First off, I think Inception is about DiCobbrio being insane, and Mal trying to pull him back into reality2. This goes off the fan-theory that Arlandria3(Ariadne) is DiCobbrio's therapist, trying to help him get over the suicide of Mal4 (or some other traumatic event5). My view on that theory is that regardless of what messed up DiCobbrio, Mal is his therapist (her, if it's really a she, name might not be Mal. But for simplicity, I will call this person either Therapist-Mal, or Real-Mal), and is trying to help him. She is trying to pull him back into reality, and out of his delusions. She sabotaged his jobs, because she didn't want him to settle down into a nice life in his lie (by making him fail, he remained on edge, and the presence of assassins made him want a more normal life. These laid the groundwork for dragging him out of his madness). But this plan failed, as over time DiCobbrio integrated Mal's presence into his fantasies. She became a personification of whatever trauma actually drove him into the dream world. She was, from his perspective, the only source of conflict in his world, so his mind pieced it together that she was a projection of his self-conflict. This created His-Mal (the one that was his wife, and killed herself after he accidentally destroyed her concept of reality). His-Mal was just how DiCobbrio viewed Real-Mal6.
DiCobbrio used catharsis to deal with his Mal problems. Other characters in the film mention that the best way for an inception to stick is by bundling the idea with positive emotions, and that catharsis was the best way to make positive emotions. By facing what he saw as his guilt, he convinced himself that His-Mal was gone. The catharsis of facing his "guilt" (confessing to, and apologizing for causing the madness inducing idea that His-Mal's world wasn't real) let him banish the unwanted idea. He got the idea that His-Mal was gone. This idea grew and took hold of his mind, like any idea implanted that deep in a subconscious. With this idea he had accidentally incepted into himself, he blocked all new evidence of her existence from his mind. After the confrontation in Limbo, Real-Mal was still trying to talk to DiCobbrio, trying to wake him up; he just didn't notice. By shutting out the only voice of truth in his world, he ended up with an all comsuming idea that his world wasn't fake. This idea that his world was true consumed him in the same way he thought His-Mal was consumed by the idea that their world was fake.
This scenario then raises the falling tree question: if DiCobbrio's world is fake, but there is absolutely no way for him to discover this, does it matter? His madness becomes his reality, and from his perspective, is the only reality. With Mal7 gone, how will Descartes' question ever be asked, let alone answered?
Now for something completely different: Pontypool. It's a zombie movie. But not in the living-dead variety. It's in the "horrible madness turns people into an endless hoard of killing machines" variety. But not in the madness-inducing bio-engineered super-plague variety (28 Whatevers Later, etc.). Or the madness-inducing gas variety either (Dead Air...). Oh no, this is of the madness-inducing lingually-spreading variety (Pontypool)! Somehow, the English language has come down with a sickness. It's spread by terms of endearment. It's Valentines Day8. It doesn't end well for the small Canadian town of Pontypool9. I find this movie fascinating, because it takes the idea of an infectious idea to the extreme, where saying an infected word causes the person to go into a madness mantra of infected words, which eventually drives them completely (and violently) mad10 11. I suppose a jibbering mess is what could happen to someone in the Inception universe if the wrong idea got planted. It was mentioned that an idea planted by inception would consume and become the person. When Cobb placed the idea of fake realities in Mal's head, she was never able to escape that feeling12. Imagine what an idea about recursive realizations of recursive realizations would do to a person. If it didn't turn them into a cannibalistic zombie, I think it could definitely destroy their grip on reality (imagine the fun philosophical ideas we'd get from someone like that, if they could still speak).
I think this post takes the cake for biggest ramble. It also possibly takes the award for most Facebook posts it inspired me to make. Inception is a mind virus that creates ideas about mind viruses that create ideas about mind viruses while shattering all steadiness in the reality of my reality...
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1 I don't ever. But this time I'm mentioning it.
2 Out of boredom, I've started making a theory that most of DiCaprio's movies are a series about a man with a deeply troubled psyche. The differences in time periods and settings are the result of this dude viewing his life as separate, dramatic events1.
3 Once I noticed I was calling Cobb "DiCobbrio," I gave up on remembering the character names. Now I just write a name for them, and if I'm bothered, I look up the real name2.
4 Who I think deserves her actual name.
5 Such as almost drowning to death and washing up on the African coast during a blood diamond conflict.
6 I'm using Real- and His- like they're part of a name, not as titles. Real-Mal and His-Mal are different characters, but DiCobbrio thinks they're the same character.
7 In my theory, Mal is like Alberto. Except instead of showing DiCobbrio the true vastness of his world, she is ignored as DiCobbrio crawls into the Rabbit Hair3.
8 Or maybe, because it's Valentines Day, terms of endearment became the most common words, and the virus was able to latch on to them more easily.
9 Please note the facts that this town exists, and that they have the word 'typo' in their name.
10 The repetition in that sentence was meant to stir memories of the dream-within-a-dream repetition of Inception4.
11 To quote the book the movie is based on:
"The plague first manifests itself in the infected person as a type of déjà vu, with an accompanying aphasia. Everything that happened presented itself as already happened. This infinitely complicated things. For as soon as the person adjusted, understanding that this sensation was merely a symptom of the plague, his or her understanding slipped backward into the already happened. Each realization had to be doubled against itself into becoming understood next: an impossible therapy to maintain. The present tense was a slippery slope to anyone in remission. The "now" became a deepening lesion, and from it rose the smell of this new sickness."
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1 I think I might get a giant tack board and some colored string. Just start weaving a web of convoluted bullshit1. I'd feel like such a detective.
2 On the bright side, I plan to be consistent with the names I give them. So it will, hopefully, only be a mild inconvenience2.
3 That metaphor makes Marion Cotillard a 50-year old man, and Leonardo DiCaprio a 15-year old girl. If this footnote wasn't somewhere between City- and Hotel- level depth, it would make my theory sound crazy.
4 As was that sentence3!
5 I'll take that as a sign that my labyrinthine theory was not incepted to me.
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1 Err, web of convoluted "cinema analysis."
2 For other people. The only inconvenience for me is looking up the real names.
3 As we go deeper into my footnotes, less of the footnotes can carry on, as some must stay behind to keep the previous levels stable.
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