One of the strangest lucid dreams I’ve ever had was indeed being caught inside a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream. I found myself waking up one morning, taking a shower, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, and going to school. During my first class, I woke up again. And so I got out of bed and repeated my morning rituals. This time round though, I only got as far as the bus ride to school. I found myself waking up again. That’s when I realized something strange was going on. This scenario would continue to repeat itself several times, each dream sequence getting shorter and shorter until I couldn’t get any further than stepping out of my bed before ending back to where I was. Finally, I was awake. But even then, doubts remained. How could I be sure I wasn’t still dreaming? It was only after my day had progressed well passed the afternoon that I started to relax and assume that I really had returned to reality.

Since then, I have found an easy way of determining whether I am trapped in a lucid dream or not: In my dreams, I can float mid-air, sometime two or three stories high. It’s not easy and a bit scary, but I guarantee you it’s a really cool sensation. I can only recommend it. But after seeing Inception, I may have to rethink my floating totem. For until know, I’ve always assumed my inner thoughts and dreams would always be safe from others. Not anymore.

Disclaimer: The butler did it!

It goes without saying, if you haven’t seen Inception yet, the following article will contain spoilers. Lots of them!

Now that we got that out of the way

To spin, or to topple, that’s the question. If it weren’t for the last few seconds of the film, you probably wouldn’t be here in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to give a definitive answer whether the reality that Cobbs believes he is in is real or not. The film goes to great lengths to ensure that every point that could indicate what is real and what is not is kept very ambiguous. There is enough material for both sides of the argument, but nothing that can be used as decisive proof. So I offer you two possible interpretations of the film. The real one, and the dream version.

Interpretation one: It’s real

The top will topple over and we can safely assume that Cobb was right. This is the simplest interpretation of the two  versions and we can simply take the film at face value. He has returned to reality in which Mal unwittingly killed herself. After struggling with his guilt for losing his wife, he is finally united with his children. End of story.

Because if the whole film had been a dream? What’s the point? Why should we care if nothing is real and without consequence anyway?

Personally, I’m not too happy with this interpretation. My first impression of Inception was that it was sanitized version of eXistenz. The both play the exact same theme. But with eXistenz, instead of a dream in a dream, it used the concept of a virtual reality game inside a virtual reality game. As a result, the players themselves eventually don’t know if they are actually still inside the game or not. The difference is, even though eXistenz was weird and unbalancing, it managed to tell its story without getting lost in the complexities of its technology. With Inception on the other hand, you need a chart just to figure out who was dreaming where and when, where and why were they being kicked or killed.

Interpretation two:  It’s all a dream

For this version of the story, it doesn’t matter if the totem topples over at the end or not. Becaue everything is possible when you’re dreaming and I love solving a good movie puzzle.

The long con

This is of course is my interpretation of the film and is by no means a definitive explanation. The trick to doing this is to explain as much as possible without having to leave behind too many loose ends. So if you have a better theory, I would like to hear it.

As I see it, the film is a combination between a love story and a how-to-con-a-conman. Because when it comes down to it, Cobb and his team are nothing more than  just that: conmen. They are the Ocean 11’s of the dream world. They find a mark, observe him and then play an array of confidence tricks to gain their victim’s trust. Once they have achieved that, they can start extracting deep routed secrets from their mark.

At first glance, it would seem that Saito was the first mark, but that mission failed. Saito at one point even claims the mission was a test, but never elaborates for what. When Saito returns to hire Cobb, a new mark is set. This time it is Fisher.

However, it’s more plausible that from the beginning, the real mark was actually Cobb himself. The two missions he is sent out to do are actually a ruse. It’s a classic case of the conman being conned without him realizing it. But why? And by whom?

A leap of faith

For my theory, you’ll have to take a leap of faith. Saito is actually Mal, or at the very least, one of her projections. As a matter of fact, they both even utter those same words. The both ask Cobb to take a leap of faith.

Ok, but how can Saito be Mal? To wrap your head around that, I’ll start by explaining the events of the movie.

We know that Cobb planted the idea in Mal’s head that the limbo they were trapped in wasn’t real. But when they kill themselves, they end up in a different limbo. Mal realizes this, but it’s Cobb that now believes that they are living in reality. When Mal can’t convince him otherwise, she plans an elaborate scheme to force Cobb into jumping with her off the ledges of the hotel room windows. If he doesn’t he will not only loose her, but also lose access to his children. Unfortunately for Mal, her plan backfires. Cobb is now not only left behind and trapped in his own limbo, he is now doomed to grow old and become a lonely and guilt ridden  man.

Mal however still loves him. It was never her intention to punish him like this. So if she can’t convince him to return to reality, she can at least try to make his time in limbo as pleasant as possible. And so she plans an inception that will not only unite Cobb with his children, but also free him of his guilt. Eventually, Cobb will wake up out of his limbo and they will be reunited, but until that time comes, she simply wants him to be happy again.

So she returns. Quite likely disguised as Saito. For it’s not impossible to appear as someone else in a dream. As a matter of fact, Earns, the forger, actually pulls this type of confidence trick several times during the Fisher heist. The first time, he plays Fisher’s uncle, and the second time, as hot blond woman at the bar to distract Fishers attention. At other times, Saito is probably just a projection. For example when Saito and Mal are seen in the same room. We can probably also go as far as concluding that all the other characters in the film are projections. Some are created by Cobb, the others by Mal.

Conning Cobb and planting the inception requires several steps. The first one is making sure that Cobb cannot trust his own instincts, pretty much in the same way as the gambit used in the Fisher heist: The one where Cobb becomes Mr. Charles to trick Fisher into not trusting his own self defense mechanisms.

The Saito Heist

The first seed of doubt is planted into Cobb’s  mind during the first heist at the Japanese beach house. Cobb believes Mal is dead, so when he sees her there, he actually believes that what he is seeing is nothing more than a projection of his own mind. But because he can’t control her (the chair incident and the fact that she further sabotages the mission), he is therefore led to believe that he may be losing his mind.

