cherita :: a tumblelog

Long ago the Mayans once said, “Life is a dream. We only come to dream, we only come to sleep. It is not true, not true that we come on Earth to live.”

I love movies that prick at my brain like an itch that must be scratched. The movies that taunt me, begging me to solve them, analyze them, figure them out. Memento did this, as does Inception. So much so I had to see it twice. Here’s my take (and yeah, keep in mind SPOILERS abound):

It’s all just a dream. And more, it’s all a dream designed to perform inception on Cobb so that he can accept, as his wife did, that he’s still in a dream.

Cobb says it himself: the best way to perform inception is if the subject thinks the thought is their own, and the best way for that to happen is through strong positive emotion, reconciliation, catharsis. Which is exactly what Cobb undergoes at the end, beginning with the deepest dream level of limbo as he holds the dying projection of his wife.

Think about Fischer’s inception for a moment: at the end, he finds the spinning wheel in the safe by his father’s bed and says something like, “I understand now, you did love me but wanted me to be my own man.” He is having a moment of realization and acceptance. Here, the audience understands that the inception has worked: Fischer thinks the idea is his own, but we saw all the subtle ways Cobb’s team worked to plant the seed of the idea beforehand.

Now, think back to Cobb as he’s holding the dying projection of Mal in limbo: the way he talks to her is exactly the same tone as that used by Fischer. A dawning realization. Catharsis complete. Inception performed—Cobb comes to accept the idea that he has to let Mal go, that he can’t stay with her in the dream world.

But is it his idea?

Evidence Cobb is dreaming and inception is being performed, starting with the obvious:

» The totem, which we never see fall at the end. And it spins for far longer than any of the previous times. Of course, it does start to falter before the film cuts away, but it was never Cobb’s totem, it was Mal’s…

The way they describe it, it would seem a totem loses its potency or accuracy (or something) if even touched by another. Yet, Cobb is going around using his dead wife’s totem as his own. And, with the way the human mind and heart work, all the emotion Cobb has related to his wife would almost certainly affect—maybe even alter—the way the totem works in the dream state.

» The children, whom Cobb finds at the end exactly as he left them: playing in the exact same position, seemingly wearing the exact same clothes and at the exact same age. Okay, so maybe it’s only been a short while since he’s seen his kids. But, there’s also a weird moment with the kids when he’s supposedly in the real world….

» When Cobb is talking to the kids on the phone. The voices at first sound very young, which matches the age Cobb remembers his children to be. Yet, there’s a moment when one of the kids says, “Grandma says you’re never coming back” in a voice that sounds far older than either of the kids of Cobb’s memory. The look on Cobb’s face suggests this voice throws him off a little..

» Miles telling Cobb: Why don’t you wake up and come back to reality? In dreams, the wise old man symbolizes wisdom, forgiveness and spiritual guidance. Certainly a role Miles plays here.

But, could Miles also be a forger, his role similar to how Eames impersonates Browning so that Fischer will accept the idea they want to implant? Is this line the start of the inception process? Indeed, Miles is there with Cobb again at the end, after Cobb’s cathartic awakening from limbo (standing right next to Fischer’s driver, coincidentally)—just as the forgery of Browning is there with Fischer after his cathartic awakening.

Also note: after Fischer’s moment of catharsis, he awakens in the van—his first dream level. Cobb, on the other hand, awakens in the plane after his catharsis. Reality? Or Cobb’s first dream level?

» Random visual cues: when being chased in Mombassa, Cobb goes through an alleyway where the walls seem to close in on him, as in a dream. When he squeezes through, Saito just so happens to be there waiting for him in a handy getaway car.

» Ariadne—her entire existence in the film. It is Miles (the wise spiritual guide) who introduces Cobb to Ariadne. In Greek myth, Ariadne is the daughter of King Minos and she helps Theseus escape the Labyrinth after he’s killed the minotaur.

With the dream world being repeatedly described as a maze or labyrinth, and that being SUCH an unusual name, there’s no way in hell Christopher Nolan picked it at random and intended it to be meaningless.

