Inception

Ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi once remarked that he had once dreamed he was a butterfly, flapping and flitting around happy as can be, completely oblivious to his identity as Zhuangzi and only aware of himself as a butterfly. Upon waking, Zhuangzi pontificated that he was unsure if he were a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming it was a human man. The paradox of dreams and reality has become a well known Chinese idiom that has greatly influenced the philosophies of Buddhism. It is this paradox that the film Inception so deftly explores. As a science fiction movie and one of the best since the original Matrix movie, there will be inevitable comparisons with the Matrix. Both films are visually stunning, challenge the narrative perceptions of reality and physics, and both will leave you with a lasting impression that will have you talking about the film after. Yet Inception is far more impressive than the Matrix and any film to come out in a long while, it is one of the best science fiction movies I've ever seen and one of the best films I've seen in a long while.

This blog post will not be a review but rather a discussion of the plot's mysteries. As such, this post will be rife with spoilers so if you have not seen the film I suggest not reading this. The movie lends itself to interpretation and as such I lend my thoughts.









**Spoilers Ahead**









***Spoilers***



Home is a Reality

Dom Cobb's goal for the entire film is to get back home to the United States so that he may live happily with his children once more. He takes a gamble with this last con job, to induce inception on Robert Fisher. The team succeeds and Saito upholds his end of the bargain, Dom Cobb is cleared to return to the United States and have his happy reunion with his family. The ending seems almost too good to be true and so Cobb lets his totem spin once more to assure himself and the audience know that he is indeed in reality. The final frames of the movie stares intently upon the spinning top yet fades to black moments before the top topples over. Dom Cobb did make it back to reality didn't he?

Most people believe that the top wobbles before the screen fades to black and assume that the top does fall (or would) and that Cobb is back in reality. This is the most prevalent theory that most audience members will come away with upon their initial viewing as it is probably the strongest supported interpretation.

So why have alternate theories popped up on the internet, why do people seem somewhat unsure about if Dom makes it back to reality or not? There are certainly several moments and lines of dialogue that draw suspicion on whether or not Dom's world is reality or not. The two most damning are the words that Mol (who is really a projection or a mirror of Dom's subconscious, which further reinforces Cobb's uncertainty of which reality is true) speaks to Dom in Limbo towards the end of the film, calling into uncertainty of what the audience had up til now assumed was reality. Was Dom's perceived reality of being the top notch extractor, being chased down and persecuted by the police and corporate thugs, all really just a dream? Furthermore, why not just show the top fall over? Obviously Nolan intended the ending to be ambiguous and as such since we do never seen the top fall the audience has no definitive answer to whether the world is reality or not.

Reality is just a Dream

Let's play with the idea that Dom's reality is actually just a dream, then how does one possibly go about supporting this theory? Right from the onset of the film, Nolan throws the audience off balance. Most audience members catch onto the ruse that Saito's palace party and Cobb and Arthur's James Bond-esque infiltration is actually a dream easily enough, but to expect that the layer above is actually a dream as well, the dream within a dream, that is something most audience members aren't expecting. What Nolan does is he's throwing the conventional out the window immediately. In the world of Inception, if it's possible for one to have a dream within a dream, or even a dream within a dream within a dream, then it's completely possible for yet another fourth layer to exist. Dom's reality could very well be yet another dream layer.

There are also certain lines spoken throughout that cast suspicion, I of course mentioned Mol's final dialogue but there are little lines such as when Dom goes to visit his father (played by Michael Caine)in Paris, who asks Dom "to come back to reality." Of course for most people, they will look at the top not falling down in the very last scene and possibly come to the reality is a dream theory. Yet they forget that Cobb while in this world spins his top to completion twice during the earlier moments of the movie (once in the hotel after getting off the train in Japan and once more after bringing Ariadne into the dream for the first time). So how does one explain Cobb's totem in the frame of this alternate theory?

