Personally, I'm an atheist ... but, i don't think Nolan is an theist .. no way! Still, due to his tragic/philosophical and his style in his movies .. (we can of course know a lot about someone from his vision in his movies especially if he was a director) .. I think Nolan is somehow an agnostic or at least free thinker.

Jesusfreak wrote:

JTrue wrote:Mr. Nolan is most certainly a Catholic and his art will be studied in 500 years as that of Michelangelo, Mozart, or other great Catholic artists is studied today. Nolan's work is a representation of the Christian Gospel: Inception is a movie about the Purgatory and the Beatific Vision. Beauty is the kick, heaven consists in the vision of what one longs to behold in union with the Father. One must chose reality over the shades that cause pleasure but are not real. Ariadne is a Virgin Mary figure. Purgative suffering that lasts generations in one dimension but seconds in another is that which purifies the soul and prepares it for the return to it's homeland.

The Dark Knight, however, is perhaps the most perfect Christian allegory ever put to film. It is a grand expression of the political message of the gospel: In the city, there dwells one possible savior - the only just man. But his people seek to kill him. Even the seemingly just Pharisee (Two Face), claims to be the savior, claims to be just, even claims to be the Batman...but will ultimately prove himself a murderer as the Joker. The Joker, evil in the world, gives 2 reasons for his scars: he blames his Father and his Wife. These are the same exact reasons that Adam gives for his sin after falling in the garden. Batman, as the Savior of the city, cannot kill the Joker, even the Joker, he must hold into being. The BAT, a sign of curse and fear, is the CROSS - the repulsive sign that must be lifted up to save people from evil.

Dark Knight Rises is sure to be apocalyptic - expect Bain to wear the mark of the Batman and appear as the savior of Gotham. How far will the Batman (Christ) go to save his people? He will die for them, and he will rise...for the sake of his beloved.

I have a lot more to say about the Catholic implications of Nolan's art - but will leave it here for now.
Thank you, Chris Nolan, for preaching the Gospel in a most palatable way. Keep up the good work, sir.

While subtle and probably subconscious on a level, I believe this holds Truth.

You profoundly misunderstood his work, the Batman series in particular, and it's quite disconcerting to see Nolan be consumed so close mindedly. First off, Incepion's very point and soul is in never knowing, the catharsis taking a leap of faith into not knowing, not holding onto knowing toxically. The pergatory you speak of is lhilosophical and represents all existence, not knowing what comes before or what comes after, of anything, the pergatory is the trap of chasing truth, reality is in acceptance of never knowing. Any belief that Inception supports any one model of reality almost surreally misunderstood the film, especially the ending/final shot. Incepion is about all models of reality being unsure (and thus, any assurance of their existence lies) and reality being in understanding that well never be sure, and accepting life for what it is. Notice the use of faith in the film, first between Cobb and Mal, defining leap of faith as whole commitment, and notice how that leap of faith tears apart Cobb, until he takes a leap of faith at the end to return, and walks away from his totem, his cross for religious purposes. By that contrAst you must see that the film is advocating faith in existence WITHOUT model of reality, and that faith IN a model of reality is the very villain of the film. Being that catholicism is notoriously demanding and constructive, this contrast shows the film to be almost the opposite of a catholic film, it's a film about how fucked any model of the world and constricion of perspective is.

But Inception is purposely complicated, and tho the ending is really clear philosophically it is still is openly ambiguous as a whole, so I understand somehow finding a catholic view of that film simply because it's nature is to allow it. The batman film, however, is direct in its entirely un religious point of view. A film that believes Christ was truly the son of god would have christ walking on water and turning water to wine, thus every single comic book film can be seen Oas innately religIious, EXCEPT for this one. The very soul of this super hero franchise is it comes from the perspective that their are no super heroes, no prophets only humans. It follows a man who recognizes this and aims to create a super hero, a prophet symbolically, despite his own human vulnerability. Almost the entire films conflict and controlling idea revolves around the difficulty of maintaining the symbol of a prophet despite the truth being the prophet is deeply human and normal. The joker aims to prove that there are no prophets, no super people, in the dark knight (that everyone is corruptible) and he SUCCEEDS. Its only through a lie that they defeat the joker, and this lie is shown to have horrible consequences in TDKR. In the dark knight, to protect gotham, Bruce breaks his only rule, then destroys his own symbol in desperation..and we later see it didnt work but only buried the issue, and that the joker very much did defeat Bruce on a human scale, as he begins the film broken because of something the joker did (killed Rachel/forced the batman into exile). It's only In the pit where he rediscovers his humanity and will to live that batman can rise, and he eventually goes on to live as a normal person. It literally is pouring of humanity, not idle worship. And the ending is profoundly un religious, it shows the passing of being Christ to a new Christ, that is innately un religious and again showing that the symbol of batman is just that, and there's no savior behind it, only humans. Hell his arc is to heroically rediscover that he's human and NOT one with Batman.


