Inception

 

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

When I went with my wife, who does not like confusing stories or unresolved endings, to see Inception when it came out in 2010, she was not happy with me. During the film I was quietly telling her what level of the dream experience we were currently watching. She said to me, “What the hell are you talking about?” and considered it a waste of time seeing the movie. I, on the other hand, like twisty, enigmatic tales, and was already a fan of writer/director Christopher Nolan’s Memento (analyzed here earlier). In that film, and here especially, Nolan is interested in the workings of the human mind. He deals with what seems real to people and what is illusion, and how we anchor ourselves onto what we believe as true to get by, whether or not those “truths” are really falsehoods. But, more than that, he deals with, as Matt Goldberg says, “an exploration of the lies we tell together to create something bigger than ourselves to seek the catharsis we can’t achieve on our own.” That statement conjures up Aristotle, who saw the performance of tragedy as a catharsis of pity and fear. So, Nolan implies that we all suspend what we take for reality to enjoy a story, whether on the stage, in written form, or in a movie, to have that joint purgative emotional experience which is real, but which was generated by, basically, a lie.

I was understanding of my wife’s reaction because this film is quite the layered cake. Nolan does not talk down to his audience, but instead dares it to keep up with his narrative. It might be best to just sum up the main plot points of this science fiction story to create a handle on how to proceed. Nolan gives us the excitement and suspense of a heist movie, only here the stolen goods are the thoughts of another person. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the best “extractor,” which means he can, with the use of special drugs, join his free-lance team and the victim in a dream state constructed by him and his colleagues to acquire information for a price paid by an interested party. An outfit, Cobol Engineering, wants information about the expansion project of a rich energy production businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe). But, Saito knows they are in a dream, and uses the experience as an audition to hire Cobb to perform an “inception,” to place the idea into the son of a dying executive of a competing energy conglomerate to break up his company. Saito promises to take care of the problems with Cobb’s former employer for failing in his mission involving Saito, and to get Cobb the chance to return to the United States and see his children. Cobb is wanted by the American legal system for a crime (later on that). Cobb and his team eventually succeed in achieving their objective, but Cobb’s reward is subject to interpretation.

The beginning of the film does not let us in on the dream aspect of the story. We think what is happening is for real, as we do when we dream ourselves prior to waking up. There are crashing waves, but they move in slow motion, so there is already a distortion of reality as we know it. Cobb wakes up on a beach glimpsing a young girl and boy, (the boy has a checkered pattern shirt and the girl wears a sort of jumper). He then becomes unconscious (which is ironic, since we eventually learn he already is asleep). An armed guard takes Cobb to the palace of an old Japanese man (actually the elderly Saito). We don’t realize it yet, but we are getting the end of the movie first. Cobb has a gun and a small brass top. The old man says that Cobb reminds him of someone, “a man in a half-remembered dream.” He spins the top, and it keeps spinning, a hint that they are in a dream. Saito knows Cobb from the story we are about to see.

Then we go backward in time where Cobb and his partner, Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) try to sell the younger Saito a service to protect him from dream thievery, called “extraction.” Cobb says that the mind is vulnerable to attack when asleep (although we discover the mind has some defenses), and he says he can train Saito to protect his thoughts. Of course we are in a dream at this point and Cobb and Arthur are trying to steal, not protect, Saito’s secrets. In order to teach Saito how to defend himself, Cobb argues that he must know all of Saito’s hidden thoughts to protect them. But here it is like hiring a robber as the security guard at a bank. Symbolically, Saito’s ideas are in an envelope in a safe in the room they are in. Saito seems skeptical about the sales pitch and leaves, and Arthur suspects that Saito knows about their plans. The surroundings begin to shake and Arthur points out a woman and asks Cobb what she is doing there. The female turns out to be Cobb’s dead wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), or at least the version that still lives in Cobb’s memories. (“Mal” is a Latin derivative for “bad” as in “malevolent,” which literally means to wish someone ill). She asks him if she jumped from the roof would she die? The answer is obvious in real life. Her question connects to what we learn later about how she did die. But it raises the question whether it matters if one is in a dream or in real life if the experience, or feeling, of dying is the same in both worlds. We eventually learn Cobb is wanted for killing her, which is not literally true, but he feels guilty about her death, and she haunts him in his subconscious. His guilt, manifested by her appearance, attempts to sabotage his efforts. That is why the room shakes.

Cobb gets Mal to go to a room. She asks if the children miss her (the ones on the beach) and he says, interestingly, “I can’t imagine.” Yet, imagining is what one does in dreams, but bringing up the memories of their children is painful for him, and he would rather suppress thoughts of how they lost their mother. Also, we discover he has been away from his offspring in his legal exile, so he really doesn’t know what they think. He makes her sit on a chair as an anchor so he can climb down a rope tied to the chair. He wants to access the room with the safe. But Mal stands up, and he almost falls, but the empty chair catches against the wall. The image is one of self-destruction, because Mal’s presence is like a bad seed in his brain, which is illustrated by the next scene where he is trying to steal the envelope but is surprised by Saito and Mal, who is holding a gun, and there are guards restraining Arthur. Cobb asks Saito if she told him about his deception. Saito’s answer is, “That you are here to steal from me, or that we are actually asleep?” When one first sees the movie, these words undermine the audience’s perception of what has been happening. We have suspended our disbelief to buy into a fiction, but there was another hidden aspect that we did not know about and were not invested in. Even though there was an earlier cut to the men in a room sleeping, we did not realize that we were witnessing their shared dream dramatized. The effect is jarring, but for those that like surprises in a tale, the discovery is exciting.

But there are more unexpected revelations. Cobb, Arthur, and Saito are connected to a PASIV (Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous) device. The drug, Somnacin (the Latin word for sleep is “somnium”) allows them to share dreams. Cobb’s co-worker, Nash (Lukas Haas) monitors the sleeping men. But there are approaching rioters accompanied by shouts and explosive devices going off. Cobb’s chair is above a tub of water. Back in the dream, Cobb gives Saito the envelope and says that threatening to kill him is pointless. But Mal, acknowledging that death will just wake up the sleeper, instead shoots Arthur in the knee, because, as she says, “pain is in the mind.” It allows Arthur to suffer without allowing him to escape the sleep mode. Cobb is able to get the gun and shoots Arthur in the head, thus waking him up, and Cobb then attempts to escape Saito’s guards. Cobb switched the envelopes and Saito sees that he has only blank pages. With the dream, and thus the architecture of the dream, collapsing because the fiction has been revealed, the crumbling building breaks apart, killing Saito, and he wakes up in the place where he was sedated. By instituting a “kick,” a falling down, the disturbance can wake the dreamer up. So, Nash knocks over Cobb’s chair (in slow motion, as Nolan reminds the audience that they are also in a shared altering of the world), and Cobb’s dream is flooded with water as one reality drowns out the other. (The water moves slowly, like the waves on the beach earlier, another hint of being in a dream state, and, as we discover soon, time seems to move slower in a dream state in comparison to the real world). Cobb awakes and prevents Saito from using a hidden gun. The information in the envelope has redacted sections because Saito knew of the deception, and admits to the audition, which at this point it seems that Cobb has failed. Cobb threatens physical abuse to get the information from Saito, who falls to the floor. Saito has a revelation that the carpet isn’t right, and realizes they are just in another dream level. 

 

We now see that Nash along with the other three men are asleep in the two-tiered dream. They are actually (if that word can be used in this movie) on a train (trains are referred to several times in the plot) and a man named Tadashi (Tai-Li Lee) alerts the unconscious Nash by playing music through headphones that the time they have left on the session is running out. In the remaining dream state, Saito praises Cobb for his trickery but says that in his dream he is in control. But Nash says they are in his dream. The rioters arrive (part of Cobb’s guilt-ridden self-destructive thoughts intruding) and they attack the men, as the dream expires, waking them up, Saito slightly later. Cobb pays off Tadashi, and Arthur yells at the dream’s “architect,” Nash, for not getting the carpet right which tipped Saito off about the second dream state. 

