My summer holidays rapidly slipping from my grasp I made a last ditch attempt to 'do stuff'. Thus I am furnished with exciting things to plug awkward conversations with in the coming freshers week, plus also I got to have a really good time in some cool places. Everyone's a winner!
First up is the scottish island of Islay, (that's Eye-la for you pronounciation fans!). I was graciously invited to stay in her family's amazing house by my friend Claire, who I have known for two years but have only actually interacted with for something like two weeks in all that time... Also along for the ride were a large number of other people, some more scottish than others, all gathered together by their mutual desire to celebrate Claire's birthday and drink alcohol on a picturesque island.
Islay doesn't look all that far in remote scottish terms, it is as the crow flies pretty close to Glasgow. Don't let that fool you, you have to take a three and a half hour bus journey up and down a peninsula, then a two and a half hour ferry journey. If you're unlucky like I was, there may even be a squall which prevents you from docking at your first choice of port and adds an extra hour and a half to your ferry journey... Normally I am very zen about this aspect of travelling, content to enjoy the feeling of doing nothing while being whisked to my destination. However, I foolishly chose to leave london on the 5.39am train, and it took me around 15 hours all told (including waiting at changeovers) to make the trip, so I wasn't exactly sprightly on my arrival.
Over the next few days I was shown the island. The beaches are stunning, wide with bright white coral sand and turquoise-blue water in the sunlight. They may be a little more blustery than your average caribbean island, but then again on what carribbean island would you be able to have the beach pretty much to yourself? The scenery of the islands is clearly very influenced by the thick pile of ice that 'recently' retreated from it, hummocky and rounded with few big hills meaning the highest peaks visible a lot of the time are the 'paps' of the next island over, Jura, or just the anvil shapes of thunderclouds out in the atlantic. I spent a lot of time over-exuberantly pointing out various geological quirks that were to be seen in abundance (raised beaches, dikes, the second oldest rocks in the British Isles) and I hope my blind enthusiasm was enough to prevent at least total disinterest from the people around me.
The scenery and atmosphere of the island, bathed as it was in late summer sunlight, was utterly relaxing. Sitting on the end of the pier in the tiny harbour/beach ten seconds from our door, gazing out at the blinding white of the lighthouse against the purplish green grey of the hills on the opposite shore of the inlet, surrounded by gently lapping clear bue water and free at last from the bastard midges that plagued anywhere more inland, I thought to myself that there might be nowhere better to sit with a book for a hundred miles.
The thing to do when the sun isn't cooperating with idyllic dreams of perfect beaches is to go to the distillery. Unfortunately I am physically/psychologically unable, at this point in time, to drink whisky. I am all in favour of anything with as much subtle taste, variety, and reliance on locality as whisky undoubtedly possesses, I just can't drink the stuff. Luckily I appear to be able to eat it, as the haggis with neaps, tatties and a honey cream and whisky sauce I had at Ardbeg distillery was fantastically delicious. Although I only had 3 full days to enjoy the scenery, atmosphere and cuisine of the island, and the entertaining company of my hosts (most of whom were totally unknown to me before I made the trip) I would rate this mini holiday as HIGHLY EXCELLENT. I would go again, and probably will when I want to go somewhere to do nothing in gorgeous surroundings, Costa del Sol be damned!
As always, some approximation of the landscape can be found here.
Der Tomcdh (Approximate Scottish language spelling of my name, probably)
Sunday 26 September 2010
Saturday 4 September 2010
I can't believe Christopher Nolan made me do this.
I saw Inception for the second time today. I think it is a very very good film. However there is one tiny detail which (if I didn't persist in flat out ignoring it) would make it in my opinion if not a bad film, then an extremely poorly constructed one.
Yes, I'm talking about that ending. If you haven't watched the film and you are still reading, this is your cue to leave the building.
