EQ: What do we mean by 'evil'?
Film: Inception
Film: Inception
When we say the word 'evil', the presence of darkness, hatred, and fear fill our minds. One that is evil, preforms evil actions, or thinks in evil contexts is frowned upon in society as corrupt, arrogant, and mislead. Through the media today, there are many portrayals of the darkness and evil that is present within common types of societies, people and beliefs. The media does a superb job showing us that evil can be found within anyone, even the best, most kind-hearted of people. Despite the fact that what's 'evil' and what's 'good,' if we dig deep enough, there will always be a patch of darkness in one's own self that is composed of the guilt, grudges, and negative emotions.
Inception is a movie about a man named Cobb who has a dreary, dark past, which haunts him. The evil which haunts him is the memory of his dark, misleading wife, Mal. Cobb is stuck in multiple dimensions of dreams, hoping to finally be awakened into reality. Throughout the movie, the main purpose is for him to be reunited with his children, but for that to happen, he needs to preform an illegal task. This task is to insert an idea into another person's mind through their dreams, in order to gain the information needed for Cobb to get out of his own dream- or his 'nightmare', I should say.
Within this film, there are many layers which convey the several different settings and symbols which the characters are encountering. The first and most obvious layer is the reality in which the film is taking place in. It is obvious that Cobb is stuck in a world which he has created, but as the film goes deeper, you can see that another layer is that he no longer belongs in this world of his because he has been abandoned by his wife, Mal, and has left his children for years. Another layer deeper into the plot, darkness is portrayed through the limbo which Mal is stuck in shows the evil and self-doubting side of Cobb's self-conscience which eats away at him because of his guilt.
This darkness that is shown through Mal's character and the limbo within Cobb's own mind shows that a character can portray evil, as Mal is left abandoned, alone, and bitter towards her husband. The darkness inside of Cobb is within himself, because his guilt is what has created his wife's immortality through his dreams and limbo, when through the layers, it's seen obvious that Mal is actually dead. Cobb allows his guilt and despair to eat away at him, projected through Mal, as she tortures him in the world that he longs to escape from; his dreams.
The multiple settings of Cobb's dreams are a huge part of the imagery that gives a glimpse of the evil within it, as he pursues his journey back to reality. One of these many settings is a bright sky transitioning into an eerie gray, as it beginning to rain, turning into a heavy storm. This particular scene showed how quickly something so illuminating and captivating could be overcome by the darkness and guilt within one's self, affecting the way that Cobb took action against his nightmare. Another dimension in the movie portrays the corruptness within Cobb and his crew's intentions; as the setting becomes more intense, the infrastructure which they have created begins to decay, and everything seems to be falling out of place.
Excluding the plot, the idea Inception relates to many things and ideologies of the people in this world. Many people try to look into their dreams, analyzing and interpreting them to figure out what they 'mean', or what the dreams are trying to tell them. There are beliefs in the world that dreams can show a person qualities about themselves, and actions that take place in the dreams represent meaning within their own lives. Often people get lost and overcome within analyzing their dreams, that they try to create a reality out of them, just like the characters in Inception.
Inception takes the meaning of dreaming to another level. It shows the different layers within Cobb's own conscience; from what he chooses to show others about himself, going deeper into the things that he hides and the emotions that overcome him. We are all like Cobb's character, in that there are different layers of ourselves that we share, and others that we try to conceal. Our layers are like shells, the most outer-layer is the one that others see; the way we portray ourselves through our appearance and our actions. But as we go deeper and layers of shells are removed, different things about us that we try to cloak are revealed, such as emotions, guilt, and grudges that we may have towards certain issues or people.
Another presentation that had similar representations of darkness to Inception was District B-13. In the movie District B-13, the government devises a plan to eliminate a ghetto and gang-influenced area of the city by manipulating a cop and a prisoner to carry out their plans. The deceptive nature of the the government's motives in District B-13 is similar to Cobb and his team's motives, as Cobb breaks into another person's mind to manipulate them and discover information for his own personal gain. In both these films, the victims are clearly under the impression that they are innocent and the choices they are making are for the better. However, their actions reveal the key to what the government and Cobb (respectively) have been yearning to know in the first place, revealing that despite the fact that their intentions were true to themselves, the nature of their plans were manipulating, dark, and evil in it's entirety.