The thilling and fascinating aspect of Nolan's dark knight series is that it's a super hero trilogy where super heroes don't exist, and the films take place between the reality tha they don't exist and the mission to create the belief that they do. It's not a religious series, it's a film about the deliberate creation of religion by humans. Any religious reading of this series is quite literally the opposite of what made it so revolutionary and iconic.

Watch the prestige, it applies to you. It covers how the truth is cold and solid, but the people want to be fooled an believe in something bigger. It's about the reality being dark and twisted and how the idea of something beyond reality being important, BUT NOT REAL. It's the audiences want to believe that makes them look past the reality and see something grander. That's precisely what you've done to his other films, which is ironic. You've taken films about the cold solid reality, and you've completely looked past and seen the movies you wanted to see. You ignored the non religious truth right in front of you because you want to believe, you are the personification of the prestige's final monologue.

I've absolutely no problem with religion, I believe in freedom of faith. What I do have an issue with is religion clouding perspective and perverting it until it fits into a religious view, even if that's entirely not present in the reality of the thing. You've deeply misunderstood the very approach he took to Batman, and you've missed some mighty fine films in the meantime. You can be the prestige audience and fool yourself on purpose, or you can be Cobb and walk away from that close mindedness and take these things in with un deliberate perspective. I recommend you do the later, because you're missin some revolutionary movies in your focus on seeing them as traditional.

dustbust5 wrote:

Jesusfreak wrote: While subtle and probably subcoJnscious on a level, I believe this holds Truth.

You profoundly misunderstood his work, the Batman series in particular, and it's quite disconcerting to see Nolan be consumed so close mindedly. First off, Incepion's very point and soul is in never knowing, the catharsis taking a leap of faith into not knowing, not holding onto knowing toxically. The pergatory you speak of is lhilosophical and represents all existence, not knowing what comes before or what comes after, of anything, the pergatory is the trap of chasing truth, reality is in acceptance of never knowing. Any belief that Inception supports any one model of reality almost surreally misunderstood the film, especially the ending/final shot. Incepion is about all models of reality being unsure (and thus, any assurance of their existence lies) and reality being in understanding that well never be sure, and accepting life for what it is. Notice the use of faith in the film, first between Cobb and Mal, defining leap of faith as whole commitment, and notice how that leap of faith tears apart Cobb, until he takes a leap of faith at the end to return, and walks away from his totem, his cross for religious purposes. By that contrAst you must see that the film is advocating faith in existence WITHOUT model of reality, and that faith IN a model of reality is the very villain of the film. Being that catholicism is notoriously demanding and constructive, this contrast shows the film to be almost the opposite of a catholic film, it's a film about how fucked any model of the world and constricion of perspective is.

But Inception is purposely complicated, and tho the ending is really clear philosophically it is still is openly ambiguous as a whole, so I understand somehow finding a catholic view of that film simply because it's nature is to allow it. The batman film, however, is direct in its entirely un religious point of view. A film that believes Christ was truly the son of god would have christ walking on water and turning water to wine, thus every single comic book film can be seen Oas innately religIious, EXCEPT for this one. The very soul of this super hero franchise is it comes from the perspective that their are no super heroes, no prophets only humans. It follows a man who recognizes this and aims to create a super hero, a prophet symbolically, despite his own human vulnerability. Almost the entire films conflict and controlling idea revolves around the difficulty of maintaining the symbol of a prophet despite the truth being the prophet is deeply human and normal. The joker aims to prove that there are no prophets, no super people, in the dark knight (that everyone is corruptible) and he SUCCEEDS. Its only through a lie that they defeat the joker, and this lie is shown to have horrible consequences in TDKR. In the dark knight, to protect gotham, Bruce breaks his only rule, then destroys his own symbol in desperation..and we later see it didnt work but only buried the issue, and that the joker very much did defeat Bruce on a human scale, as he begins the film broken because of something the joker did (killed Rachel/forced the batman into exile). It's only In the pit where he rediscovers his humanity and will to live that batman can rise, and he eventually goes on to live as a normal person. It literally is pouring of humanity, not idle worship. And the ending is profoundly un religious, it shows the passing of being Christ to a new Christ, that is innately un religious and again showing that the symbol of batman is just that, and there's no savior behind it, only humans. Hell his arc is to heroically rediscover that he's human and NOT one with Batman.


