really enjoyed Dark City. No Pi? MengYuanLong on March 23, root parent prev next [—]. Talk about timing. I just wrote up a list for a friend that includes a bunch of weird movies most of them being head trips. My list includes two Cronenberg movies as well! Though, to be honest, I'm not really a fan of either. Heh, I know this is a little off topic but for those that dove this deep into the thread, maybe you would like to expand your weird movie viewing experience.

The film is noted for its usage of sound as a theatrical device and "the baby" which is rumored to be created from an embalmed cow fetus. The films script is a scant 21 pages despite a running time of 85 minutes script pages typically match runtimes.

Dead Leaves-- Produced in , this Japanese animated film clocks in at 55 minutes long. The movie's weirdness climaxes when when the mutant baby of the the film's protagonists is born and proceeds to kill a giant space catepillar which is attempting to eat the earth.

House -- This Japanese film certainly ranks as one of the weirdest if not the weirdest movies of all time. It was unreleased in the U. In an iconic scene, a Japanese girl is consumed by piano monster as a green eyed catch watches.

Jacob's Ladder- Fans of the game Silent Hill should well be aware of this movie from that inspired many of its elements. Tim Robbins stars as a vietnam war vet suffering from demonic images increasingly polluting his fragile reality.

One paticularly gruesome scene includes Robbins being wheeled through a bloody hospital corrirodor filled with limbs and mutating torsos. The film closes with a set of iconic scenes including John Goodman exiting a burning hallway like a badass. Naked Lunch- The first of two Cronenberg films in this category. This film adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel features a protagonist who uses bug spray as a chemical escape from reality.

Talking insects and failed "William Tell Routines" are just some of the madness this movie contains. Videodrome- David Cronenberg wrote and directed this movie staring James Woods. The movie centers around Wood's character, a sleazy TV exec, who inreasingly loses touch with reality after he comes across a station which airs extreme violence and torture.

Donnie Darko Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall sp? Written and directed by Richard Kelly. The movie stars this brother-sister hollywood team. The movie covers a wealth of ideas including fatalism and time travel.

Movie goers will inevitably remember the creepy bunny head that pervades entirety of the film. The film features a mad doctor who connects three unfortunate souls in the most unfortunate way possible. This film represents the dreams of adults including navigating beurocracy and chasing true love.

Robert DeNiro also provides a notable role as a rebel repairman in the film. Black Swan Paprika Being John Malkovich I sort of disagree. I've seen Primer several times, and am a fan of the movie, but I get the feeling that the writers purposefully made the movie confusing just for the sake of being confusing. The complexity doesn't seem to arise organically out of the plotline.

A lot of the confusion is generated out of not hearing the one time in the movie someone explained something, or from the movie not explaining something that is easily explainable. It's almost as if the writers could have made the plotline easier to follow while keeping the plot the same, but at times purposefully chose to obfuscate it solely for the purpose of making a "complex" movie. That is a good point. DiCaprio previously confessed that the cast and crew had to do "a ton of detective work" when filming Inception in order to to figure out the movie's plot.

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