Inception - An Oddly Transcendentalist Movie

      While a movie about a group of men who are bent on corrupting the mind of an unsuspecting businessman and go around blasting guns and shooting bullets like there is no tomorrow seems like it would have nothing to do with transcendentalism, surprisingly, there are some transcendental elements within this action-packed movie.

      The main character in this movie is Cobb, a man who has a special set of skills: breaking into the minds of others. Along with this set of skills is a list of personal demons, most notably the suicide of his wife. Cobb is a "part" and the de facto leader of a team of like-minded individuals, who plan on carrying out a mission of implanting an idea in a businessman's subconscious to make him dissolve his father's company. Notice that "part" is in quotation marks. While Cobb is technically a member of the team, his main objective is getting back to his daughters. This is where the first of the transcendentalist ideas can be found: Individualism. His self-centered concerns and willingness to lead that group into his troubled subconscious represent in him his individualistic nature. He is not the only one who exemplifies these tendencies in the movie however. Mr. Siato, the man who hired this group and promised Cobb a clean-slate, has only the interests of himself and his company at mind during the duration of the film.

      As in many action movies, there is a rookie who is new to the game and knows little about what will happen, but surprisingly has a natural affinity for it and ends up counseling the more experienced members of the team. In this movie, that rookie is Ariadne. She is introduced, by Cobb, into the realm of dreams. Not in the sense that you and I probably know them, but in a way that she can control them. She is introduced into a world with limitless possibilities and it is a place where she can do and build whatever she wants. This concept of individual expression and the ability to create whatever you want is a key component of the rebellious Romantic philosophy. The Romantics believed in freedom of expression quite deeply and welcomed practically all ways in which one could freely express themselves. This included writing, poetry, artwork, and physical creation like sculpting. While they probably did not include building huge metropolises and vast landscapes in one's dreams as one of their forms of expression, what Ariadne is doing, building whatever she feels or desires, expressing herself through her creations, is precisely what the Romantics wanted.

      Even though in this movie thousands of rounds of ammunition were expended and many people were killed in what amounts to a mini war (something that neither the Romantics or Transcendentalists probably wanted), there are elements of both philosophies hidden within it. The creativity that dreams offer and one man's self-concerned agenda both offer the elements one would look for to discover these hidden elements.