The sabotage of the mission doesn’t stop there however. There is also the carpet fiasco in Saito’s love nest. It didn’t really matter what the carpet was made of. All that Saito had to do was pretend it was some kind of totem and claim it should have been made of a different material than intended. This not only sabotages the mission even further, but more importantly, it also places doubt in the abilities of the architect. Why? Because it’s actually a smart ploy by Mal to smooth the path of having Cobb’s architect replaced by one of hers: Ariadne.

When Saito claims the whole mission was a test, it not only implies he knew about it, it was also to see if Cobb could be manipulated enough for the Con to go through. And it does. The second stage of the con can now commence.

The Helicopter Scene

With the failed mission, Cobb and his team are now on the run from some anonymous global corporation. Something that Mal has probably setup in the hope that Cobb may still eventually question the reality of his world. (side note: Cobol Engineering, Cobb; coincidence?)

When they try to escape via helicopter, Cobbs is tested again. Saito has not only captured his architect, but tells Cobb he betrayed him by giving away their location. If Cobb still had any faith in his own architect, it’s now completely gone. Saito then offers Cobb to shoot him.

Cobb refuses. It proves he still firmly believes he is still living in reality. When Arthur was shot by Mal, Cobb didn’t hesitate to kill Arthur to put him out of his pain, because he know he would just end up a level higher in the dreamscape. But in this dimension, he believes that shooting anyone will actually kill them for real. Either way, Mal is now able to remove Cobb’s architect completely out of the picture.

Now it is time for Saito to reel him into the con. The bait is a job offer: one that requires an inception of an idea in someone’s mind. Mal knows this idea intrigues Cobb. He pretty much spelt it out during the Saito heist just before it went wrong. The hook that will lure him into the con is the offer that if he successfully does the job, he will be able to see his children again.

Ariadne

As Mal has gotten rid of Cobbs original architect, he needs a new one. Mal creates one for him: Ariadne. Her name is derived from the Greek mythology. In the myth, she falls in love with Theseus and gives him a sword to fight the Minotaur and a ball of red fleece to find his way through the labyrinth. So it’s no coincidence that it’s Ariadne’s job to design all the mazes. She’ll be responsible for luring Cobb all the way down to the original limbo.

It’s also not surprising that Ariadne picks up dream building so quickly. Being Mals projection, Mal already has plenty of experience building entire worlds.

When Cobb sets of with her in a dreamscape to test her possibilities, she creates a scene of a bridge with mirrors. A place that Mal and Cobb knew well. By placing a projection of an old romantic memory there, it further destabilizes Cobb’s frame of mind. Cobb who is clearly rattled warns her never to use elements from memory, because that is the easiest way to lose grasp of what is real and what is a dream. And there may lie Cobb’s problem. The limbo world he is trapped in now  is not one he created, but one that was subconsciously built entirely from memory. That is why he confuses it for being real

Mombasa

When Cobb heads off to Mombasa, he meets Eans, the forger, who introduced him to Yusaf, the pharmacist. Both of them are probably projections too, though it is not clear if they belong to Cobb or Mal. I would guess that Eans may be Cobb’s projection, because they already knew each other.  Yusaf on the other hand is Mals projection. Being that Cobb is the mark, she’ll want as many of her projections on the team as possible.

Yusaf will also be the key to luring Cobb into the original Limbo that Mal and Cobb once shared. He does this by making Cobb unwittingly changing the rules of the dream world. He can convince Cobb that by introducing a sedative, being killed in a dream will no longer return you to the higher up level, but will throw you into limbo instead.

Before that, the three ways of getting out of a dream were:

• Time: Wait until you wake up, possibly after the sedative has worn out.
• Externally: If someone wakes you up from your sleep, by using some kind of kick.
• Internally: Waking up from within your dream, you have to kill yourself.

The prison of regrets

Of course, Cobb isn’t going as crazy as he thinks he is. In fact, he has managed to contain his memories and projections of Mal in a type of dream prison. It’s a place where he can store all his regrets, the very things he wants to change.

To be more precise, it’s actually not a prison. Rather, they are his deepest secrets. But unlike the others who tend to lock theirs away in a safe, he has hidden his in a different dreamscape.  At least until Mal, through Ariadne, manages to infiltrate it. It is here were she learns of Cobb’s biggest regrets:

• That he didn’t see his children’s faces before he was forced to run
• His real guilt however stems from a broken promise: that he and Mal would grow old together. He feels responsible for her demise.

Uniting Cobb with their children will be the easy part. The hard part will be planting the inception that will relieve him of his guilt. That is where the Fisher heist comes in to play.

The Fisher heist: Level one

The first stage of the trap is set. The goal is to trick Cobb into returning to the original limbo. That means sabotaging the Fisher heist as well. To begin with, Mal lets a train race through the middle of street full of traffic. It’s enough to convince Cobb that he’s now really loosing it. It doesn’t take much for Ariadne to convince him that he no longer is in control of his state of mind and that he has become a real threat to everyone else on the mission. Cobb must now reluctantly place his faith in Ariadnes hands. It’s here were he tells here why Mal killed herself and why he can’t see his children.

Thanks to the sedatives, the stakes have been upped. So Mal also sends out an unexpected but heavily armed attack team. Not to protect Fisher, but to have Saito shot and wounded. If he dies, Cobb will have no choice but to follow him into limbo and bring him back. Saito is his only chance of ever seeing his children again. More subtly though, after talking to wounded Saito, the idea is planted in Cobb’s mind that if you get trapped in Limbo, there is a very big risks growing old there before you can return.

The Fisher heist: Level two

As in level one, the deceptions being played on Fisher are actually the same deceptions that Mal is playing on Cobb. Mal doesn’t show up in this level though, but Cobb does start seeing projections of his children for the first time popping up in a heist.