In his apartment, Cobb spins his brass top as he holds a gun close to his head. The top stops spinning, which means it complies with the natural laws of physics, and he is not still in the law-defying world of unconscious imagination. If it didn’t stop spinning, he would have shot himself, causing him to wake up. His life is a precarious one, rooted in uncertainty as to what to believe is actually happening. He is on guard that his mind could be hijacked, which is what he does to others. He receives a phone call from his children, James and Phillipa (Jonathan and Taylor Geare. The use of two actual siblings pretending to be related in a fictitious tale is a little Nolan joke about how similar and yet different two realities can be). We get a shot of the two of them looking as they did in the first scene of the film, which implies that is how Cobb remembers them.

 Cobb wants to disappear for a while to avoid retribution for his failure with Saito, but the Japanese gentleman is waiting for him and Arthur in a helicopter on the roof. Saito has the beaten Nash with him, who betrayed his colleagues to protect himself, and that is how Saito knew where to show up. Saito sees disloyalty as worthy of death, and hands Cobb a gun to use on Nash. Cobb says he doesn’t operate that way, and Nash is dragged off to be handed over to Cobol Engineering for punishment. 

 

Saito doesn't want to harm the men but instead to hire Cobb for the “inception” plan. Arthur argues against inception saying that planting an idea in another’s mind will fail because the subject will realize it’s not that person’s own thought and knows it comes from the outside. But, Cobb says it can be done, because, as we later learn, he has done it before. The film seems to be commenting on the dangers of technology that could subvert a person’s thought processes. There is also the implication that through the manipulation of the truth, people can be swayed into believing what is contrary to the facts. Saito offers Cobb the chance to go back to America and his children at this point. He says that if he turns down his offer, Cobb will be haunted by not taking “a leap of faith,” and will “become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone,” (which, ironically, is Saito’s situation in the first scene of the movie). 

 

Cobb goes to Paris and meets his father-in-law, Miles (Michael Caine), who mentored Cobb and his daughter, Mal, in the sharing and constructing of dreams. Miles says he never taught Cobb to be a thief, but “after what happened” (the death of Mal) Cobb says he had few legal opportunities. But it’s not just money Cobb says he offers others but also a chance to build “cathedrals” and cities “that couldn’t exist in the real world.” The reference to a church implies god-like powers similar to the Bible’s Genesis. But isn’t that the creative power which a writer/director like Nolan approximates? Cobb needs an architect to replace Nash, and he admits he can’t be the architect because, in his unconscious mind, his guilt has created a vindictive Mal who will thwart him. Miles recommends a graduate student, Ariadne (Ellen Page). Roger Ebert notes that her name is the same as “the woman in Greek mythology who helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur’s labyrinth.” So, it is appropriate that she will be the new dream builder. She shows Cobb her skills by drawing mazes. They then are talking outside at a cafe and Cobb notes that awake people only use a fraction of their minds, but those limitations do not exist when they are asleep. He says her job is to create the framework of the dream they establish and then they “bring the subject into that dream, and he or she fills it with that person’s subconscious.” She questions how can that be convincing, and Cobb notes that while we are in a dream it seems real. He says we don’t remember the beginning of dreams, so he asks her how they happened to be at that café? Cobb surprises Ariadne, (and Nolan the audience), by telling her they are in a dream state right now, (as is the audience immersed in the fantasy of a movie). With great visual effects, the scenery begins to explode in a stylized, slow-motion progression. She is shocked by the revelation that what seems real is not. They wake up in a warehouse with Arthur monitoring them. He says they were only under for five minutes, but it seemed like an hour for her. Cobb says that the mind moves quicker in a dream so events within that state seem slower than the time elapsed in the real world. But the altering of time is also what happens in films, as Goldberg suggests, as the director, through editing, collapses time, or slows it down with camera techniques. So, Nolan is commenting on how, while watching a film, we take for reality that which is not physically possible.

 

Goldberg suggests parallels between the characters in this story and those who make movies: Cobb is the director; Arthur is the producer; Ariadne is the writer (Nolan considered her the “production designer;” Eames (Tom Hardy) is the actor; Saito is the studio; Robert Fischer, (Cillian Murphy), the mark, is the audience; Yusuf  (Dileep Rao), the craftspeople. As noted Cobb’s first name is Dom, which means “home,” as in “domicile,” and Cobb is trying to get there. According to IDMb, if you throw in the names of Robert’s godfather, Peter Browning (Tom Berenger), and Mal, and use the characters’ first names it spells out, “Dreams Pay.”

 

Ariadne and Cobb enter the subconscious state again, and she can make the Parisian city streets fold back onto themselves. Her abilities, and thus, those of the filmmakers is impressive. But it’s her dream and she uses her own memories to create the scene. Her altering the “physics” of the dream construct becomes a red flag for Cobb’s subconscious and realizing it is being manipulated treats her like antibodies attacking an invading pathogen. She imagines a real Parisian bridge that Cobb recognizes and there are images from his memory with Mal there. He tells her it’s dangerous to draw from detailed experiences from her own memory instead of inventing new constructs because it “is the easiest way to lose your grasp on what’s real and what is a dream.” That suggests that the architect will then lose orientation and thus control. Ariadne is very insightful and asks Cobb if that is why he can’t be the architect, because he loses the reality/fantasy distinction, which points to his problem with Mal. Cobb’s defense mechanism manifests itself as a mob of people grabbing Ariadne and Cobb, and also as Mal, who appears and stabs Ariadne. She wakes up because she was killed in the dream. Arthur explains the need for “totems,” like Cobb’s top. It is a “small object, potentially heavy,” (to stress its importance through weight?). It is something that no one else knows about, and which only the owner can distinguish the feel and the weight of it. That way, Arthur explains, “you know beyond a doubt that you’re not in someone else's dream.” She feels at this point that Cobb’s mind is too unstable and threatening and she leaves. Cobb is sure that she is intrigued (maybe addicted?) and will return.

 

Cobb travels to Mombasa to recruit Eames to be the “forger,” which means within dreams he has the talent to impersonate other people. Eames recommends that the planting of an idea must be something simple and basic to the individual. In this case, the father/son relationship. They are followed by bounty hunters hired by Cobol Engineering. As Cobb runs away, there is an aerial shot that makes what is below look like a maze, like the one that a dream architect constructs (or a filmmaker?). With the help of Saito, who tracked Cobb, they escape. 

 

Ariadne returns as Cobb predicted. She eventually chooses as a totem a semi-hollow bishop chess piece to make its weight distinctive (the reference to the game suggests a similarity to the inception attempt, mirroring the complexity of the game’s moves to score a victory). She and Arthur enter a dream state where he shows her how to create architectural paradoxes that are subtle and which allow them to control the scenario for their subject. She asks about Mal. It is here that Arthur states that Mal is dead and now only exists as a projection in Cobb’s mind. Unlike the imagined Mal, in real life, she, according to Arthur, was “lovely,” which shows how what we take to be true can be distorted by the way our minds warp existence.

 

Eames takes them to the chemist, Yusuf. Cobb wants a three-level dream for inception, which, Yusuf notes, is very difficult since dreams become more unstable as they go deeper. But Yusuf has made a drug variation that keeps the different states cohesive. He shows the others some people that are in that sedated state and have exchanged their real lives for the subconscious ones, living out what appears to be years in that alternate universe, with real life becoming to them the fantasy. Cobb understands that they become dream dependent, like a drug addiction, and need longer periods of time inhabiting their escapist world, because “after a while, it becomes the only way you can dream.” These subjects look like they are in an underground drug den. The concept is both intriguing and frightening. Cobb samples this sedative state and is impressed but also wakes up rattled after encountering Mal, which points to his fragile subconscious state. 