The thilling and fascinating aspect of Nolan's dark knight series is that it's a super hero trilogy where super heroes don't exist, and the films take place between the reality tha they don't exist and the mission to create the belief that they do. It's not a religious series, it's a film about the deliberate creation of religion by humans. Any religious reading of this series is quite literally the opposite of what made it so revolutionary and iconic.

Watch the prestige, it applies to you. It covers how the truth is cold and solid, but the people want to be fooled an believe in something bigger. It's about the reality being dark and twisted and how the idea of something beyond reality being important, BUT NOT REAL. It's the audiences want to believe that makes them look past the reality and see something grander. That's precisely what you've done to his other films, which is ironic. You've taken films about the cold solid reality, and you've completely looked past and seen the movies you wanted to see. You ignored the non religious truth right in front of you because you want to believe, you are the personification of the prestige's final monologue.

I've absolutely no problem with religion, I believe in freedom of faith. What I do have an issue with is religion clouding perspective and perverting it until it fits into a religious view, even if that's entirely not present in the reality of the thing. You've deeply misunderstood the very approach he took to Batman, and you've missed some mighty fine films in the meantime. You can be the prestige audience and fool yourself on purpose, or you can be Cobb and walk away from that close mindedness and take these things in with un deliberate perspective. I recommend you do the later, because you're missin some revolutionary movies in your focus on seeing them as traditional.

And if this reads as anti religion in any way I did not mean for that, inception itself is about all being possible and nothing being sure, and like the film I respect religion and believe it could have truth in some form. What I'm against is religious perspective perverting the over arching theme of Nolan's career, and thus the accomplishment of his career. I'd be equally annoyed with a close mindedlt athiestic or anti religion view, as inception again supports no absolutes at all and while the tdk series is not religious in the reality it presents, it is very much about the importance of religion in its purest form, and protecting that purity. Religion is very much explored and respectfully theorized in these films, it's just not a recreation reselling or reaffirmation of any religious reality.

Nolan's films are about identity, how manipulatable it is, and how truth in identity is fleeting and not reliable. His last 5 films have kept exploring this by expanding to the identity of myths, and the films are about the lack of truth and innate manipulatabolity of those myths, for better or worse. Anyone is doing themselves a disservice by seeing Chris as definitely religious or devotedly non religious either, cuz it's all missing the point, his films are about the grey between and looking more complexly at these things then simply with belief or disbelief.

Watch the final inception scenes closely again, especially the final shot, then retchink how you're consuming these movies, not because you need to abandon your world view, but because you can't grow if you apply that world view to and over everything. Look again at that final image, him walking away from a idol, and then the idol purposely not revealing itself. It's thoroughtly ambiguous, and it is as such to ask questions instead of answer them, as this is more important to do as people in the world. And for what it's worth, ask yourself why a purposely religious film would make such a point of ending on not confirming anything about reality? Especially when the item that is abandoned is an idol of all things. If you answer this and still believe it to be catholic, I'll be actually impressed in your commitment, because it that moment was a promotion of faith IN religion, there's no possible way it would include the abandoning of an idol as the heroic leap, it just simply can't be. And totems are defined as items representing a larger group or idea, and explained in the film as items that reaffirm a concept of reality no matter what is encountered. So yes, it is an idol, it's religious relevance is un ignorable.

Even if you are of faith, you should try viewing these films under this point of view, because it applies no matter what, that manipulation and fluid nature of identity and the resonance of myths and symbols is relevant to anything, because no matter what one believes in, there is manipulation misuse and a general fluid application of that belief system, whether religious or political or simply the regret of ones past rotting away at reality. Watch with these things in minds and you'll not just get more interesting films, but more interesting conversations about them.