The Fisher heist: Level three

Now is a good time to ask ourselves how Fisher’s story relates to Cobb. If Mal thought up this mission, why this mission? Well, it’s actually quite simple. Fisher lost his mother at an early age and his father was never there for him. Cobb’s children also lost their mother at an early age, and because Cobb is on the run, he isn’t there for his children either.

Mal unexpectedly reappears and sabotages the mission by killing Fisher, sending him into limbo before the inception could be completed. Cobb loses all hope and is about to give up. That is when Ariadne steps in and pulls him deeper into the maze. By convincing Cobb to enter limbo as well, they may still have a chance of saving the mission.

The Fisher heist: Limbo

Once here, Cobb confronts Mal. She tries to convince him to stay, but Cobb finally confesses that he was responsible for planting the idea that her world wasn’t real. And that he feels guilty and responsible for her jumping from the hotel room window.

From here, things start to move very fast: Cobb tricks Mal into releasing Fisher. When she does, he changes his mind and decides to leave her anyway and search for Saito instead. Mal attacks Cobb with a knife, and then something strange happens. Ariadne, an innocent school girl, all of a sudden pulls out a gun out of nowhere and shoots Mal down, Not killing her, just wounding her.

Ariadne then throws Fisher of the balcony, killing him and sending him back to the third level where he can complete the mission. Ariadne then follows him down killing herself.

Catharsis

After unlocking the doors of the safe, Fisher is reunited with his father. A chance to relive those last moments with him. Here, the idea is planted that his father’s biggest regret was creating an empire rather than spending time with what was most important: the time spent with his loved ones, his son. Fisher now believes his father doesn’t want him to make the same mistake.

At the same time, another inception is taking place: Cobb’s last moments with dying Mal. The lesson here for Cobb is pretty much the same. When they were still living together in the limbo world they had built, Cobb probably suffered from the creators paradox: how can you create a work of fiction, and then believe to be true? To him, once the fun had worn off of acting like gods, everything he had created felt fake and meaningless. Mal on the other hand had a different perspective on things. She loved this world, not because of the things they had built, but simply because they were together. For her, this was all that mattered and is why she hid her totem. At least until Cobb passed his idea that everything was fake off as hers.

So just before she dies again, she reiterates their promise that they would grow old together. Cobb realizes that in a way, they actually already had lived a lifetime together: fifty years in limbo is a very long time. But until that moment, they always look the same age in his flashbacks of limbo. Even when they decided to commit suicide on the train tracks. But from that point on, he now remembers her and himself as an old couple walking through the world they had both created. He finally comes to believe that they did grow old together and as a result his promise had already been fulfilled. Mal’s inception succeeded and Cobb is cured of his guilt.

The inception worked so well that when Cobb does find Saito, he too appears as an old man, despite being the last one to enter limbo. (Fisher, Ariadne, Mal and Cobb didn’t age one bit even though they all had spent a longer time in limbo than Saito).

The End

Everybody wakes up. Saito makes the call. Cobb returns home and spins his totem one last time. But he doesn’t wait for the outcome. Whether he is in reality or a dream, it doesn’t matter to him anymore. The important thing is the time spent with the ones he love: his children.

As for Mal. Cobb will eventually wake up and they will be reunited again.

The totum top

While the idea of using a totem is sound, the top that Cobb uses on the other hand has been compromised, defeating its original purpose. So as a measure of reality, it has become useless. For starters, it belonged to Mal as a way of determining if she  was still inside of Cobb’s dreams or not.

Cobb never had a totem of his own to start with. Probably because if you are the dreamer, you would already know the secret properties of your totem, leaving yourself open to being deceived by your own sub consciousness.

As Saito claimed in the beginning of the film: if you are the dreamer, you make the rules, and so you would need another way to test if you are dreaming or not. Like I mentioned before, I try floating. If I can’t, I know I’m not dreaming.

Cobb on the other hand truly believes he is in reality, so he doesn’t try changing anything in his world. In fact, he refuses to change anything. This even extends to when he does enter other dream worlds, he leaves the creation of them to others. And this despite being a brilliant architect himself. So if Cobb is the dreamer, but believes everything is real; subconsciously, he would make the top topple over to keep the illusion alive.

In fact, the only time we ever see Cobb using the top in the dream world, making it spin endlessly, is when he planted the inception in Mal’s safe. It is only after Mal committed suicide that he started using the top and only when he believes he has returned to the real world. Never during his heists or escapades with Ariadne in dream space.

Compromising the totem even further,  he at one point explains to Ariadne how it works. Doing so opens up the possibility that others can manipulate you into making you believe what they want. He did however mention that it belonged to Mal, so it’s always possible that Ariadne never assumed he himself used it, but still. It’s not really clear if the other members new about it too.

And then there is the moment when Cobb finds Saito as an old man. When he is dragged into the room, one of Saito’s henchmen places two items they found on Cobb’s body on the table. A gun and the top. Saito recognizes it immediately. Saito then gives it a spin and it does so without ever toppling over. So Saito must have known of its secret property. If Saito is Mal, that would make perfect sense. If not, then it’s clear the totem had become a public secret to all the members of the team.

And that brings us to the very end of the film. Does it topple over or not? If it kept on spinning, we would know that Cobb was still dreaming. If it toppled over, we would still be guessing anyway. Did it topple over because it really is reality, or because Cobb subconsciously still believes it to be? In Cobb’s case, the totem is nothing more than an indication of his state of mind.

So back to the final moments of the spinning top. What we actually see is the top spinning for a while, starts loosing it’s momentum as if it is about to topple over, but then all of a sudden, it regains its spin again. The table is ruled out as it is too smooth to affect it, so why does it do that?

The answer may lie with the children.

Who will think of the children?

If the whole film is a dream, then what about the children? Are they real? Or let me rephrase that: did Mal and Cobb ever have any children in the real world to begin with? Once again, the film is too ambiguous to tell either way.