 

The group includes Saito who wants to make sure the job gets done. The target is Robert Fischer, who is the next-in-line at his father’s company, the one Saito wants broken up or else the Fischer company will have dominance in the energy field. His father, Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite) is dying. Eames wants access to Maurice’s closest confidante and Robert’s godfather, Peter Browning, to understand the dynamics of the family relationship. Eames studies Browning’s mannerisms and says he can impersonate this influential man “in the first layer of the dream.” (Again, we see how invasive this technique is, a sort of hacking of the mind). His plan is for Browning (Eames in disguise) to suggest the idea of dissolving the company so that it will carry over into the second level of the dream and seem as if Robert came up with the concept himself. 

 

Ariadne tells Cobb about her work on the maze structures. She wants to show Cobb a model of her constructs, but he doesn’t want to see it, and she realizes that if he has knowledge of what is planned, so will his mental version of Mal, who will sabotage the process. He admits to this fact, but hasn’t told the others of the extent of his subconscious undermining the project. He wants to get home and here admits that he is wanted for Mal’s murder. As we go deeper in the dream states, there is a parallel depth of discovery concerning Cobb’s secrets. 

 

The team discusses how to change a business strategy into an “emotional” entity, because as Cobb says, the subconscious runs on the emotional, not the rational. Cobb also suggests implanting a positive concept, because, “we all yearn for reconciliation, for catharsis,” sort of how an audience watching a film wants some type of positive release of troubling feelings. They decide on persuading Robert to not want to follow in his father’s “footsteps,” and also to believe, “I will create something for myself,” in the second level. These thoughts will then connect with what they suggest in the third realm which will provide a feeling of healing with the father’s positive wishes for Robert, which are, “My father doesn’t want me to be him.” 

 

They determine in dream time that the first phase will seem like a week, the second will appear as six months, and the third will feel as if ten years have passed. To exit the dreams, there must be “kicks” since, despite the heavy sedation to prohibit any waking from the dreams, Yusuf has left inner ear function intact so a sense of falling will wake up the sleeper. Here, waking is like a parachute to save a person who falls out of a plane. It is interesting that they plan to carry out their mission on a jumbo jet, which suggests escape from the world on the ground, just as a dream is a trip away from the everyday world. They need ten hours and Saito knows that Robert flies from Sydney to Los Angeles every two weeks. Saito buys the airline to ensure control over the situation.

 

Ariadne finds Cobb alone on the dream machine. She joins him, and finds herself descending in an elevator (going deeper into his subconscious?) to a level where he sees Cobb talking with Mal. She reminds him that he had a “dream” of growing “old together.” She suggests there is a way to do that. It is his feeling sorry about losing her that is seducing him, through Mal’s subconscious persona, to join her in the dream state forever. The two become aware of Ariadne’s presence, and Cobb accompanies her in the elevator as they ascend since he knows her presence will cause Mal to be threatening. They rise to another of his memories which has Mal and his children on the beach (the children look the same and are wearing the identical clothes as in his other visions, reflecting a baseline for his recollections of them). After Ariadne wonders why Cobb tortures himself with these living dreams, he says it’s the only way he can dream now, and he wants to feel as if his family is “still together,” a denial of what actually is. He is like those addicts in Yusuf's basement den. She says these are not created dreams but manifestations of memories, the opposite of what he advised Ariadne to do, since distinction between worlds will be difficult to differentiate. She says Cobb can’t put Mal in the past. It seems that she still possesses him, only in these fantasies she has a tangibility that is not ghost-like, making them more compelling. They now ride the elevator to Cobb’s house after Mal has died. There are James and Phillipa (again, appearing as before, their faces always turned away from him, stressing their being out of reach) in the yard. A man appears and hands him plane tickets that, probably, allow him to escape being arrested. He says the only way he will see his children’s smiling faces again is by returning home. 

 

Ariadne runs away from Cobb, enters the elevator, and descends to the bottom level, to one of Cobb’s most frightening memories to discover what happened in his past. The room she enters is trashed. Mal is there asking in a threatening way why Ariadne is there. Ariadne says she wants to understand, but Mal cuts her off, saying she can’t fathom what it’s like to love and feel like one is ‘half of a whole.” Her remark reveals a deep dependency that existed between her and Cobb. Mal likens being a lover to riding on a train without knowing or caring about the destination, because, as the arriving Cobb says, the couple is on it together. These lines are repeated in the movie, as well as the train references for romantic and ironic effect. He says they are in a hotel room where they celebrated their wedding anniversary. (We learn later what happened at this location). Mal has a broken wine glass in her hand. An enraged Mal tries to get at them as Ariadne and Cobb escape into the elevator. She yells that Cobb promised they would age together, and he promises he will return.

 

They wake up, and Ariadne says Cobb can’t contain Mal which means she is a threat to their enterprise. She gives him an ultimatum of either her sharing what she just witnessed or letting Arthur know about it. Saito and Arthur arrive with the news that Maurice died and Robert will be accompanying his father’s body to Los Angeles. Cobb agrees to have Ariadne accompany them. They are in a sectioned off part of first class. Eames pickpockets Robert’s passport, and hands it to Cobb, who tells Robert he found it, using the ploy to get close to him. The appearance of aiding someone is as phony as are the dream states. Cobb drugs Robert’s glass of water with the help of a flight attendant Saito probably paid off. She makes sure they have privacy and helps them use the sleep devices. 

 

They first enter Yusuf's dream. It is pouring rain in New York City, necessitating the need for a taxicab, which Cobb’s crew obtains. They pick up Robert, and Eames jumps in the vehicle, while Saito is in the front seat with a gun. Cobb and Ariadne follow in a car which is then sideswiped by a train coming down the middle of the street. It is most likely Mal up to her tricks, and the train she used as a metaphor on which carefree lovers travel turns into an instrument to punish the absent lover, Cobb. Men in other cars start shooting at the cab and a gunfight and a car chase ensues. Saito is shot in the chest. When they stop, they place a sack over Robert’s head and put him in another room. Arthur explains that Robert was trained to defend against dream thieves, and his subconscious became “militarized” once he found he was in danger in the dream. Cobb is enraged that Arthur did not find out about Robert’s subconscious defense abilities. Eames wants to wake up Saito by killing him and avoid his suffering from his wound. What Cobb and Yusuf have not told them is that the extreme sedation needed to pull off three dream layers can’t be overcome by dying in a dream. If that happens, the sleeper winds up in “limbo,” which is “unconstructed dream space.” Arthur says that it is “raw, infinite subconscious,” which is a void, except for what remains of “what might have been left behind by anyone sharing the dream who’s been trapped there before.” Arthur says in their case, the only one who fits the description is Cobb. Yusuf says someone who dies in the dream could be trapped in that limbo state until the sedation wears off, or for decades, or forever. Cobb promised to give his whole share to Yusuf who trusted him because Cobb had performed inception before. Arthur is incensed that Cobb risked their lives without warning of the possible consequences of heavy sedation. Such are the horrific dangers of messing with people’s minds.

 

Cobb says they should continue with the job. Covering their faces, Arthur and Cobb interrogate Robert about the combination of the safe in his father’s room. Robert denies any knowledge, but then hears screams, which come from Eames who altered himself to appear as Browning, whom Robert calls “Uncle Peter.” They bring in “Browning” and handcuff him. He says he has been worked over by the kidnappers but he doesn't know the safe combination. Robert tells “Browning” he doesn’t know it either. Robert says the men only want a ransom, but “Browning” says that the plan of their abductors is to lock the two of them in a van and drive them into the river if they don’t get into the safe. In their discussion, Robert expresses the lack of communication he had with his father. “Browning” says there is an alternate will in the safe that allowed for the dissolution of the company if Robert wanted that to happen. He also tells Robert that his father loved him. But, Robert only remembers his father’s last word which was “disappointed,” which he assumes was how Maurice felt about his son. Here Eames plants the idea of breaking up the corporation. 