dustbust5 wrote:

dustbust5 wrote:
You profoundly misunderstood his work, the Batman series in particular, and it's quite disconcerting to see Nolan be consumed so close mindedly. First off, Incepion's very point and soul is in never knowing, the catharsis taking a leap of faith into not knowing, not holding onto knowing toxically. The pergatory you speak of is lhilosophical and represents all existence, not knowing what comes before or what comes after, of anything, the pergatory is the trap of chasing truth, reality is in acceptance of never knowing. Any belief that Inception supports any one model of reality almost surreally misunderstood the film, especially the ending/final shot. Incepion is about all models of reality being unsure (and thus, any assurance of their existence lies) and reality being in understanding that well never be sure, and accepting life for what it is. Notice the use of faith in the film, first between Cobb and Mal, defining leap of faith as whole commitment, and notice how that leap of faith tears apart Cobb, until he takes a leap of faith at the end to return, and walks away from his totem, his cross for religious purposes. By that contrAst you must see that the film is advocating faith in existence WITHOUT model of reality, and that faith IN a model of reality is the very villain of the film. Being that catholicism is notoriously demanding and constructive, this contrast shows the film to be almost the opposite of a catholic film, it's a film about how fucked any model of the world and constricion of perspective is.

But Inception is purposely complicated, and tho the ending is really clear philosophically it is still is openly ambiguous as a whole, so I understand somehow finding a catholic view of that film simply because it's nature is to allow it. The batman film, however, is direct in its entirely un religious point of view. A film that believes Christ was truly the son of god would have christ walking on water and turning water to wine, thus every single comic book film can be seen Oas innately religIious, EXCEPT for this one. The very soul of this super hero franchise is it comes from the perspective that their are no super heroes, no prophets only humans. It follows a man who recognizes this and aims to create a super hero, a prophet symbolically, despite his own human vulnerability. Almost the entire films conflict and controlling idea revolves around the difficulty of maintaining the symbol of a prophet despite the truth being the prophet is deeply human and normal. The joker aims to prove that there are no prophets, no super people, in the dark knight (that everyone is corruptible) and he SUCCEEDS. Its only through a lie that they defeat the joker, and this lie is shown to have horrible consequences in TDKR. In the dark knight, to protect gotham, Bruce breaks his only rule, then destroys his own symbol in desperation..and we later see it didnt work but only buried the issue, and that the joker very much did defeat Bruce on a human scale, as he begins the film broken because of something the joker did (killed Rachel/forced the batman into exile). It's only In the pit where he rediscovers his humanity and will to live that batman can rise, and he eventually goes on to live as a normal person. It literally is pouring of humanity, not idle worship. And the ending is profoundly un religious, it shows the passing of being Christ to a new Christ, that is innately un religious and again showing that the symbol of batman is just that, and there's no savior behind it, only humans. Hell his arc is to heroically rediscover that he's human and NOT one with Batman.


The thilling and fascinating aspect of Nolan's dark knight series is that it's a super hero trilogy where super heroes don't exist, and the films take place between the reality tha they don't exist and the mission to create the belief that they do. It's not a religious series, it's a film about the deliberate creation of religion by humans. Any religious reading of this series is quite literally the opposite of what made it so revolutionary and iconic.

Watch the prestige, it applies to you. It covers how the truth is cold and solid, but the people want to be fooled an believe in something bigger. It's about the reality being dark and twisted and how the idea of something beyond reality being important, BUT NOT REAL. It's the audiences want to believe that makes them look past the reality and see something grander. That's precisely what you've done to his other films, which is ironic. You've taken films about the cold solid reality, and you've completely looked past and seen the movies you wanted to see. You ignored the non religious truth right in front of you because you want to believe, you are the personification of the prestige's final monologue.

I've absolutely no problem with religion, I believe in freedom of faith. What I do have an issue with is religion clouding perspective and perverting it until it fits into a religious view, even if that's entirely not present in the reality of the thing. You've deeply misunderstood the very approach he took to Batman, and you've missed some mighty fine films in the meantime. You can be the prestige audience and fool yourself on purpose, or you can be Cobb and walk away from that close mindedness and take these things in with un deliberate perspective. I recommend you do the later, because you're missin some revolutionary movies in your focus on seeing them as traditional.

And if this reads as anti religion in any way I did not mean for that, inception itself is about all being possible and nothing being sure, and like the film I respect religion and believe it could have truth in some form. What I'm against is religious perspective perverting the over arching theme of Nolan's career, and thus the accomplishment of his career. I'd be equally annoyed with a close mindedlt athiestic or anti religion view, as inception again supports no absolutes at all and while the tdk series is not religious in the reality it presents, it is very much about the importance of religion in its purest form, and protecting that purity. Religion is very much explored and respectfully theorized in these films, it's just not a recreation reselling or reaffirmation of any religious reality.