It does however seem very strange that a mother and a father could break away from their children for fifty years no matter how perfect their new world surroundings could be. Most parents probably wouldn’t last 50 hours before trying to return to their children. So personally, I don’t think they ever had any real children to begin with.

Then there are the beach scenes. Chronologically, the first beach scene is of Cobb and Mal building sandcastles right after arriving in the original limbo. They didn’t have any children yet and the only time they do appear in this world is when Cobb returns to limbo to get Fisher back. But by then, he was seeing projections of them everywhere.

The second time the beach appears is when Ariadne infiltrates Cobb’s dream. He takes the elevator to the top level, and there we see Mal together with the children building castles in the sand.

After returning to Limbo and letting go of Mal, Cobb now goes after Saito. Cobb once again lands on the beach and when he looks up, the first image he sees before noticing the guard and the Japanese beach house, are his children building sandcastles. Only, Mal is no longer in the picture anymore.

These scenes may illustrate the progression of Cobb’s inner world as all these scenes are memories or at least projections of them. So what’s going on?

Cobb is convinced that inception is difficult. Unfortunately, this is not really true. There is a whole field of science dedicated to studying how false memories are formed. We tend to believe of ourselves that we are logical, rational beings and that our memories never change. In reality, we are everything but logical, rational beings and our memories are constantly susceptible to change. In fact, scientist have now figured out that every time we try to remember a memory, we risk changing it forever (and therefore makes planting false memories possible). It may be that this little oversight on Cobb’s part that makes it so easy for Mal to manipulate him.

It’s very likely that Mal planted the idea that they had children, possibly because they wanted kids or as part of her plan to blackmail Cobb into committing suicide together. And because the idea was planted, Cobb never knew what his children actually looked like.

So at the very end, when the totem is about to topple over, Cobb creates something new for the very first time in what he had believed was a reality he couldn’t control: He finally gives his children a face. And the top returns to spinning perfectly again.

If you enjoyed this, you may also be interested in: Lost Highway explained.

Once in a while, something worthwhile can be seen on television. Yesterday, Canvas not only aired the quirky love story “Steve + Sky“, but  also several pretty good short films. In my opinion, it’s something they should do more often.  Even though shorts are perfect for the internet, they are not always easy to track down.

Passion

One short I did manage to find on the net was actually the Oscar nominated “Tanghi Argentini” (subtitles). It is not the first tango short film I’ve mentioned here, but I guess it’s a subject that lends itself well to telling short passionate stories.

In Tanghi Argentini, an office clerk, after having landed himself a date with a woman he met on the internet,  finds he has only two weeks to learn the tango if he want to make an impression on her. Having never danced before, he enlists the help of one of his colleagues to help him learn the dance of passion. The big question is: will he be able to convince his date he has been a Tango dancer all his life? As with all good shorts, it ends with a twist. So watch it here.

Learning the Tango

While two weeks is indeed very short to master this dance, this is in many ways how it was taught 19th century.  Only, it usually took a bit longer than just two fortnights. Before a young boy could actually step on the dance floor and impress the ladies, he would first have to find a more experienced male dancer to teach him. First he would have to watch and observe the more skilled dancers, than learn how to follow (the woman’s part), and only when he got that down could he be taught to lead. Once he got all that down, a process that could take up to three years, would he now be able to dance with an actual real woman.

You can choose your friends.

Of one of the other shorts shown yesterday, “De Onbaatzuchtigen” (The Altruists / no subtitles), I was only able to find a fragment. You might have heard of the phrase: “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family”. Well, in this short film, you can. As a matter of fact, every member of the family can be sold or bought as long as the rest of the family agrees. Though never explicitly mentioned, in this society, prestige and wealth is exhibited by the size of a family unit and the qualities of each member. Showing off to the other families is done by the daily walks on the street with the entire family together.

A member of one family, who like the rest, constantly lives in fear that the others will tire of him and sell him off, decides to play his cards in such a way, that only he is left. After realizing he is now alone, he gets himself a dog for companionship. Someone he can trust won’t sell him off if they ever disagree.

Play the Modern Times Game! The idea for this game came to me in a dream. It is based on a scene from Modern Times, a Charlie Chaplin film. It’s the one where Chaplin is working on an assembly line, mind numbingly screwing in bolts with a spanner until he finally goes mad.

What inspired me most is the fact that reality simulation games are ever so popular nowadays, especially on Facebook. I can understand that running your own virtual farm can be considered challenging and rewarding is some way. Having to regularly clean your online aquarium on the other hand is starting to move in Tamagotchi land.

But when I saw my sister the other day playing a game where you have to make hamburgers in a fast food restaurant, that too me just seemed a tad absurd. Nobody enjoys doing this demeaning tasks in real life, yet once it is moved into the virtual realm, it all of sudden becomes fun and games.

And so I’ve created the ultimate reality game. Yes, like Charlie Chaplin in the film, you too can become a factory worker on an assembly line at the time of the depression. In order to play this game, you need to switch your mind to zero and get to work.

Like a real job, each level takes 12 hours to complete. You are however afforded a break half way through during each working day. So it does take some endurance to complete each shift in one go, but keep in mind that you are rewarded for your hard work. I believe the pay is about ten dollars an hour. But the last time I played, the work pace was upped meaning you’ll probably earn more if you don’t get fired for slacking. So it’s not like your earning minimum wage here and it may even be worth giving up your day job just to play it.

Ironically, it takes longer to play a single shift of this game than it took me to actually create it.

Have fun. ;)

Logorama is a pulp fictionesque animation contrived completely out of logo’s. You have to watch it once, and then watch it again, the second time freeze framing a single frame at a time to notice every single detail such as Pink Floyds The Wall or the colonel himself serving at his own KFC and so much more… really well done.

This architectural short film grabbed my attention once I noticed it included the parliament building in Dhaka. I briefly mentioned it in the TEDx post (it includes a link to the video about its history and the life of Nathaniel Kahn, the architect).