 

Meanwhile, Saito says that he will honor his arrangement with Cobb, but Cobb says if Saito dies he can wind up in limbo, his mind devoid of any real world agreement, and be that old man with regrets that he told Cobb he would be if he didn’t take Saito’s offer. Saito is defiant, however, and says he will return from limbo and they both will be the age they are now. This scene reflects back to the beginning, so we know at this point it is a foreshadowing.

 

Confronted by Ariadne, Cobb provides the backstory of what happened to Mal. The two had been experimenting with going deeper into the subconscious and found themselves in the limbo state. They spent what seemed to them like fifty years as they built an alternate world there. For Cobb it eventually became too difficult knowing that the life they were living was not real. But Mal chose to forget that this alternate reality was a dream. (There is a shot of her locking her totem, the brass top that Cobb now has, in a safe, representing what she hid away. Safes populate this dream world, representing people’s secrets). When they woke up as old souls back in young bodies it was a difficult transition, an impossible one for Mal. Her denial of the truth about the fantasy world tended to come to the surface and she still felt she was in a dream even after they returned to the real world. Ariadne asks about their children, and Cobb says that Mal thought they “were just projections” and their actual children existed outside, in the real life she had to reach. (There is a quick shot of one child that looks the same as other images, just the back of the head showing, the same age, and wearing the same clothes). At that ransacked hotel room, Cobb saw Mal outside on the edge of the building. She couldn’t be without Cobb and filed a document with her lawyer which showed that psychiatrists found her sane and that she was afraid that Cobb was trying to kill her. The destroyed room was most likely done to illustrate Cobb’s dangerous nature. She used the threat of the release of this information as extortion to force Cobb to join her in her suicidal “waking up.” He refused to jump and tried to convince her not to harm herself. But, she jumped to her death and Cobb fled, leaving his children with their grandmother. Here the film shows the potential perils of the lies we tell ourselves to the point we don’t know what is true anymore. Ariadne offers her help and says Cobb must relieve himself of his guilt which will drain Mal’s destructive power in his subconscious. 

 

Robert’s dream defenses close in on the team and they again put a sack over Robert and take him and “Browning” in a van and drive away. They enter the second dream in the van. Saito’s wound is less of a problem as they descend in stages, but it still can catch up to him. Their plan is to gain Robert’s confidence. Cobb finds Robert at the bar of a hotel. He tells Robert that he is part of the dream security to protect him, but as he speaks Cobb sees the same image of his children, so Mal’s influence is at work. 

 

What occurs in the various stages of dreams apparently can affect what happens in other levels. Because the van in the first dream goes through bad weather and bangs around as it is being pursued, the surroundings in the second dream reflect some strange turbulence, which Cobb uses to convince Robert that he is in a dream, along with the fact that Robert can’t remember how he came to be at that hotel. Robert goes with Cobb and Cobb shoots men following them, who are the real dream protectors, but Cobb says they are the people trying to extract secrets from him. He hands Robert a gun as an act of trust, but Robert points it to himself, saying he should kill himself to wake up. Cobb says he may be deeply sedated, and may not wake up, which in this case is the truth, so Robert hands over the gun.

 

Cobb gets Robert to remember what happened in the prior dream. He was forced to state some numbers that might be from his subconscious to open the safe. Here, Cobb suggests that they refer to a hotel room. Meanwhile Arthur explains to the novice Ariadne as he places explosive charges around a hotel room that there will be a “kick” when the van hits a barrier and there must be sequenced kicks in the dreams to get them to wake up when the time is right. 

 

Cobb takes Robert to a hotel room based on the numbers he remembered saying. They find the sleep machine there, and Cobb says that Browning was ready to put him in a dream within his dream (which Cobb’s team has already done). Robert’s projection of Browning arrives and admits to what Robert is already suspecting, that he was trying to get the new will to stop Robert from dividing up the company. The Browning projection says that Samuel wanted his son to build his own company because he was “disappointed” that Robert had never done anything himself. Browning says that Robert can build a better company. Cobb says that this version of Browning is lying and wants them to enter Browning’s subconscious to discover what Browning is hiding. But, they are really going into Robert’s mind. 

 

Arthur is left behind to protect the sleepers in the second level from Robert’s defenses and to help coordinate the kicks when they happen. Yusuf’s van in the first dream topples causing a disruption of gravity in the second level as Arthur and his assailants lose gravity and fight floating around. When the van heads toward a fall off the bridge ahead of time Arthur hears Yusuf’s music warning that the drop is coming soon. (The van hitting the bridge’s barrier does not cause the kick needed to wake up the second level dreamers, which is not really explained). When the van is in midair Arthur’s level is free floating and he must devise a way to get the sleepers to experience a kick without gravity. The original plan was for him to set off explosives in the room below the sleepers to create a kick to wake them in the second level. He ties them together with phone wires, puts them in an elevator, and eventually sets off explosives that cause the falling elevator to simulate gravity so they can experience the kick. 

 In the third level, Robert’s vault is in a snowy armed fortress. They hear the warning music too. They must fight Robert’s defenses (which he at this point thinks are Browning's). Ariadne is wary of telling Cobb details about her construction in the third level for fear Mal in his subconscious will betray them. The van going over the bridge translates to an avalanche in the third dream state. (Why there is no loss of gravity in the third level of the dream is not explained). Cobb says that when the van hits the water there will be the next kick. But Cobb’s projection of Mal appears and she shoots Robert as he approaches the safe. Cobb’s team gather near Robert, and Cobb knows the shot man is dead in the dream and his mind has gone to the limbo stage. Saito also dies from his wound he experienced in the first dream stage, and he also travels to limbo. 

 

Ariadne says they can still prevail by following Robert to limbo where time passes very quickly and bring him back to the third stage where they can revive him with a defibrillator. She and Cobb use the dream machine to enter limbo, and Cobb knows where Mal is and says Robert will be there, as she will use him as a bargaining chip to draw Cobb to her, joining her in limbo. We are now back on that beach where we first saw Cobb at the beginning. Part of this world is deteriorating, though, as Cobb left it and was not there to sustain it with Mal. Cobb did the opposite of what he recommended which is to create dreams out of one’s memories. By doing so, as he said, it becomes harder to separate fact from fiction. 

 

They find Mal and she begins to sow doubts about what Cobb thinks is the real world where he feels persecuted, being chased by large corporations and governments. She wants him to choose her reality over his, one not having preeminence over the other. The duplicate images of the children again appear. It is here that Cobb says how he practiced inception on Mal. He broke into her safe in limbo, retrieved the top, and spun it, and since it did not stop spinning, he was able to insert the idea she forgot, that her “world is not real.” They did not wake up as he previously said but laid down on railroad tracks and let the train kill them. That is why Mal is quoting about being on a train and using it to disrupt Cobb’s subconscious mind. But Cobb says planting an idea can grow like a virus and that thought that her world was not genuine carried over into the real world. So, she committed suicide, and the only place she resides now is in the limbo section of Cobb’s mind where they built a life together. She is upset that he “infected” her mind, but still wants him to stay with her in limbo to relive what they shared. Cobb’s mind is confronting what he did to Mal, but he is still at war with his guilt over his actions resulting in her death. 

 

Cobb seems to say he will stay with Mal if she tells him where Robert is. Robert is in limbo now with her, still alive in that state with Mal. After Ariadne finds him, Cobb then tells Mal that she is not the woman he loved, only a “shade” of her. She attacks Cobb and Ariadne shoots her. Ariadne then throws Robert off of the balcony, killing him in limbo but waking him to the third dream state. (Not sure why Robert is effectively revived in the third level). Robert enters the safe which is a room which houses his dying father. His father says he was disappointed Robert tried to be like him before he died. Thus, inception is accomplished as the message delivered to Robert is that he must take apart his father’s financial empire and start over, making his life in his own image.