Nolan's films are about identity, how manipulatable it is, and how truth in identity is fleeting and not reliable. His last 5 films have kept exploring this by expanding to the identity of myths, and the films are about the lack of truth and innate manipulatabolity of those myths, for better or worse. Anyone is doing themselves a disservice by seeing Chris as definitely religious or devotedly non religious either, cuz it's all missing the point, his films are about the grey between and looking more complexly at these things then simply with belief or disbelief.

Watch the final inception scenes closely again, especially the final shot, then retchink how you're consuming these movies, not because you need to abandon your world view, but because you can't grow if you apply that world view to and over everything. Look again at that final image, him walking away from a idol, and then the idol purposely not revealing itself. It's thoroughtly ambiguous, and it is as such to ask questions instead of answer them, as this is more important to do as people in the world. And for what it's worth, ask yourself why a purposely religious film would make such a point of ending on not confirming anything about reality? Especially when the item that is abandoned is an idol of all things. If you answer this and still believe it to be catholic, I'll be actually impressed in your commitment, because it that moment was a promotion of faith IN religion, there's no possible way it would include the abandoning of an idol as the heroic leap, it just simply can't be. And totems are defined as items representing a larger group or idea, and explained in the film as items that reaffirm a concept of reality no matter what is encountered. So yes, it is an idol, it's religious relevance is un ignorable.

Even if you are of faith, you should try viewing these films under this point of view, because it applies no matter what, that manipulation and fluid nature of identity and the resonance of myths and symbols is relevant to anything, because no matter what one believes in, there is manipulation misuse and a general fluid application of that belief system, whether religious or political or simply the regret of ones past rotting away at reality. Watch with these things in minds and you'll not just get more interesting films, but more interesting conversations about them.

3rd and final post on the matter, but I'd like to point out how Memento, Nolan's first full scale film (following was amature and defined by its budget) plants and begins all of this. The film exists in one reality we assume to be absolute, and in the end we discover that that reality is a lie, using real memories or images and pieces of real events to construct a new reality for himself. It states here, and stays true throughout his films, that reality as a solid concept is a lie, and that his interest is in manipulation and perversion of reality using real items and memories to construct it. The dark but telling ending is a huge switch, we long believed that John g created this world when he killed his wife, John g was the god of Leonard's reality, and the climax is that Leonard is in fact is own god and willingly participates in it. Fluid reality, manipulation and construction of a false reality using real items and imagery, this constructed reality being to the end of hiding the pains of truths of reality, it's all there in his first film. A huge, key moment is when Leonard himself says Sammy, so subconsciously speaking about himself, is physically capable of making new memories, his block is mental. Again, the truth is there for Leonard, but he doesn't want to believe it, he actively participates in creating a greater reality for himself. The prestige, inception, the batman symbol and it's relationship with Gotham, it's all here, it's actually quite incredible how much his first film is one with his entire filmography.

Memento is his first artistic statement and is profoundly unreligous by nature, dealing with the falseity of constructed realities and the protection of that lie because it's emotionally preferable, it speaks very directly to blind faith and the function of blind faith being to protect the emotionally preferable reality that faith offers. Ambiguity already looms large here, and again we leave not knowing the truth, we're offered one but it's not completely and likely not entirely true. So the point is here again, a purposeful lack of statement on what is true, but instead an exploration on the construction of the false and the reason for it. Just like inception, it's not discounting religion, just denial based devotion to religion or anything else.

What's cool is that memento is profoundly dark and bleak, but as Nolan's films got larger and he wanted to deliver a more uplifting experience, he applied these same exact ideas heroically, making the creation of the lie a positive (to save gotham, to perform inception on Fischer and Cobb secretly).

With his first film in mind, it's more clear then ever that his films are about the human creation and manipulation of reality and symbols of it, as opposed to any statement on the actually existence of anything. His films aren't just not religious or not religious, they actively don't care, theyre about humans creating reality for themselves, the danger of that and the power of that, the actual reality is borderline irrelevant in most the films. I honestly believe he doesn't care about ideas of what the world is, he only cares about how we perceive and adjust the world.

Nolan's statement on religion is this: who the fuck cares? We don't know and we never will, but we have our world and it's ours to decide what it is and means. We have the power, and we will and do use it, we are the gods of our world, the question of another god above our world is shown to be downright irrelevant.