This short however starts with some beautiful architectural imagery. It’s filmed in high definition and best viewed full screen. But just when you think that there isn’t that much more to it, it slowly starts to pull you in as a wonderfully strange imaginary world comes to life. One I wouldn’t mind living in to be honest. I was quite impressed by the camera work and first thought it was done with the new range of DSLR’s that support video while offering more depth of field control at affordable prices.

But I was a bit surprised that one would travel all the way to Bangladesh just to film a building. Then I realized the entire movie was created with CGI. Quite impressive as it was all done by one man, Alex Roman, and a lot of time. That it really is all just bits and bytes can be seen here. Real buildings in an unreal world.

This one is truly a little gem. Especially if you have very young unruly kids running about. Not only will this lovely animation creep them out and give them nightmares, they’ll  never hassle you in a toyshop ever again.
The story starts with a child that’s lured into a toy shop.. and from there, I’ll say no more. Just enjoy…

Boy meets girl in an elevator. Boy likes girl. Boy too scared to ask her out. So far, so typical. However; this is not your every-day-garden-variety-love-story.

Just when you think his situation is nothing more than awkward at best, the film takes a turn for the strange. Our boy not only invites an odd bedfellow into his life, it is through this curious action, that he is led to believe that there might be more to this girl than meets the eye.

A young man sitting in a departure hall – hurting over broken dreams – is approached by a traveling salesman. With him, he carries a unique proposition: he sells the future. The young man, skeptical of what he is being offered, and puzzled how seeing the future could possibly repair events gone wrong in the past, takes a peak into our salesman’s attaché case. His face turns to amazement.

At this point, I was expecting a MacGuffin, a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock. It’s a plot device that has no other use than to further the story along. So I was expecting a Pulp Fiction moment, were the case is opened and starts emitting a golden glow as bystanders look at its content in amazement. But to us, the viewer, the contents is never revealed. It’s merely a prop that gives its characters a reason worth killing for. So in the end, it doesn’t matter if it is gold or a fresh batch of tasty Royale with cheese.

So great was my surprise that in this little short, we actually afforded a peek inside the case. And I have to admit that I too watched in amazement. He actually was selling the future. Our young man decides to seize the moment, but at what cost?

As the ending credits of Lost Highway swept over the cinema screen, I was left behind in a state of total perplexity.  Instinctively, I knew I had witnessed one of the greatest movies of all time. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I had just been watching for the past two hours. It was the first time a film had ever evoked such a bewildered feeling out of me.  I had to know why.

The dialogs were in English, but the film conventions used were foreign. Subtitles were nonexistent. It was a film that would take many viewings to figure out, though many claimed the film could not be explained. That it was nothing more than one long dream sequence from a twisted brain that made absolutely no sense. I never really believed that. And I’m glad I didn’t.

Mulholland Drive: A Slight Detour.

Justification came when David Lynch released Mulholland Drive. Many of the ideas and principles first implemented in Lost Highway would make their return. The difference was, Mulholland Drive was a lot easier to grasp. It was meant to be solved. Despite the fact that Lynch had originally planned it as a pilot for what was meant to be a series, he managed to tie up most loose ends when it was decided it should be a one off film instead. The DVD I bought even came with a cheat card.

The first two thirds of Mulholland Drive is in fact a dreamscape imagined by an actress that moves to Hollywood in search of fame and success. In her eyes, everything is perfect and she is the center of attention. In fact, she’s god’s gift to Hollywood. Yet dark forces outside of her control conspire  against her to take away the success she so deserves. In the last third of the film, we’re confronted with a reality that is much closer to the truth. She is not the successful women she perceives herself to be, but instead is consumed by jealousy that clouds her own judgment. It’s a film about self delusion. It’s also the Rosetta Stone of David Lynch’s mind.  The film language that once seemed so foreign and alien is finally starting to make sense.

Driving back to the Lost Highway

The first thing we have to take into account is that Lost Highway is more of a mindscape. A place were thoughts are depicted as  scenes and people, rather than events that have actually happened. And in this particular film, we step inside the mind of murderer who is trying to deal with the fact that out passion and jealousy, he killed his unfaithful wife and her lover.

While I can’t be sure David Lynch had this in mind while he was writing the scenario, the film does more or less follow the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Needles to say, this explanation contains spoilers. Now that we have gotten the disclaimer out of the way,let’s get on with it:

Denial

“Anyway, I hate the idea of acting paranoid.”

The film begins with our killer, now in the form of Fred. His state of mind is one of a sterile world, oblivious to what has just happened.  The first sign that alerts him of trouble is when the doorbell rings. When he checks the intercom, someone speak the words: “Dick Laurent is dead”. When he looks outside the window, no one is there. The significance of this scene is that it is his subconscious trying to tell him something, but our killer is deeply in denial. The name doesn’t ring a bell at all.

We are then introduced to Renee, his wife. The conversations between Fred and Renee are not exactly natural. It’s not how two people, who are, whether in love, or even estranged, would talk to each other. There is no emotion in their voices and instead speak in monotone manner. Their relationship, just like the house they live in is very sterile.  It’s a conversation imagined by the killer. Deep down, he has grown suspicious of his wife, but he is afraid to recognize what that might mean to their marriage. What he really wants is confirmation that she still loves him and only him.

She stays home that night. He goes to play gig. After the concert, he phones her, but she doesn’t pick up. Did she stay home, or is she somewhere else? When he returns, he finds her in bed. He convinces himself she was already sound asleep when he called. Everything is still fine.

The next morning, his subconscious sends him another message. This time in the form of a videotape. The first cassette just shows the front façade of the Madison House, the home they live in. Strange.

