Tuesday, August 10 2010
I liked it. Not that I understand all of it, but I did like it. The movie gave me a way of "seeing". So here are some random, and I do mean random thoughts on what I was seeing.
Reality
The movie has two realities or two dimensions, the dream world and the real world. Seeing that whole concept was powerful. We live in a world of two dimensions or realities; there is what we consider the "real" world and there is the Kingdom of God. I liked seeing the dream world of Inception as it reminded me of our "real" world.....the world we create, the world that is decaying and falling all the time. The Kingdom of God is so much more than we could ever imagine; it is the reality of which our world is a mere shadow of.
Perhaps planting the thought that there is a world apart from God that we can rule and create was and is the first and greatest "inception".
The Kick and the Totem
In the movie there is a "kick" to get back into the real world and there is a "totem" that everyone has to have so they can identify whether they are in the dream world or the real world. They made me think of the two sacraments the church has been given; baptism and communion. We are baptized into Christ; it is our "kick" into the real world of God's Kingdom. We also need something to remind us, to orient us as to what world we are really in. For two thousand years the Lord's Supper, or Communion, or the Eucharist...whatever you want to call it has been our reminder. It awakens us to the reality of what the cross did to bring us back into the Father's world.
Guilt
I liked seeing the truth of what guilt does to the human mind. It torments it. Dom suffers guilt over Mal's death. This unresolved guilt torments him by Mal showing up in his mind. When he makes the confession in front of Ariadne he is released.
Strongholds
In the film the 'dream team" is trying to get into fortified areas of another persons mind; either to steal an idea or in this case to plant one. I likes seeing these fortified areas and how powerfully defended they were. It gave me a way of seeing what the Bible refers to as fortresses.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4,5.
If the enemy has established a stronghold in our mind he knows how to defend it. There will be a battle to blow it up!
Garden Imagery
The movie ends with Dom getting "home" and seeing his children in the garden. The imagery suggests that Dom and Mal were once the children of the father figure Miles and they left the garden to live in a world of their dreams. Only one returned. Oh by the way Dom means "Lord" and Mal means "evil".