The totem is unreliable

One possible explanation is that Dom's totem, the spinning top is unreliable from the very start. We are told to believe it represents a means to discern reality, yet we are also told that the totem must be unique to the owner. Cobb's totem isn't his own, it's actually Mol's. As such, is it possible that Cobb is able to unconsciously control the outcome of the top, that he is able to "project" his unconscious desire for reality upon the top. So in the first two instances when he spins the top, he wants to believe he's in the real world and the top falls over on its own in accordance. In the final instance, he stops paying attention to the top altogether, so perhaps in this instance the top is allowed to act as it is unrestricted by Cobb's influence. But wait you say, you can't actually control your projections and your subconscious, that's true, but as Fisher's second dream layer demonstrated, one's own subconscious can react differently and be altered. Perhaps the top defies the laws of physics and continues to spin. So if Cobb's reality is actually a dream then what purpose does it hold in terms of narration.

Double Inception

One interesting theory that is floating around is the idea that the true inception occurring in the film is not the inception placed on Fisher but one placed on Cobb himself. That someone (likely Miles and Ariadne) are actually pulling an inception on Cobb, planting the idea that Cobb must forgive himself or that he needs to come home to his children. In terms of motifs in the film, the ideas of reconciliation is shared both by Cobb and Fisher and in the end Cobb's redemption seems to take center stage. This would explain why Cobb's reality is actually a dream and why many of the characters in the film are somewhat one dimensional (since they are actually projections).

The strongest support of this is the character of Ariadne, who is an allusion to Greek mythology. In mythology, she is the daughter of Minos and helps Theseus through the labyrinth (the maze motif being so prevalent in the movie) with her red fleece that leads Theseus out of the maze. In Inception, Ariadne becomes the confidant of Cobb and helps lead him out of his own maze of dreams (also, she wears red prominently, which is an obvious tip off that the connection is intentional). The problem with this theory is that perhaps it might be reading too deep into the movie, and the theorist might be projecting and fabricating their own clues rather than analyzing what's in the film itself. So that brings us full circle to the original theory.

Personally I believe Cobb is in reality at the end of the movie, that reality is actual for Cobb. I think the totem does eventually topple, that Cobb's children did age, and that Saito, Arthur, and Eames as well as everyone in that world are genuine. The most important clue however is not the Cobb's totem, instead there is a totem for the audience that seems to define what layers are dreams and what layers are reality.

Wedding Band

Cobb's wedding band is the audience's totem. It's a very subtle clue that I was not aware during my first viewing and actually only learned of it after discussing it with a friend from work. When Cobb is in a dream state, he is wearing his wedding band however all other scenes where he is in what we assume to be reality, the wedding ring on his left hand is absent. This totem stays consistent through out the film as well, making it a reliable totem as far as I'm aware.

Of course director Nolan is completely aware of the wedding band and the ending is obviously meant to be ambiguous, this is clear by the fact that in the final sequence when Cobb is walking through the airport, his left hand is obscured from view preventing the audience from getting a clear definitive answer as to whether or not the world is reality. I think though that if there is a clear shot of Cobb's hand (which I doubt there is) that Cobb isn't wearing the ring as that would be consistent with earlier scenes of reality in the movie.

Reality is all relative

So does the top fall, is Cobb still in a dream or not? In a way, it really doesn't matter. He is a man so utterly lost that he really has no grip on what world is real and isn't. He's a man who in the first half of the movie, he's gripping a gun in one hand as he watches his totem spin, ready to kill himself the moment he suspects that he's in a dream. Yet in the final scene, he no longer cares about the top, he lets it spin and when he sees his children and realizes that they're more important, he walks away and is able to let go of his obsession.

Inception

The magic of Inception is like watching a magic trick unfold (and we all know how much Nolan likes magic tricks if his movie the Prestige is any indication). You are suspicious from the very beginning, you know things aren't as they seem and yet you can't quite piece it all together till the end. Even then, you're not sure if you saw through the trick or not because of the ambiguity of the ending. The ambiguity of the ending creates the shadow of doubt within the minds of the audience, that says that maybe the reality was just a dream, and just like in the movie, that doubt grows and becomes a cancer. The film encourages thought and encourages discussion and in that way, Nolan has achieved Inception in the minds of audiences.