The killers suspicion, that his wife is cheating on him, grows. But at the same time, he still doesn’t want to recognize the truth. In one of the next scenes, they make love. But Renee is simply going through the motions. There is no sense of passion in her, no show of love. While the screenplay states that Fred does in the end come, in the movie, it looks more like he just gives up and is in fact impotent. And remember, this film was made  before  Viagra  was introduced, so that would have been doubly worrying. His wife proceeds to consoles him, an act that doesn’t really ad much spice to their sex life. For Fred, it must have felt quite the opposite. Compensating even. A further blow to his ego.

Fred tells her of a dream he had. That he was looking for her, but couldn’t find her. Subconsciously, the dream tells him his wife is no more. She is gone forever, but in his denial, he continues to believe she is still alive in this believe world of his. Everything is still fine.

The next morning, another videotape arrives. The tape starts out the same, with a shot of the front of the house, but now continues inside, as if filmed from something hovering against the ceiling. It moves thru the house and ends with Fred and Renee in the frame, sleeping in their bed. Renee already knew there was something foreboding about these tapes. Now she is really disturbed. They decide to call the police.

Two detectives arrive. It seems that in David Lynch movies, detectives always come in pairs, and act more as observers rather than crime solvers. But they bring with them another very significant scene. At one point, of the detectives asks if they own a video camera. Renee answers that Fred hates them.

Fred: I like to remember things my own way.
Detective: What do you mean by that?
Fred: How I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened.

That last line is very important. It basically describes the whole film. We are being shown how the killer wants to remember things. And so far, he doesn’t want to be reminded of what he has really done. But eventually, the truth will catch up to him. The videos are a symbol of what really happened.

A new day, a new tape. This one is even stranger. In it, Fred seems to be awakened by the strange presence and looks straight into the camera, horrified. But Fred can’t remember ever doing that. While Renee is now practically freaking out on this, Fred is still not all to curious or motivated about getting to the bottom of all this.

Andy’s house: They are both at a party. Fred was asked to play a gig here, but Renee didn’t really want to come. She’s got history here. How she and Andy are related will later be revealed in a later part of the movie.

After the gig, Fred and Renee match up again. As Fred goes to get a refill for their drinks, Renee starts dancing with Andy. Fred isn’t too pleased about that, but continues walking towards the bar. His jealousy peaks and that triggers the introduction of the mystery man.  The mystery man is a manifestation of our killers jealousy. The two go hand in hand. And even though the mystery man tells Fred they have met before, Fred remains adamant that he has never seen him before. What follows is probably one of the creepiest scenes in the movie. The mystery man asks Fred to call his own house. Fred is surprised to hear the mystery man speaking back at him on the other side of the line. When Fred demands to know what he is doing in his home, the mystery man tells Fred, he invited him in. Mystery man then demands his phone back. This encounter rattles Fred and his world is slowly starting to unravel now. Disturbed by what has happened, he knows something is clearly wrong and he is finally starting to slip out of denial.

He and Renee flee back home.

One last videotape awaits Fred the next morning. He watches it alone this time. The video begins the same way as before, but now ends with Fred on his knees, his hands full of blood next to a badly mutilated body. That of Renee. She is dead. Killed. Looking at the camera, Fred is horrified, unbelieving of what has just happened.
He finally realizes he has killed his wife.

Anger

“I didn’t kill her! Tell me I didn’t kill her”

We know find Fred in jail. He now knows he is going to be punished for what he has done. But in his mind, someone else is surely to blame? This can’t be happening to him. He doesn’t see himself as a killer. But the whole system is against him. He feels victimized. He’s trialed and sentenced to death.

The jail scenes are probably the closest we come to reality in the whole film. But even here, things get strange. Although it is now certain, our killer is in jail, we are clearly still viewing his thoughts inside of his mind.

Bargaining

After anger comes bargaining. In this stage, and how futile it may seem, an individual hopes to postpone the final outcome of their situation. In Fred’s case, he wants to go back to the way things were.  He wants out of death row. He wants to escape  the death penalty.

And this will inevitably to lead to the biggest WTF moment in the whole film.

The killers bargain starts with a headache. Fred is in really bad shape and it’s only getting worse. Something is happening to his head and it’s not normal. It starts to horribly deform. Finally, he becomes Pete.

Why Pete?

Still unable to except his fate, Pete is in a way, the killers hope to start a new and escape capital punishment. Pete is also a manifestation of the ideal self image of the killer: a handsome innocent young man without a care in the world.
The prison guards are naturally surprised  to find Pete instead of Fred in his cell. But legally, they have to set Pete free.
The first striking thing we notice is that Pete doesn’t live in the sterile world that Fred did. Things seem more natural here. There is even a sense of optimism in this new  world.

Depression

After the strange events of the past few days, Pete returns home. And while everybody is wondering what exactly has happened to him and are anxious for everything to get back to normal, Pete seems to be detached from everything. He doesn’t seem to have much interest in his friends. Not even in his girlfriend. One could say he is depressed. He also can’t remember what happened to him in the past days. And while he seems a bit troubled by it, he’s not really curious to find out what, why or how. Another secret looms?

Working at the garage, he meets Mr. Eddy. His car needs a little tuning and invites Pete for a ride to figure out what’s wrong. We are then introduced to another memorable scene, where they are riding along Mulholland Drive – what a coincidence – and are then tailgated by an aggressive driver. After letting him pass, Mr. Eddy strikes back by using the power and mechanical excellence of his Merc to ram this menace off the road. He then promptly pulls out this hapless driver out of his car, gives him a good smacking, and with guns drawn from him and his assistants, sternly tells the beaten up driver off that tailgating is dangerous.

It’s a strange scene, pointing out that while Mr. Eddy seems like a very sympathetic and engaging person, he’s not exactly a very nice guy. While on the one hand, he’s a man of principle, he also doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty to uphold them. And the reason he can get away with it all is that he probably is the leader of a gang that dabbles in organized  crime. The kind of people you don’t want to mess with unless you want your kneecaps busted or a bullet in your head.

When they return to the garage, they are noticed by the two detectives that have been assigned to keep an eye on Pete. The detectives identify Mr. Eddy as Dick Laurent. Apparently, they are one and the same person.

