精彩对白

Browning: These people are gonna kill us if we don't give them the combination.

Fishcer: They just wanna ransom¹.

Browning: I heard them. They're gonna lock us in that van, and then drive it into the river.

Fishcer: All right. What is in the safe?

Browning: Something for you. Maurice always said it was his most precious gift to you. A will.

Fishcer: Maurice's will is with Port and Dunn.

Browning: That's an alternate. This would supersede² the other if you want it to. It splits up the component³ businesses of Fischer Morrow. It'd be the end of the entire empire as we know it.

Fishcer: Destroying my whole inheritance? Why would he suggest such a thing?

Browning: I just don't know. Robert He loved you, Robert. In his own way.

Fishcer: In his own way. At the end...he called me in to his deathbed. He could barely speak. But he took the trouble to tell me one last thing. He pulled me close. And I could only make out... one word. "Disappointed."

Ariadne: When were you in limbo⁴? You might have the rest of the team convinced to carry on with this job. But they don't know the truth.

Cobb: Truth? What truth?

Ariadne: The truth that, at any minute, you might bring a freight train through the wall. The truth that Mal is bursting through your subconscious⁵. And the truth that, as we go deeper into Fischer... we're also going deeper into you. And I'm not sure we're gonna like what we find.

Cobb: We were working together. We were exploring the concept of a dream within a dream. I kept pushing things. I wanted to go deeper and deeper. I wanted to go further. I just didn't understand the concept that hours could turn into years down there... that we could get trapped so deep...that when we wound up on the shore of our own subconscious...we lost sight of what was real. We created. We built the world for ourselves. We did that for years. We built our own world.

Ariadne: How long were you stuck there?

Cobb: Something like 50 years.

Ariadne: Jesus. How could you stand it?

Cobb: It wasn't so bad at first, feeling like gods. The problem was knowing that none of it was real. Eventually, it just became impossible for me to live like that.

Ariadne: And what about for her?

Cobb: She had locked something away, something deep inside her. A truth that she had once known, but chose to forget. Limbo became her reality.

Ariadne: What happened when you woke up?

Cobb: Well, to wake up from that after years, after decades...to become old souls thrown back into youth like that? I knew something was wrong with her. She just wouldn't admit it. Eventually, she told me the truth. She was possessed⁶ by an idea. This one very simple idea that changed everything. That our world wasn't real. That she needed to wake up to come back to reality...that in order to get back home...we had to kill ourselves.

妙语佳句 活学活用

1. combination：这里指的是保险箱的密码。

例如：We tried it in every conceivable combination.（我们把能想到的各种密码都试了一遍。）

2. ransom：赎金。也可以做动词，表示“赎回”。

例如：They had to ransom the kidnapped diplomat⁷.（他们不得不赎回被绑架的外交官。）

3. will：遗嘱。

4. supersede：代替，取代。

例如：Motorways have largely superseded⁹ ordinary roads for long-distance travel.（高速公路多已取代了普通公路。）

5. deathbed：临终之时，临死所卧之床。On one's deathbed就是“临终之时”。

比如：He forgave her on his deathbed.（他在临终之时原谅了她。）

基督徒临死前要做deathbed confession¹⁰（临终忏悔）

6. take the trouble to：不厌其烦地做。在这里，小费舍尔的意思是，父亲临终前“还是拼尽力气，告诉我最后一件事。”

7. limbo：在影片中指使用强效镇定剂，而在梦境中死去而掉入的“迷失域”。原意是指“地狱边境”，或者（尤指因等待他人作决定）“处于不定状态”。

例如：Management kept her promotion¹¹ in limbo for months.（有好几个月领导将她的升迁之事放置一边。）

8. burst through：推开，拨开，这里指柯布的妻子梅尔在他的梦境里“大爆发”。

9. push：逼迫，催促。影片中柯布说：I kept pushing things.意思是“我总是太迫切”。例如：He pushed her into making a decision.（他催促她做出决定。）