My argument is this: I cannot see any way in which the great 'will it, won't it' spinning top ending benefits the film. In my eyes it is a cynical, lazy thing to do. Of course we will spend our days debating 'what would have happened next', human nature being what it is, and we all enjoy the aura of mystery and inclusiveness we gain from muttering in hushed tones while our companions (not so lucky as to have seen Inception with us) look on in jealousy. Naturally I am sure this has persuaded many to see the film to figure out what the fuss is about. And everyone enjoys having a pet theory.
But if you're going to make your film end on an ambiguous note, there is one key thing you have to do. BOTH outcomes must be plausible. In my opinion, it is impossible to find a way through the plot and world of Inception that would allow Cobb's presence in a dream world in that final shot, unless (and this is key), Christopher Nolan's notions of plausibility and world building are radically different from those of a normal human being. So either the top falls over just after the cut to black, or Christopher Nolan is very stupid. Either explanation is pretty unsatisfying
and therefore I think leaving the final 20 seconds in the film is a mistake.
Any attempt to create a situation whereby Cobb remains asleep runs up against problems. If we decide that he has in fact been in a dream for the entire film, then this dream breaks all the rules of dreaming introduced in the film, making them worthless. Totems would have to be an idea completely created within the dreamworld (or at least an idea that existed in the hypothetical real world but didn't work) because otherwise Cobb would not be able to spin the top and see it fall on two (possibly three?) occasions in the early part of the film.
If it is assumed Cobb begins the film awake, we have to choose a point at which he transitions to dreaming. This has to be after the two episodes of top-spinning, or we run into the same argument as above. My candidate would be the cut/transition to Mombasa where Cobb meets Eames, assuming that about 15 minutes later when Cobb gets out of the first brief drug induced sleep and attempts to spin the top in a panic in the bathroom, he does not succeed. But there are unanswered questions, the most important one being WHY? Nobody in the film is set up as having the slightest reason or ability to accomplish this feat. I can postulate any number of my own reasons (therapy? stupidly expensive counter espionage?) but these are complications that add to the complexity of the plot without in any way improving it, and none of them is more valid than any other. If in order to understand or extract a message from the film we have to invent things that have absolutely no signposts in the plot whatsoever, if we can generate an almost infinite number of explanatory scenarios using the information given us, then I say the film has failed.
The most defensible way to have Cobb still asleep at the dénouement is to assume everything is as played in the film and Cobb simply hasn't woken up from limbo. I question what this achieves, it's not a very satisfying ending although I guess it does have a nice dollop of poignancy. Furthermore, I didn't see anything in the film which implied that Cobb or anybody was able to create a world that detailed and realistic. Granted, Moll and Cobb can create an entire city, which they fail to people, and Saito does manage some people. (But he appears to have no independant thinking, as-they-were-in-real-life companions.) Maybe Cobb's powerful catharsis after concluding the whole Moll chapter of his life allowed him to create this world for himself? This final scenario is the one that requires a choice. It does fit the facts if you stretch them quite a bit, and your judgement of whether it is impossible and/or a downright rubbish way to end the film or not will dictate what you think. I personally think that it isn't a great explanation. It also leaves itself open to the same occam's razor like criticism as before, if I have to come up with that many apologies to make the whole ending work, is it a good ending?
So there you have it, my three cents on why the top definitely falls over... What annoys me is that I should have to deduce it. The film should either have not adressed the question or made the choice more ambiguous. One thing that bugs me and seems to indicate a last minute attempt to make the ending ambiguous without changing the rest of the tightly knit rules of play, is the fact that the kids are wearing the same outfits as their dream selves. I have to choose to ignore this as a coincidence, as I have been left no way to connect this piece of evidence to a coherent series of events that I can explain without recourse to hours of theorising outside the boundaries if the film I saw.
To conclude, Inception is fantastic and wonderful and great, but that spinning top ending is cheap, manipulative and pointless.
PS I am a terrible contrarian, and I can already feel myself start to generate counter arguments at myself, so I must stop now before I attempt to refute everything I just said.
PPS I promise actual real world things in my next post!
Der Tom
Yes, I'm talking about that ending. If you haven't watched the film and you are still reading, this is your cue to leave the building.
