As Christopher Nolan’s Inception finally gives way to more standard summer box office fare (The Other Guys), one thing seems clear: The film has proven its lasting effect. Indeed, nearly a month after its release there are several reasons to think that Inception deserves another, longer look.
First, critics and many moviegoers would agree that it towers over its summer competitors, not so much in terms of revenue (beaten out by Toy Story 3 and, yes, sadly, that vampire movie) but in terms of scale and substance. Nolan’s work, which is best beheld in IMAX, has shown us that a summer blockbuster can indeed satisfy the eye while titillating the mind and tugging at the heart.
Second, Inception currently ranks third on the IMDb chart of top 250 movies of all time as voted by users. That’s right, third. Right behind The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather. Even while acknowledging IMDb users’ bias toward the new, the film’s company among Schindler’s List and Lord of the Rings should make us pause and consider why so many people rated it so highly.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Inception has proven itself to be a film that taps into something deep, something that gets us thinking and talking. We attend movies all the time that we don’t think a bit about ever again. My experience with Inception has been quite different. Lively conversation that went beyond simply piecing the plot together followed both of my viewings. And I’m not alone in this experience. Inception is a film that lingers and, in some ways, even haunts.
For these various reasons, Inception is exactly the sort of film that Christians should intentionally engage, even after its box office buzz has come and gone. Many summer movies draw a crowd as people take refuge from the sweltering heat. Few summer movies awaken people from their popcorn and soda slumber to grapple with our human condition and the substantial issues of our time. Inception does so in spades, joining the ranks of Star Wars and E.T. among other summer blockbusters that entertained while also prompting us to think . . . and dream.
Consider the fact that Inception is dedicated to a subject that has fascinated and mystified people since the dawn of time. Dreams have captivated the human imagination for millennia, as witnessed by their presence throughout the Scriptures, from Jacob’s ladder to Pilate’s wife. And in a secularized and de-mythologized West, dreams are one of the few remaining venues where mystery is preserved and an encounter with the transcendent is possible. Inception, by dealing with such sacred fare, elicits a response similar to when we awaken from a spell of lucid dreaming: We go and tell people what we have seen, even what we have experienced, in the mysterious world of our own making.
Yet even as Nolan plumbs the subconscious mind in a way that generates buzz and captures the imaginations of viewers across the world, his project needs the corrective critique of the Christian community.
After all, the world Nolan has created, where extracting and incepting ideas within a shared dream is the latest form of corporate espionage, is a world where God is conspicuously absent. Dreams are no longer understood within a religious framework where encountering the transcendent is possible. Instead, Nolan seems to hold a post-Freudian view that sees dreams simply as human constructs, manifestations of the subconscious mind, ultimately capable of manipulation and control. In Nolan’s story the dream world is a final frontier that can be conquered and then controlled by those powerful enough to learn the tricks of the inception trade/science.
But elements of the mysterious still break into Nolan’s secularized vision. Subconscious runaway trains and former lovers invade the technologically manipulated dream worlds. The creative possibilities discovered by architects elicit a deep sense of awe at the power of “pure creation.” Fear of tumbling into a semi-eternal “limbo” haunts those who descend deeper and deeper into the subconscious mind. The protagonist, after building an entire world with his wife in the depths of their shared dream, says they felt “like gods.” Characters exhort one another to take a “leap of faith” again and again.
These aspects of the story and more cry out for a deeper explanation than they are given in the film. With Inception Nolan serves as yet another example of a screenwriter/director who writes and directs better than he knows. That is to say, the truths Inception explores, those things with which we resonate so strongly and get us talking afterwards, require a “thicker description” than the film itself provides. Indeed, they require a description that can ultimately explain the elements of the mysterious that emerge in the film and the power that these elements have over the film’s characters and viewers.
This description must involve no less than an explanation of where the world that Nolan (and his characters!) has created resonates with and departs from the biblical narrative. For indeed, it is the biblical narrative that ultimately orients us in understanding the real world, the world that the all-powerful and ever-mysterious Three-in-One God has created and in which we, as his image-bearers, live.
Only as we allow a biblical worldview to frame our understanding of Nolan’s story will we be able to understand why we resonate with aspects of his film. What we’ll find is that Nolan’s story allows us to see and experience anew what the biblical narrative has already told us: that we as humans long to cultivate and co-create, that our worlds crumble when we attempt to usurp the Creator by occupying the center, that we need a catharsis powerful enough to deal with the guilt which haunts us, and that we long to be reconciled with those we love in the world “up above.”
Because we have graciously been told and enabled to believe the story of Scripture, we should engage films like Inception, which provide us with ripe opportunities to explore with our unbelieving neighbors the mysteries of a world within a world, in this case by exploring a dream within a dream. When we encounter films that endure beyond their box office days because they delve into the mysteries of something deep, we show people how fictional stories ultimately point to the biblical story and to the God who stands behind humanity’s deepest and most lingering dreams for this life and the next.
Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?
In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