Also, the reality of all the scenes where Cobb initially meets, tests and trains Ariadne is suspect. One moment, he’s being introduced to her in the school hall. The next, he’s suddenly in the middle of testing Ariadne on a balcony (or roof?) outside somewhere. Which wouldn’t seem all that odd—it is a movie, after all. Jump cuts happen all the time, right?

But, the very next scene in the cafe brings attention to such jump cuts, causing you to question what is real when Cobb says, “you never seem to remember the beginning of a dream; you always start right in the middle.” At which point Ariadne asks, “we’re dreaming?” And indeed, they are. If the cafe is a dream, why not the balcony? Where does reality end and the dream begin?

» Mal’s suicide jump: she’s sitting on a ledge across from their hotel room, seemingly in another building (or a different wing). Not only that, but the room behind her is almost an exact mirror of the room Cobb is in, down to the lamp and flowers on the coffee table (with the exception of Cobb’s room being thrashed). Of course, if it’s the same hotel the rooms would be similar.

But, why would she go through all the planning—writing a letter to her lawyer that she fears for her safety, getting three doctors to declare her competent, thrashing the room before he arrived, etc—all to make it look like he killed her, when anyone who’s seen at least one episode of CSI would know that forensic investigators could determine a) if she jumped, fell or was pushed and b) what window she tumbled out of. Surely she would’ve gone all the way with her plan, throwing herself backwards out of the window from the right hotel room.

» In the beginning, Mal is working with Saito. She’s not simply showing up and sabotaging Cobb, but is actually working with Saito.

If Saito is in fact a wholly separate person—the subject of that particular dream—how likely is it that Cobb’s rogue projection (Mal) and Saito would be working together? Especially since it’s made clear that the subconscious projections will sniff out and attack any foreign consciousnesses. Wouldn’t Saito’s men have seen Mal as a threat too, attacking her like they did Cobb and Arthur?

» Both Mal and Saito tell Cobb to “take a leap of faith”—and both do so while in the real world: Mal, while trying to convince Cobb to trust her that their world is a dream just before she jumps, and Saito while trying to convince Cobb to trust him that taking on the inception mission is the only way he’ll ever be able to see his kids again. Besides Cobb, Mal and Saito are the only ones whose lines repeat like this.

Another example: when Cobb is telling Ariadne what happened to Mal, he says, “She locked away a secret, deep inside herself, something she once knew to be true…” Later, when he finds Saito an old man in limbo, he tells him something similar: “I came to remind you of something, something you once knew to be true…” 

Are Mal and Saito connected? Looking at their names, Mal means “bad” while Saito means “purification” or “correct” as in to make right. Two sides of the same projection, good and bad?

Or, could Mal actually be sharing the dream with Cobb, and the reason why she seems like such a “bad” projection is because his subconscious has figured out her foreign nature and is on the attack? Could Saito be Mal’s version of the Mr. Charles gambit? Saito is even referred to as “The Tourist” indicating his foreign nature, at least.

» Cobb is the only non-dreamer whose projections enter the dreamspace. It’s not just Mal either—he also randomly sees his kids playing while he’s in another subject’s dream. No one else has this ability (or problem). Otherwise, couldn’t Cobb’s team just create an army of their own projections to battle against Fischer’s? But they only had each other. Each other and Mal, that is.

Okay, so Cobb is seriously damaged with all his emotional guilt and that’s why he’s unable to control his subconscious. But really? Is he the only one with skeletons and baggage and emotional damage and subconscious guilt?

Ariadne and Arthur, I might believe they had their shit under control. But Eames? He’s so colorful, he has to have some skeletons. And Saito? A worldly, wealthy businessman who is willing to resort to implanting an idea in his competitor’s mind while his competitor is dreaming—buying an entire airline to do so, all to get what he wants? A man like that has his subconscious mind under better control than Cobb, who is basically a professional dreamer while Saito is not?

Considering that Christopher Nolan spent ten years writing this film, I’m pretty sure he wrestled with such questions so I have a difficult time thinking it’s all just glaring plot holes.

The only thing I can’t really place is Fischer’s role in everything. Although, with his name being Fischer and him having the dying father’s empire drama—and considering there’s a character named Arthur—I’m inclined to think there are some allusions to the Arthurian tale of the Fisher King going on. I just don’t know enough about that particular mythology to say for sure.