What does Nolan believe in? He believes in us, our minds, although not necessarily our control over them. Whatever he feels about religion, hes far more scared and inspired by our own power, and his films explore that reality, they explore the life we know, and our power to define it ourselves.

If Nolan has a god, something he deeply believes in and devoutly trusts in and fears of its power, he tells us not just in each film but in his interviews as well, and he preaches its power again and again, he talks about his god every chance he gets, his god is clearly and proudly The Human Brain.

myriadsmallcreature2 wrote:dustbin,

Couldn't resist.

Good stuff.

No double posting.

Bump.

If you ever need a bump, pm me.

It's not a religious series, it's a film about the deliberate creation of religion by humans.

Yes. Pretty much. Though I see it as more agnostic and scientific than atheistic and scientific, but maybe that's just me.

Maybe more precisely the deconstruction of a certain kind of religion, patriarchical and monotheistic, which time has past.

On another note, if you had an uncle, and your uncle were your godfather, would you introduce him as your uncle (Peter) or your godfather. Would he be known to others in conversation as uncle or godfather. Uncle trumps godfather as a relationship. No contest. Not even worth mentioning.

I think Nolan telegraphs his intentions in this regard.

That is why Eames says, and this is very much at the core of Fischer's Inception, "We repair his relationship with his father whilst exposing his godfather's true nature."

Look at the microexpressions on the faces at 32:55+. Those are for our benefit. IMO.

If Nolan has a god, something he deeply believes in and devoutly trusts in and fears of its power, he tells us not just in each film but in his interviews as well, and he preaches its power again and again, he talks about his god every chance he gets, his god is clearly and proudly The Human Brain.

I think you're giving more of a Dawkins reading of Nolan, not necessarily wrong, but not proven by the evidence. I think his sense of wonder is much in evidence. Closer to Deism maybe. Though of course, no 'ism' at all.

Curious, when one posts then genuinely has another post to add, what's wrong with double posting?

Anyway, I'm interested in your feeling that it's agnostic, because the film seems to come from a pretty clear place that batman in of itself is impossible, it's only as a symbol that it works. There's no real hint to the possibility of a real true batman, because there will always be a corruptible human somewhere under the cowl, and the key is always in hiding it. Even the joker makes himself seem like the personification of the devil, but the makeup instead of permanent damage clearly shows that he too is less then godly, but creating the myth of the joker. It's easy to forget because he's so good, but they do show that his decision was somewhere down the line deliberate. Going on or back, ras al ghoul claims immortality but he dies and immortality is later revealed to be a loose concept referring to his vision and purpose surviving, in blood and thought. Again, not real godliness, just the appearance of it. Banes entire final 10 minutes both physically and then backstory wise tear him down from god to human, throughout the series it's the same. Human beings fully vulnerable, but dedicated and skilled in creating the image of godliness. I see no hint anywhere that godliness is even potentially achievable, it's only through passing on the myth that it even succeeds at pretending to be that. The series has a clear perspective that there aren't real gods, real super people, just incredibly dedicated humans who know the power of appearing godly, and have the skill to do it.

I think there is plenty evidence of Nolan's belief in the human brain and thus humanity, although much of it is in interviews not the films. But inception and memento, the pure scope of the delusions shows such terrifying power of the human brain, this he has said is a core interest. But his sense of wonder is strong, correct, it's just one with his belief in the brain. His sense of wonder comes much from the brain being so powerful we ourselves can't comprehend it, and inception is based around the idea that one brain spawns an entire world for people to share, a world that can't be controlled. The wonder outwardly is there, inceptions ending shows as much, but it's not a core interest of his. It's like if someone is interested in alien life, but is more so interested in deep ocean discovery because it's just as mysterious but it's actually here for us to explore. That's Nolan, he maintains wonder about the outer world, but he's just much more preoccupied with the journey right in front of him, or inward. Hes far more fascinated by the brains ability to control and create then he is in a sense of wonder or something larger. It's a deconstruction of film consistencies almost, like he's saying people choose between character movies and adventure movies, but he's showing the craziest adventure is plunging into a broken character.

Your uncle point is interesting, and hints towards another layer to the caped element of inception, I'd say it's possible though not integral. But if right, it's again ending as a statement on lies and manipulation, but as inception focuses on catharsis instead of trauma, it's showing a brain created lie being used to actually expose truth. Which is yet another power of the brain moment.

The four of you are wrong.

What in the ...