My argument is this: I cannot see any way in which the great 'will it, won't it' spinning top ending benefits the film. In my eyes it is a cynical, lazy thing to do. Of course we will spend our days debating 'what would have happened next', human nature being what it is, and we all enjoy the aura of mystery and inclusiveness we gain from muttering in hushed tones while our companions (not so lucky as to have seen Inception with us) look on in jealousy. Naturally I am sure this has persuaded many to see the film to figure out what the fuss is about. And everyone enjoys having a pet theory.
But if you're going to make your film end on an ambiguous note, there is one key thing you have to do. BOTH outcomes must be plausible. In my opinion, it is impossible to find a way through the plot and world of Inception that would allow Cobb's presence in a dream world in that final shot, unless (and this is key), Christopher Nolan's notions of plausibility and world building are radically different from those of a normal human being. So either the top falls over just after the cut to black, or Christopher Nolan is very stupid. Either explanation is pretty unsatisfying
and therefore I think leaving the final 20 seconds in the film is a mistake.
Any attempt to create a situation whereby Cobb remains asleep runs up against problems. If we decide that he has in fact been in a dream for the entire film, then this dream breaks all the rules of dreaming introduced in the film, making them worthless. Totems would have to be an idea completely created within the dreamworld (or at least an idea that existed in the hypothetical real world but didn't work) because otherwise Cobb would not be able to spin the top and see it fall on two (possibly three?) occasions in the early part of the film.
If it is assumed Cobb begins the film awake, we have to choose a point at which he transitions to dreaming. This has to be after the two episodes of top-spinning, or we run into the same argument as above. My candidate would be the cut/transition to Mombasa where Cobb meets Eames, assuming that about 15 minutes later when Cobb gets out of the first brief drug induced sleep and attempts to spin the top in a panic in the bathroom, he does not succeed. But there are unanswered questions, the most important one being WHY? Nobody in the film is set up as having the slightest reason or ability to accomplish this feat. I can postulate any number of my own reasons (therapy? stupidly expensive counter espionage?) but these are complications that add to the complexity of the plot without in any way improving it, and none of them is more valid than any other. If in order to understand or extract a message from the film we have to invent things that have absolutely no signposts in the plot whatsoever, if we can generate an almost infinite number of explanatory scenarios using the information given us, then I say the film has failed.
The most defensible way to have Cobb still asleep at the dénouement is to assume everything is as played in the film and Cobb simply hasn't woken up from limbo. I question what this achieves, it's not a very satisfying ending although I guess it does have a nice dollop of poignancy. Furthermore, I didn't see anything in the film which implied that Cobb or anybody was able to create a world that detailed and realistic. Granted, Moll and Cobb can create an entire city, which they fail to people, and Saito does manage some people. (But he appears to have no independant thinking, as-they-were-in-real-life companions.) Maybe Cobb's powerful catharsis after concluding the whole Moll chapter of his life allowed him to create this world for himself? This final scenario is the one that requires a choice. It does fit the facts if you stretch them quite a bit, and your judgement of whether it is impossible and/or a downright rubbish way to end the film or not will dictate what you think. I personally think that it isn't a great explanation. It also leaves itself open to the same occam's razor like criticism as before, if I have to come up with that many apologies to make the whole ending work, is it a good ending?
So there you have it, my three cents on why the top definitely falls over... What annoys me is that I should have to deduce it. The film should either have not adressed the question or made the choice more ambiguous. One thing that bugs me and seems to indicate a last minute attempt to make the ending ambiguous without changing the rest of the tightly knit rules of play, is the fact that the kids are wearing the same outfits as their dream selves. I have to choose to ignore this as a coincidence, as I have been left no way to connect this piece of evidence to a coherent series of events that I can explain without recourse to hours of theorising outside the boundaries if the film I saw.
To conclude, Inception is fantastic and wonderful and great, but that spinning top ending is cheap, manipulative and pointless.
PS I am a terrible contrarian, and I can already feel myself start to generate counter arguments at myself, so I must stop now before I attempt to refute everything I just said.
PPS I promise actual real world things in my next post!
Der Tom
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