 

Eames sets off explosives in the third dream state which is the kick that somehow reaches limbo, alerting but not enough to break them out of that state. To leave, death is necessary, and Ariadne jumps off the balcony in limbo to wake up in the third state and the explosions there kick her and the others into the second stage, where Arthur’s explosion kicks them into the first level where they wake in the van falling into the water. (I still am not sure that film is consistent in how the kicks work). They get out and Robert tells Browning (Eames) that he realizes what his father wanted for him. Cobb is still in the van under water as he looks for Saito in limbo. Complicated enough for you?

 

Cobb stays in limbo and Mal reminds him of the promise that he made about growing old together. He says they did, and there is a shot of them as elderly people walking in limbo since time there is accelerated and they spent decades in that state. He says they did have their time together. He now tells her he must let her go. She dies from the gunshot and ceases to exist in the only place she can live, in Cobb’s mind. He is purging the guilt to stop her from tormenting him. 

 

We now return to the opening scene of the movie, with Cobb arriving on the beach, but we now know that this episode is a fiction as he encounters the old Saito who has a vague memory of Cobb. Saito asks if Cobb has come to kill him, and says he is “waiting for someone.” Perhaps in limbo Saito subconsciously remembers that he must die to escape where he is. Cobb’s repeating Saito’s words about living a life of regret helps Saito recall who the man is before him. Cobb is now performing inception on Saito, the same one he used on Mal, reminding him of what he forgot in limbo, that he is dreaming. He says these words as the top keeps spinning. He tells Saito to “come back” with him. Saito reaches for the gun.

 

The next scene has them all awake in the airplane, the assumption being that Saito killed Cobb and himself in limbo, waking them up. Saito makes the phone call he promised would set things straight, allowing Cobb to get back into the United States. Cobb lands in Los Angeles and has no trouble going through Customs. He finds his father-in-law, Miles. They go to where the children are staying. He takes out the top and spins it. The children are there and he finally sees their faces and they have a joyous reunion. But, the children are the same age and are dressed in the same clothes as he has pictured them in his memories. It makes us wonder if Saito’s promise was just to put Cobb in a dream state to convince Cobb that Saito had delivered on his promise. The top continues to spin, but begins to get shaky. However, we do not see it actually topple. 

 

Is Cobb in a dream, or has he returned to his children? Or, does it matter, if the only way he can be happy is through an illusion? Nolan seems to be saying that sometimes the lies we tell ourselves aren’t always destructive. Robert has been able to have an emotional reconciliation with his father in his mind which allows him to gain self-confidence and move forward as his own person. As Goldberg says, Cobb’s real goal isn’t to exist in “reality” but to work through his “trauma” about his wife’s death, face his guilt and take responsibility for Mal’s death. As moviegoers, “We accept that we miss chunks of time and don’t have to be constrained by chronology. We accept we’re being told a series of events that never happened.” With the help of those that constructed the architecture of a film (or a play or book) we add our own minds to the process to extract true insight out of make believe.

The next film is The Best Man.

Cold Mountain

 

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

Cold Mountain (2003) has its roots in Homer’s The Odyssey, which also has a hero returning from a war to a woman he loves. In the film, however, the soldier quits the struggle before it’s over out of disgust for the horror that comes from the massive scale of violence and atrocities. The tale shows how engaging in warfare destroys the barrier of civility and decency erected to keep out reprehensible behavior which bursts in on either side of the conflict. It is also a story of female empowerment while male aggression rages.

 

The film, which jumps back and forth in time and between parallel plots, starts with a voice-over as Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman), recites a letter to the man she loves, Inman (Jude Law), about how it has been years since they have seen each other. She expresses her fears about how this “awful” Civil War may have changed things irreparably. But she has not given up hope, so her resilience is intact despite the dire circumstances. She speaks her words while there is an image of water gently flowing, suggesting the distance between them, but also the continuous, inevitable flow of time that has passed which they could not share together. 

 

The film is at the end of the Civil War when Northern troops are placing explosives underground at the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia in July, 1864. Southern troops inside their fort are on edge as they wonder when the Union soldiers will attack. The Southern men prepare coffins for the dead, showing the heavy tragic cost of the war. Inman is one of the Confederate soldiers and he receives the letter from Ada with her tintype picture. She alludes to what was left unsaid between them, which hints at their reticence when they first met. 

 

As numerous Union soldiers wait to attack as the fuse is lit to set off the explosions, a rabbit, displaced by the subterranean excavation by the men from the North, runs through the Southern trenches. The Confederate soldiers see the creature as food and chase after it. Inman smiles, because it seems like a humorous incident, but the animal, ironically, is a harbinger of catastrophe. 

 

Ada’s narration brings us back in time to when she arrived in Cold Mountain, North Carolina with her father, Reverend Monroe (Donald Sutherland). They came from Charleston, which she hated because it was “a world of slaves and corsets,” which indicates her feeling of being liberated by the move. But, she felt “out of place” in her new home. At that time Inman did carpentry work, helping to build a chapel for the Reverend, its religious nature contrasting with the workers’ conversation about the war. Some men have no problem fighting against what they see as Northern aggression. Others protest, saying they would be “fightin’ for a rich man’s slave,” that is, risking their lives for the wealthy. The Reverend shows up at the site with Ada, and the men comment on Ada’s beauty among themselves. Inman’s admiration of her is obvious, but he has the discretion to keep it to himself. Sally Swanger (Kathy Baker) asks Ada how she is finding Cold Mountain (the name of the place is not very inviting, but also, according to IMDb, it represents a spiritual place in Chinese poetry). After Ada says the area is beautiful, Sally says Ada could use her own beauty to get one of the admiring men to help clear Sally’s field. Sally singles out the usually quiet Inman, who has been asking about Ada. Despite the seriousness of the movie’s topic, there is humor in the film. For example, Ada brings the men some cider, and when she repeats Inman’s name after he tells her it, he says, “repeatin’ a thing doesn’t improve it.” His response and his reply that what he does is “work wood. Hunt. Mostly work wood,” emphasizes how he is a man of few words. Law’s ability to use his facial expressions to convey deep feelings despite the lack of dialogue is impressive. Even when she gives him an opening to become familiar by asking if he has something to say to her, he defers. These two seem to see themselves standing outside the society in which they live, which draws them together. 

 

The story jumps back to Petersburg where Inman excavates himself (being born again, getting a second chance?) from the rubble that buried him after the explosion. He reaches for Ada’s photograph as the soundtrack plays a song that talks of going to find one’s “true love,” which is the central plot line of the movie. The area is in flames and the air is filled with ash and dust, with bodies on the ground. It looks like a hell on earth, which is what war is. The infernal metaphor is perpetuated by the fact that when the Union soldiers attack they ironically wind up in the huge crater that the explosive created, and the Confederate men realize their enemy has “dug their own graves.” They call it a “turkey shoot” as they fire into the huge pit. Inman tries to save the youngest among them, Oakley (Lucas Black), and jumps into the crater, hoping to prevent the youth from having his otherwise long life cut short. But, a Northern soldier stabs Oakley, and as he dies he tells Inman he will get back to Cold Mountain before him, suggesting that the only way to return home is through the spirit after the body releases it in death. The scene after the battle is horrific, with bodies piled high.

 

There is a shift back to Inman clearing Sally’s field, and Ada happens by without even realizing Inman agreed to do the job. When Sally asks if men are different in Charleston, Ada says she does not know. Ada obviously has little romantic experience. Sally says if Ada likes Inman she should at least say good morning to him, but her response is that she must be on her way. This time period is very different from our own, as men and women now are much more forthright about amorous desires. The restraint between these two is excruciating to them since they obviously are very attracted to each other. There is a shot of Ada transporting her piano and playing the instrument as she passes by Inman in the field. The scene suggests that these two should be joined in loving harmony.