Acceptance

Our killer is now in a phase where he is in a process of accepting what has happened. He’s definitely not there yet though. In a way, he has returned in a state of denial again. But this time, our killer is living in Pete’s perfect fantasy world. This illusion will eventually crumble and send the film into some strange twists and turns. As time progresses. More and more links to the truth will soon start to appear.

Like when Mr. Eddy shows up at the garage to drop off a car with Alice by his side. Pete immediately is attracted to her. But Alice looks exactly like Renee. Except now she’s blond. And her name is Alice. She also lacks the dispassion that Renee expressed in Fred’s world.

Later that night, Pete makes love to Sheila, his girlfriend, though it seems more out of convenience for him rather than anything else. In any case, he’s not very faithful as the next day, when Alice returns to pick up the car, it doesn’t take her much seducing to get Pete into bed. If Fred was a poor performer, alter-ego Pete, the idealized version of who our killer would want to be, is apparently a true sex machine. Which makes perfect sense. Every red blooded heterosexual man dreams of girls throwing themselves at them. And if they claim otherwise, they are lying!
Yet sleeping around with many women doesn’t really have much ego boosting appeal to it if no one knows about. But luckily for our killer, the two detectives still tailing Pete, are envious witnesses to his sexual adventures. So far, that seems to be their only function in Pete’s world.
In a turn of tables, it is now Mr. Eddy that has become suspicious of Alice cheating on him. He pays Pete a visit once again and threatens he’ll kill anyone who dares comes between them.

Alice and Pete, afraid that Mr. Eddy will murder them, decide to run off together. But they will need money for that. Alice has a plan to rob a guy she knows. It’s Andy. Someone she used to work for. Someone who pays girls to party. Although she never says it with so many words, Pete discovers that Alice used to be a prostitute. His jealously kicks in. She also confesses that thanks to Andy she was made to star in porno movies for Mr. Eddy.

They plan to meet up the next day at Andy’s house. She’ll already be there, and he’ll sneak in through the back. Pete’s perfect world however is starting to fall apart.

When he gets home, Sheila discovers Pete has been cheating on her and makes a real scene out of it. According to her, Pete has changed and it is time he finally learns what has happened to him. His parents try to protect him from the truth but are interrupted by a phone call for Pete. It’s Eddy at the Lost Highway Hotel, asking if he is fine. He then passes the phone on to the mystery man. Once again, our killers jealousy has triggered his subconscious mystery man to appear. He reveals he has murdered, and not just once, but several times. The mystery man also reminds our killer that trying to escape into Pete’s world is a futile endeavor.  Whether he likes it or not, he will face the death sentence.

PETE: What’s goin’ on?
MYSTERY MAN: Great question!! In the east … the far east… when a person is sentenced to death… they’re sent to a place where they can’t escape…

Just when you thought this film was finally starting to act like a normal movie, it’s back to WTF?! mode again. No wonder people have a hard time understanding it. Here goes:

The next evening, Pete makes his way to Andy’s house. He sneaks in and is confronted with a porno movie in which Alice is occupied by certain sex acts. Pete’s jealousy is now starting to get out of control. Blinded by passion, Andy becomes our killers first victim. Evidently, he was the one that introduced Alice to this world in the first place. Andy’s life is brought to an end, his head sliced into  the edge of a glass table .

But when Pete exclaims that they’ve killed him, Alice corrects him: He killed him. Things are turning in to become a blur. But he does notice a photo in the room. Posing in it is Andy, Mr. Eddy, Alice and Renee. He rightfully asks if Alice and Renee are the same person. Alice points at herself in the photo, and says: that’s me. Deep down, Pete does realize the two are the same. The woman in the porn flick playing in the background is Alice, and Alice is Renee, his wife.  Pete’s nose spontaneously starts to bleed. The transformation back to Fred has begun. Our killers perfect world is quickly evaporating and the truth is taking its place.

When Pete searches for a bathroom to clean himself up, the hallway in Andy’s house changes into one of a hotel. And in one of the rooms he finds a whorish version of Alice sleeping with another man. Our killer probably always imagined his wife as naïve and innocent. The discovery that she was everything but just that must have truly shocked him.

Pete returns downstairs. After having looted the place, Alice hands him a gun. She also knows of a fencer that will help them with the stolen goods. And with that, they make a run for the dessert. They stop at a cabin. Alice checks the door but there is no one inside. They’ll have to wait.

After having discovered his wife’s’ secret  life, the question on our killers mind is, why did she choose him?  Was it out of love, or a chance to escape her past and live a quieter life?

Alice and Pete make love for the last time under the headlights of his car. Alice perhaps was a passionate craving. A fantasy that ended up in disappointment. The woman he wanted to love.

Pete: I want you… I want you…

..he calls until finally, Alice pulls herself away and inflicts the last final blow. The reason why she too had to go.

Alice: You’ll never have me.

She walks towards the cabin, enters it, and disappears. Our killers manifestation of Pete is now gone too. It’s now just Fred. The cold hard truth of the killer himself. Almost..
The Mystery Man returns. When Fred enters the cabin, that’s all whom he finds.

Fred: Where’s Alice?
Mystery Man: Alice who?

Alice is indeed nowhere to be seen.

Mystery Man: Her name is Renee . If she told you her name was Alice, she’s lying. AND YOUR NAME? WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR NAME?

And that pretty much sums it up. Pete is Fred, and Alice is Renee, Mr. Eddy is Dick Laurent. And the Mystery Man? That is Fred too. Fred now finally recognized that jealous part of himself as well. As a result, both manifestations of our killer start working together from this point on. It’s now time to fully accept what he has done and why.

Fred heads out into the dessert again, driving down Lost Highway, finally ending up at a hotel. One with a hallway he had momentarily seen earlier at Andy’s place when he was still in a blur with a bleeding nose as Pete.

