The boss, Saito, sitting at the head of a designer table, where a boss should sit.
I've always enjoyed dreams. Sex dreams. Goal-oriented dreams. The American Dream.
The latter happens to be one of my favorites. When I sit down to see a film, do I want to be absorbed in the mundane aspects of the day-to-day lives of the fucking poor, inferior, lumpenproletariat? (See: Little Miss Sunshine, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, etc.)
Hell no. I don't worry about money, and I don't like watching other people worry about it. It's fucking boring. Pointless. Indicative of people not trying hard enough. (Perhaps this is why I can't stand reading about welfare).
No. Hollywood audiences like to go to movies to escape. And so movies have made a functional shift, from displaying prole reality to displaying my reality: the world of the hyper-, hyper-rich.
A mere glance at the top-grossing movies this week reveals the truth about what consumers want to see. The Expendables: Badasses (probably rich) blow shit up. Money's no object. Eat Pray Love: Successful, upper-middle-class bitch with a nice wardrobe jet-sets around the world. Money's no object. Cats & Dogs 3D: The Revenge of Kitty Galore: Even I don't need to tell you that cats and dogs don't give a fuck about money. They just laze around and eat, get stroked, play and fuck all day--which just about describes my life every minute.
Enter Inception. A bold, clever, even nightmarish, tale about Corporate Espionage. Say it slowly, let it roll off your tongue. Corporate. Espionage. The two scariest words in the American language.
As a prominent and respected and fabulously wealthy businessman, I've had my share of worries about C.E. Back at Harvard, they taught us the most important lesson any capitalist will ever learn: Don't. Trust. Anyone. That's just the basic tenet of capitalist society, and the main reason why I have my hitman on speed-dial.
But back to the plot. A rich financier pays some dream-stealers millions to fly first-class, wear expensive suits, wine and dine in expensive European cities with bad exchange rates (EURO: 1.2807--invest when the PIIGS get their shit together) and exhibit brief and unsatisfying flirtations. It's a hard world out there for a mind-invading spy. Well actually, I take that back--it's an exceedingly easy world, given that they seem to have every luxury and consumer good they could ever want. The cost is a little bit of stress on the job.
The interactions between the CEO-venture capitalist and Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) were most telling. DiCaprio is essentially bonded to his boss--if he fails, his life and well-being are over. I think we'd live in a better world if the employee-employer relationship were more permanently like this.
Overall, the theme of the movie seemed to be: You are always someone's slave, even if you're living well while enslaved. It's a good message to take home, especially for the lower-classes. After all, that is the American Dream, isn't it?*
Rating: $$$$$ (3 USD / 5 USD)
INVEST : Euro (1.2807), your local mind-invading startup
*That is, except for bosses like me. My "dream" involves golf, Moët, and copious amounts of hookers.