 At the Monroe home there is a party to show the community that the Reverend and his daughter are grateful for the chapel. Ada’s father talks highly of his daughter after she plays the piano for the guests. Inman is in the rain, outside, looking through a window, yearning for Ada, but physically and socially cut off from her. A large, scruffy man rudely enters and passes by the Reverend while he talks and grabs a glass of liquor. The Reverend learns that the man’s name is Teague (Ray Winstone), and that his family once owned much of Cold Mountain, and wanted the land that the Reverend acquired. Teague is looking for a way to get the farm for himself. Inman is soaking wet and feels embarrassed to go inside, even though Ada is welcoming, pointing out there is a warm fire blazing in the fireplace. Could this be metaphorical language for the heat she feels for him beneath the surface? As we already know she hates slavery, and was carrying root beer glasses on a tray to the “Negroes.” She found out that he enlisted in the army, and his response is that if there is a war they will all have to fight. For him, as a Southern man, it seems inevitable that he will have to be a soldier. But she is angry, and is sarcastic about the male desire to go into combat, asking if Inman’s ego made him take a photograph of himself in his uniform and gun. He sees that she is mocking him. For him, words are useless to describe how he aches for her, and says trying to say how he feels is as impossible as describing the intricacies of the color of the sky or “the way a hawk flies.” His few words are poetic. She says she understands, and he joins her generosity by offering to bring the tray to the slaves. 

 

We again have Ada’s narration of one of her letters to Inman where she states that she dreads hearing news of his death. It has been three years since he left to fight in the war, and she wants to reassure him that, despite his insecurity about her remembering him, she still is waiting for his return. Inman and other men from Cold Mountain are sent on a dangerous night mission to shoot some Yankee soldiers who are waiting to attack the next day. Inman’s comrades are killed by friendly fire and Inman is severely wounded, which shows one can't even trust the side he is fighting on to not harm a soldier. The story reverts to Inman and Ada in the chapel just before it officially opens. There is a dove inside and he says that it is a symbol of good luck, which in this story, does not turn out to be true. Later he brings his father’s sheet music to the Monroes, but again feels shy and unworthy to accept an invitation to enter the house, and thus become familiar with Ada. But she is understanding and saves him from his reluctance by saying they should all go for a walk instead. 

 

The Reverend says he was advised to move to Cold Mountain for the fresh air for his ailing lungs (which of course is a foreshadowing), but he says it's the beauty of the place that is healing. Inman offers that to save the place is the reason they are going into combat. The Reverend says he will not preach in favor of war in his church, and he agrees with Inman, who then wisely says that God probably is tired of being invoked on both sides of a conflict. He states that his father played the piano (another reason that he is fond of the musical Ada) and was a teacher, but both of his parents are deceased. There is a nice transitional shot of Ada looking out the window of the house hearing Inman’s words as she smiles and remembers that walk and holds the sheet music and a photograph of him he gave her. 

 

A flashback of a church service follows, and it is ironically interrupted by reports that the South has seceded from the nation, the opposite of the “good news” in the Bible. This information empties the chapel, signifying a retreat from spirituality, as young men cheer, “We got our war!” They think that the fight will be a heroic affirmation of their manhood and their system of slavery. Ada knows better as her look shows apprehension. Inman smiles as the enthusiastic men grab him, but then he observes Ada’s disapproval, which affects him. Teague shows up and threatens anyone who approves of President Abraham Lincoln and abolition. Inman challenges his authority to make such a proclamation. But Teague was preparing for this day, and he has obtained the title of Captain of the Home Guard, and states, “I’m the law from today,” which is a dire fact given the immorality of the man. He says he will be staying behind to “watch over your sweethearts,” an extremely distasteful prospect. Inman, after hearing Teague’s words, is concerned about Ada’s well-being, since she, as a beautiful woman, might be harassed, and she is opposed to the war. He urges her to go back to Charleston. But she says who will be there to wait for him, as she finally announces her strong feelings for Inman.

 

Ada goes to where Inman is staying as he prepares to leave for his military service. He is bare from the waist up and quickly closes the door out of decorum. Ada, aroused and feeling guilty about her arousal, looks confused and starts to walk away from temptation. He catches her before she leaves and she gives him a book and a picture of herself. She notes she isn’t smiling in it because she doesn’t know how “to hold a smile.” Her statement reveals a sadness in her life, probably due to the loss of her mother and her father’s illness, and possibly a longing for happiness which Inman might be able to fulfill. As a parade takes place to send the men off in a naïve flourish of glory, Inman and Ada kiss goodbye with such passion it sends them to their knees. She tells him she will wait for him and it is heartbreaking to see how reluctant he is to leave her and risk never seeing her again.

 

We then shift to Inman suffering from his wounds in a military hospital uttering “Cold Mountain,” thinking of home at the same time Ada tells her father that even though very few words were spoken between herself and Inman, she thinks of him “all the time,” so strong is the chemistry between them. He understands because he was married a short time to her mother, but “it was enough to fill a life.” His words stress the quality not the quantity of the time spent between two people in love. 

 

Ada notes the toll of the war on those left behind as the men went off to fight. She says their food supply is dwindling, “with no one left to work this place, nothing to buy, nothing left to buy with.” She later notes in a letter to Inman that the war “is lost on the battlefield and is being lost twice over by those who stayed behind.” The Reverend is sorry he didn’t prepare Ada for dealing with domestic problems and having brought her to Cold Mountain, but she loves her father and is devoted to him. In another contrasting scene, Ada plays the piano for her father as he prepares a sermon, but rain starts to fall, undermining the peaceful moment, and Ada plays a discordant note as she realizes that her father has died. 

 

Inman, still bedridden, receives a letter that is several months old from Ada who tells of the loss of her father and the deaths reported of many men in the war. Not knowing of his poor state of health, she wonders why he has not written, which shows her fear concerning his well-being. As her words are narrated, the film reveals her anxiety as she looks at the listings and photos of those who have died in battle. Teague visits her as she sits in the chapel and says Inman isn’t coming back, and offers himself as a substitute, which despite his protestations to the contrary, is a terrible alternative. Ada admits that she is at “her wits end,” and is “alone” and does not like taking assistance from others who also are suffering. The dire straits she is trying to navigate through are daunting. Sally arrives with her husband, Esco Swanger (James Gammon), who observes how pitiful Ada’s place looks, and Sally notes that Ada has freed the slaves that helped work her land, which shows how she could show her sympathy for the abolitionist cause once given the opportunity. The Swangers leave some food on her doorstep since Ada is too embarrassed to receive them. She does chores in the snow-covered winter and her letter urges Inman to stop marching and fighting and come back to her, because her only hope rests with seeing him again. 

 

Inman is on his feet again and encounters a man (Tom Aldredge) who has been blind since birth, who tells Inman that he shouldn’t be in a hurry to get back to fighting since the South is losing. Inman asks what he would give for ten minutes of sight. The man basically says that short of a time would only make the pain of losing something so valued be worse than not having it at all. Inman disagrees, saying he would do anything for even a brief period with something he really wanted. This is a foreshadowing of what is to come. The blind man “sees” that Inman is talking about a woman, and he warns him they shoot people who “take a walk,” that is, desert. 

 

But Inman wants to honor Ada’s request to return to her. He runs off at the same time that a proclamation is read in Cold Mountain that a deserter is guilty of treason and anybody who helps him is likewise culpable. In his position, the corrupt Teague has unrestrained power to enter a person’s home to investigate to see if a deserter is there. He is looking to recruit volunteers to help carry out his duties. In effect, those men left behind are given license to exploit their own people. Teague keeps hovering over Ada like a buzzard, waiting to feed on her desperation. In Odyssey terms, she is the Penelope character fighting off suitors as she waits for her man to return to her.