He books a room. Renee and Laurent are having an affair in the room next door. In the meantime, our detectives are actually doing some investigative work at Andy’s place, the scene of a murder. They too notice the photograph. Except, now, there is no image of Alice in it, just Renee.

Back at the Lost Highway hotel, Renee leaves Laurent behind and heads off in her car. Fred picks up the gun, knocks on the neighboring door and when Laurent opens it expecting to see Renee, Fred smashes his way in. He then proceeds to kidnap Laurent and throws him into the boot of his own car before being driven off to a deserted spot.

When Fred opens the trunk, Laurent charges at him and a fight ensues. A knife appears, presumably handed over by the mystery man. Fred’s jealousy has pushed him to the point that he is prepared to kill again. He slashes Laurent’s throat. Something Laurent probably wasn’t too pleased about at the time. Bleeding profusely, he is still alive and conscious.
Fred picks up the gun and points it at Laurent. Dicks last words: What do you guys want?

We then see Fred with the gun, and next to him the Mystery Man, both staring at their second victim to be. The Mystery Man pulls out a portable TV and hands it over to Laurent. Just like the videotapes, this too is a symbol device. They show the events in which Renee and Laurent are engaged in questionable sexual and pornographic acts. The TV depicts the reason why he is about to be killed. After returning the television, the Mystery Man unloads his gun on him.

Moments later, we just see Fred holding the gun in his hand. The Mystery Man is no longer a separate manifestation. Our killer now not only recognizes but also accepts that jealous side of himself as well. He is finally taking blame for what he has done.

The last significant scene of the movie is Fred driving up to his own and ringing the doorbell. He then speaks into the intercom the following famous words: Dirk Laurent is dead.

And with that, the five stages of grief have been completed. When at first, he was in complete denial upon hearing about Dirk Laurent’s death from some subconscious part of himself, he has now come full circle and accepts what he has done. Or at least enough to admit it.
The film ends with a police chase. Fred is fully aware he can’t escape the death sentence.  It’s just a matter of time.

The End.

Recently – and not knowing what to expect or what I was about to watch – I went to see The Box. It’s one of those films you’ll either love, or hate. It’s from the same director that brought us Donnie Darko, the movie that brought us the wonderful Mad World cover.

The Box starts with a simple premise. A family is presented a mysterious box with a large red button. They are given a day to decide whether to press it or not. If they do, they will receive a suitcase with one million dollars, tax free. But – and there is always a but – someone whom they do not know will be killed. If on the other hand they decline to press the button by the time the offer expires, the box will be taken away, reprogrammed and sent to someone else.

Given this choice, what would you do?

If this has peaked your interest, stop reading here and go and watch it. Otherwise, I have to warn you that the rest of the post contains spoilers.

Spoiler Alert

Just like in Donnie Darko, getting your head around this film is difficult, and according to me, can only make sense if the characters in the movie don’t have free will and that everything is already pre-determined. And I don’t just mean the people who have their minds controlled, but also the supernatural beings that are doing the tests. But more on that later…

To press or not to press? That’s the question.

Just like in the last Batman film, there seems to be some game theory going on here as well. Initially, before the button was pressed, Norma (the character played by Cameron Diaz) only knew the following:

• If pressed: she’ll receive a million dollars but someone she doesn’t know will die.
• If not pressed: the box will be handed to someone else will be given the same proposal.

Under these conditions, your best option it seems is to press the button. If you don’t, chances are the box may be passed on to someone you don’t know. You then have to trust that whoever it is won’t press the button or you may end up dead.

In the film, we learn after that the button has been pressed, the box is passed on to a stranger anyway. This changes everything and so basically you are dammed if you do, and dammed if you don’t. The only way to win this game is if no one ever presses the button. Even the super computer in the film War Games came to same conclusion: The only winning move is not to play. In a way, The Box is a nice metaphor for the MAD doctrine during the Cold War.

The Corvette Scene

We later learn in the film that the family is living above their means. Yet even with this knowledge, the corvette scene at the beginning remains strange. But although the film insinuates it as an excess, it’s quite possible that Arthur never had to pay for his Corvette. It was given to him.

I remember once seeing a documentary where the astronauts from one of the Apollo missions all drove exactly the same Corvettes. It turns out that all astronauts during this age were leased Corvettes as a way of thanking them for the dangerous job they were doing. If this was one of the perks of Arthur becoming an astronaut, then it makes sense that Norma would jokingly blame it on his early midlife crisis. They wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise and is actually a symbol of a brighter future ahead. One that would soon be ripped away from them.

The Sacrifice Scene

Everything seems to be part of a large sadistic experiment by a higher power to test human altruism. We also learn that as long they continue to press the button, the human race is doomed. Yet it is when Norma pleads to have her own life taken to spare her son that she is at her most altruistic. So I can only conclude that this exactly what the higher power is not looking for as a common human quality.

It sounds strange at first, but this does make sense if this is applied to nuclear war for example. Before the MAD doctrine formed, whichever side launched the first strike always had the advantage. They would still suffer huge losses by enemy missiles that survived the first strike, but it would still be less than if the enemy initiated the attack. So it takes nerves of steel on both sides not to start a devastating nuclear holocaust. Especially when both sides don’t trust each other. So any alien race trying to make contact with humans would want to ensure themselves that they don’t ever put themselves in that position.

The United States was in the same position when the USSR had just started on their own nuclear program. At the time, some felt it was in the US’s best interest to bomb Russia back to the stone age before they were able to acquire a sizable nuclear arsenal.

So far, everything seems rather plausible. But then: Arthur shoots Norma while at the same time, another couple elsewhere presses the button. Coincidence? Again?

Does Arthurs decision to shoot Norma influence the other couple to press the button? Or is it the other way around? And if it is the higher power that is influencing their decision making, doesn’t that invalidate their own test?

Or maybe nobody at all has a say in this matter and everything is pre-determined anyway. There is just the illusion of freewill.