 

At supper with the Swangers, Esco, who thinks Ada waiting for Inman is futile, injects a bit of supernatural lore into the story, saying that looking into a mirror while leaning backward over their well will reflect what’s in store for Ada in her future. She tries it and sees the shadows of many birds flying around a man walking toward her who falls. In her narration of a letter to Inman she interpreted what she saw as him coming toward her. Her vision adds a sense of destiny to their story. She knows that she may have seen only his ghost, and doubts whether she can survive on her own. She feels as if she must have his presence, or at least the hope of it, to persevere.

 

Destiny then intervenes to help her with her despair about surviving. Feisty Ruby (a precious jewel?) Thewes (Renee Zellweger, in a Best Supporting Actress Oscar performance) arrives, sent by Sally, and immediately shows her practicality by announcing that the cows need to be milked. She injects much needed energy and humor into the story with her dialect tinged observations. Her small stature is deceptive as she announces how she can plow all day and there is no man better than her because, “there ain’t no man around who ain’t old or full of mischief.” Her observation is quite accurate given the circumstances. She gets down to basics right away, making it clear she is no servant and expects her and Ada to share the work, eat at the same table, and empty their own chamber pots. The rooster that has attacked Ada in the past crows, and Ada says the devil lives inside the bird. Ruby shows that even Satan is no match for her as she grabs the animal and breaks off its head, announcing that the rooster will be used for food. The rooster may also symbolize those men full of “mischief” who would harass and control women, and Ruby is the female force that will not allow that dominance. The director and screenwriter, Anthony Minghella, said that he saw Ada as “air” and Ruby as “earth,” which is an economical way of describing the differences between their backgrounds and temperaments.  

 

Inman encounters Reverend Veasey (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who is the demonic opposite of Reverend Monroe. He has drugged a slave he has impregnated and to get rid of the evidence of his lustful ways, prepares to compound his transgression by killing the woman by throwing her into a gorge. Inman, a far more moral man than the hypocritical Veasey, prevents the crime. They go back to his home where Veasey notes that they shouldn’t wake his wife. This information only adds more feelings of disgust for the slimy Veasey (whose name sounds like “weasel” or “easy,” as in being lax in his ethical behavior). Inman dispenses moral justice by tying him to the fence outside, gagging him, and placing a note that describes Veasey’s despicable actions.

 

Ruby puts Ada through farming boot camp, telling her about all of the tasks that they must perform, including what crops to plant and repairs to fix. Ruby marches around the area, spouting orders like a drill sergeant. Back on the road, Inman and slaves are hunted, put in the same category as runaways. While in flight, Inman again runs into Veasey, who is also a fugitive after Inman revealed his despicable actions. The fugitive reverend knows a woman (Jena Malone) who can take them across the river by boat. She wants money to do the job, which Inman gives her. The constantly horny Veasey starts to make advances on the backwoods woman. She is not religious and reflects the fallen spiritual state of the times when she says, “I’d say these days, the devil rules the roost.” (Her remarks remind us of the demonic rooster). To validate her statement, she is willing to prostitute herself for another thirty dollars, and Veasey comically asks Inman if they have the money. But that light moment quickly turns to one of danger as men on shore fire upon the boat, wounding the woman, and she falls into the water, as if she must be baptized in death for her sins. 

 

As Ruby quizzes her about what grows on the land, the frustrated Ada notes she was only prepared to be a woman of culture, reading books, speaking Latin and French, and cutting flowers for display, not growing them. The disparity in these two women shows as their skill sets are vastly different, with Ruby’s being the one needed once civilization is stripped away. Ada admits that her training was not practical and says the fence they are building is the only thing she has done, “that might produce an actual result.” The earthy Ruby asks, knowing the answer from her sophisticated co-worker, if Ada ever “wrapped her legs around” Inman. Ada is outraged by the remark, but then smiles at the thought, and probably finds Ruby’s candid words liberating. She later plays her piano, and Ruby enjoys the music, so Ada is also rubbing off on Ruby.

 

But the music doesn’t last as practicality will not allow for such extras. Ada sells the instrument so they can have food. Ruby says she had to sell her hair once for money, showing her level of personal sacrifice. Her father was a more pedestrian musician playing fiddle, but she believes he was killed in the war. She says her father left her in the woods as a child so her experiences have hardened her. She sums up his priorities when she says, “My daddy, he’d walk forty miles for liquor and not forty inches for kindness.”

 Inman and Veasey meet a wilderness man named Junior (Giovanni Rabisi), and they help him remove his dead bull from a stream. Junior brings the two men to his house for a meal. If there is a parallel to Homer’s epic here, then the women in Junior’s house would represent the seductive Sirens. Lila (Melora Walters) is Junior’s wife and her three sisters and children live there in this R-rated full house. After a boisterous meal accompanied by a lot of booze, Junior says he’s going off to tend to some traps. The women put the children to bed, and the females easily seduce Veasey, while Lila wants Inman, who is very drunk, for herself. Even though Inman is momentarily tempted by the undressed Lila, he is more concerned about keeping his letters and book from Ada. Junior bursts back in with the Home Guard. Junior scammed the men so he could receive a reward for their capture. So, on his virtuous journey back to his true love, Inman must endure and overcome the corrupt nature of people.

 

When the Home Guard hides Inman and the other chained prisoners he is attached to from Yankee soldiers, Inman says he refuses get shot again for a cause he does not believe in. He now voices his opposition to the South’s defense of slavery. He gets the other captives to make a run for it. When the Union soldiers hear the commotion they come back and a gunfight ensues and all the bound prisoners have no means to defend themselves. All, except Inman, are killed. Meanwhile Ruby and Ada visit Sally who uncharacteristically does not invite them in and says that her husband missed seeing them since he was not at home. Ruby is suspicious as she smelled Esco’s tobacco, so he was there, and the fields have been worked, which Esco could not have done himself. 

 

That conclusion is also reached by Teague and his men as they visit Esco’s ranch, and Teague says the Swanger boys left the military and are hiding there. The ruthless immorality of these men is depicted. They murder Esco, torture Sally, and kill their two boys when they come out to help their mother. Teague says he can confiscate the land, which is why he took the job in the first place, for selfish gain. Ada and Ruby heard the gunshots and run to the Swanger farm. They rescue Sally from the noose around her neck. Ruby announces, like a prophet, what is going on around them in the South, that thrived because of slavery and has become diseased with evil, when she says, “This world won’t stand long. God won’t let it stand this way long.” 

 

An old woman (Eileen Atkins) rescues Inman. She is a cantankerous angel, one of a few, like the Sangers, Ada and Ruby, who fight the wrongdoing taking over the land. She uses homemade remedies to treat his wound and injuries. Inman wonders why he has been spared during the time he was a soldier. The old woman, echoing the destiny theme, says everything in nature has a job, and so does Inman. He again expresses his anti-war feelings when he says he is different and is not “like every fool sent off to fight with a flag and a lie.” He seems to suggest that false appeals to patriotism may be a means to deceive others to defend a corrupt system. He tells her about Ada and even though he hardly knows her he feels compelled to go back to her. She represents what he now sees as his home.

 

There is an appropriate transition from Inman’s convalescence to Ada reading to Sally as the woman recuperates from her ordeal. Ruby and Ada catch a man trying to steal some of their food and it turns out to be Ruby’s father, Stobrod (Brendan Gleeson) who is still alive, and is a deserter. Ruby’s harsh initial response is to kick her old man because he “beat,” “abandoned,” and “ignored” her, and now puts them in jeopardy for being wanted for treason for running away from his military service. Stobrod says the war has changed him, he seems contrite, and says he wrote many songs about his daughter. Ruby isn’t willing to forgive his past transgressions, but she does start to sob as he tells her he loves her as he leaves. She is funny after he leaves when she says “he’s so full of manure, that man. We could lay him in the dirt and grow another one just like him.” There is another light moment when later Ruby’s father and a banjo player he teamed up with named Pangle (Ethan Suplee) serenade the women, and thank them for a coat Ruby made and food they gave the men.

 The old woman gives Inman some supplies and he resumes his journey. Ada’s influence on Ruby is demonstrated as Ada reads to her from Wuthering Heights and wants to continue reading after Ada finishes for the night. The novel is a romantic story of doomed love which resonates with the plot of the film. This point is reinforced by Ada using Inman’s photo as a bookmark. Ruby’s animosity melts as she, Ada, and Sally welcome Stobrod, Pangle, and another one of their companions, a mandolin player, Georgia (Jack White) on Christmas. The men play music and they all dance, trying to escape the coldness and danger that lives outside. Ruby is still the pragmatist and forbids the men to sleep on the property for fear of the Home Guard finding them there. But they covertly stay overnight in the mill and leave tracks in the snow which allow them to be followed. Ada tells the members of her sisterhood that she loves them as she, Sally, and Ruby have joined forces to be survivors of this horrible time.

 

Inman seeks shelter at the cabin home of a woman named Sara (Natalie Portman), who lives there only with her sick baby. She wants to trust Inman, but when he hands her his gun to gain that trust, she is repulsed by the weapon. The war has made her angry and says she wishes all metal would be banned, “every blade, every gun.” Her husband died at the Battle of Gettysburg, and she says that is the repetitive nature of war, where a man dies, and a woman is left alone. Her lonely situation has made her bitter and sad. But Inman is grateful for the food she offers, as well as the clothes of her dead husband. His trying on the deceased soldier’s clothes probably makes Sara yearn for the man she has lost. She asks Inman to come inside from the corn bin to just lie next to her in bed so she could capture something of what it was like to be with her husband. She cries and doesn’t want him to leave. He holds her and comforts her but tells her that he loves another, which lets her know he will not betray his love.  

 

An alarmed Sara wakes Inman and warns him that Yankees are coming which will be a threat to both of them. War, by its very nature, strips away human decency, and terrible crimes are perpetrated on both sides of the conflict. The starving Union soldiers drag Sara out of her home and tie her to a tree. They want whatever food she has and bring her ill baby outside and put it on the cold ground to get Sara to say what she has to eat. She admits to having a hog, but that and some chickens is all she has left to get her through the winter. One of the soldiers takes Sara inside and starts to rape her. But Inman is hiding there and kills the soldier and another who enters the house. One of the soldiers, Bardolph (Cillian Murphy) is upset about what his fellow soldiers are doing and tries to warm the baby. Inman tells him to leave his clothes and boots and head out, but the incensed Sara brings out her rifle and shoots Bardolph. The movie implies that when violence rules, nobody is safe, not even the well-intentioned. 

 

Stobrod, Pangle, and Georgia build a campfire and go to sleep, but Georgia gets sick from the meal they cooked and wanders off just as Teague and his Home Guard men, including the murderous Bosie (Charlie Hunnam), show up. Their disreputable nature is shown as they make homophobic statements concerning Stobrod and Pangle. Unfortunately, the mentally challenged Pangle reveals that they had been staying in a cave where Teague noted deserters might be hiding out. He also says that Ruby made him his winter coat. The film suggests that it is a sad state of affairs that honesty turns out to be deadly. After playing a mournful song fitting what is about to happen, the Home Guard men shoot Stobrod and Pangle. Georgia tells Ruby and Ada what happened. Ruby acts tough on the surface, humorously saying, “If I cry one tear for my daddy, I stole it off a crocodile.” But then she breaks down and vents her anger at men who wage war and then complain about its effects when she says, “Every piece of this is man’s bullshit. They call this war a cloud over the land, but they made the weather, and then they stand in the rain and say, “Shit, it’s rainin’!” 

 Ada and Ruby discover the dead Pangle, but Ruby’s father crawled away after he was shot and Ruby finds him still breathing. They take care of him and Ada goes off to shoot a turkey for food. She sees a man at a distance coming towards her and given the dangerous times fires a warning shot and shouts for him to turn back. Inman has long hair and a full beard at this point, and is not easily recognizable. He calls her name, but when she tells him to leave, his fear that she would have forgotten him seems realized and he turns to go. But, their fate will not allow that, and Ada seems to know it is Inman and she calls to him. There is a modest show of relief on his face. 

 

They seek shelter in an abandoned building to care for Ruby’s father. Ruby says she had plans for the farm, and thinks the return of Inman will ruin what she wants for her and Ada. But Ruby gets reassurance from Inman that he has only good intentions toward Ada. He only received three of Ada’s numerous letters and she saw none that he sent. He tells her that her words helped him get through his dark times. She says how, since they had only a few moments together. He disagrees and says in that short period there were a thousand memories packed into that brief time which were for him like “a bag of tiny diamonds.” They then pull those little jewels out of their memories and smile as they relive them and the viewer sees the depth of the love between them. The irony is now that they are reunited, Inman fears that what he experienced in the war, what he had to do to survive, may have destroyed his soul and made him unworthy for her. 

 

Ruby then bursts out of the room which she was to share with Ruby and makes fun of all the sentimental love talk she had to endure hearing. She says she might as well stay where her father is resting so as not to listen anymore. Of course, she is just freeing up the room for Ada to share with Inman. When they are alone, Ada says that even her father, a reverend, would agree that war makes a marriage impossible sometimes. She is allowing for the consummation of their love because of extenuating circumstances. They profess their desire to be married and spend a passionate night together. But it turns out to be a brief Romeo and Juliet love interlude.

 

They head back to the farm, but Ruby and Ada travel on foot while Inman takes Stobrod on a horse separately because it is safer for the two deserters to travel alone. There is some sexually suggestive talk as Ada teases Ruby about her feelings for Georgia. This fun moment is quickly dispelled by the arrival of Teague and his men who have the tortured Georgia slung over a horse after he was forced to admit the two women looked for the bodies of Stobrod and Pangle. Teague says that making the coat for Pangle showed that the women conspired with deserters and were also guilty of treason. Teague says Ada’s prediction that there will be a reckoning doesn’t pertain to him, as if he is above the law, man’s and God’s. 

 

But a reckoning comes quickly, as Stobrod slouches and rides the horse up on a ridge as a diversion as Inman confronts the Home Guard men with gunfire and is aided by the women. Ada attacks Teague with her rifle butt and Inman shoots the man dead. The only one who gets away is the sadistic Bosie. Inman follows him and tells Bosie to give up his horse and his gun and he will not shoot him. Inman’s decency is punished instead of rewarded in this upside-down world. Bosie draws instead. They fire at each other, and Inman kills Bosie. But Ada sees the crows of her vision where she thought she saw Inman falling. She cries out and finds a replication of what she viewed looking in the mirror. Inman is framed by crows as he staggers toward her in the snow and falls, a portrait of a mortally wounded soldier/lover. But there is a smiling triumph on his face as his last words are, “I came back,” something that could be said by a returning hero after his time at war.

 

Ada’s voice-over returns as she realistically concludes that “what we have lost will never be returned to us.” She says, “all we can do is make peace with the past. And learn from it.” Unfortunately, history shows that humans are not good students when it comes to the lessons that war teaches. The film ends after several years have passed. But Ada has learned a great deal about farming, and she has Inman’s young daughter, born after his death, with the spiritually hopeful name of Grace, by her side to connect Ada to the man she loved. She finds a great deal of life still flourishing around her, and she is still writing letters to Inman, saying how she finds him in all that flourishes. 

 

Sally is there, and Ruby and Georgia are together and have a baby. Ruby’s father plays the fiddle and Georgia his mandolin as they sing about climbing a mountain (a reference to the film’s title) together. The song suggests overcoming obstacles with others, as these people have done. It is Easter, a time of resurrection, with new life carrying on despite the toll taken by the bleak season that came before.

The next film is Inception.