Inception: Theories, Points & Counterpoints

By Nick Rogers » Posted Jul 29, 201091 comments

Yappers Nick Rogers, Christopher Lloyd and Austin Lugar dissect and discuss “Inception’s” true outcome. Obviously, MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS, and please join the debate with comments.

Nick Rogers
One ticket to “Inception” should cost about $750. Theater ushers could then give three hours of college credit to departing patrons in lieu of mints.

Intelligent, witty and exhilarating, “Inception” knocks you flat with punches of sheer spectacle and pop psychology no other summer 2010 film (hell, no other 2010 film, period) has even bothered to throw.

So few movies demand such attention, and Christopher Nolan’s too busy throwing haymakers to hold the audience’s hand through this mammoth mindgame — a film that, at first blush, feels like the bravest, boldest, most bracing blockbuster since “The Matrix.” Its inter-dream audacity makes “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” look like a Little Einstein title.

Nolan’s latest dangerous tumble down a rabbit hole of perception, identity and memory might be his masterpiece. It might also be the one most open to narrative interpretation.

In many ways, being taken by “Inception” is like being swept up in street magic: For all its complexities and exposition, there are simple illusions and emotions at play that dazzle the most. The same thing went for certain episodes, and later the ultimate endgame, of “Lost”: For all of the scientific-notation talk of “constants,” it boiled down to love and togetherness.

Those are present in “Inception,” too — very much a story of fathers & sons and husbands & wives, albeit viewed through a grimy prism. We all have dreams of success and comfort for our children and spouses that we hope become reality. Well, in “Inception,” you may see those dreams play out (at least in part), but they might simply remain dreams.

IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN “INCEPTION” AND WANT PURITY, BAIL NOW.

While this doesn’t begin to detail everything that happens in “Inception,” here’s the main crux (which could serve as a recap for those who got temporarily lost). Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a single-minded man: He wants to get home to his kids, Phillipa and James, after being forced to flee the United States. The latest job presented to him by Saito (Ken Watanabe) makes that possible for him: Plant an idea inside a rival competitor’s mind to break up his company.

Think of this heist film as “Ocean’s Pi” and Dom — in DiCaprio’s best performance in years — as a man who values the solace of theft over the pain of creation for good reason.

Dom’s an international fugitive after authorities believe he murdered his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). In actuality, Mal took her own life.

After spending a lifetime in a shared subconscious with Dom — a lazy afternoon in real time — Mal didn’t want to leave to return to Phillipa and James, fascinated by the god-playing world she and Dom had created.

To persuade her to return, Dom performed “inception,” planting an idea in her mind — that idea being that the world they were in wasn’t actually real and that it didn’t matter if they died there because they’d always have each other in the real world.

The problem is that this belief carried over into the real world, which Mal also believed to be false and a place where they couldn’t actually die — tragically not the case when she took a nosedive off a hotel windowsill. (Here, “Inception” approaches the cautionary-tale aspects of “Altered States.”)

In the end, Dom, having carried out Saito’s heist mission despite breakneck complications, returns to Phillipa and James on American soil. But before embracing them, he spins his dreidel on a dining-room table. The dreidel is Dom’s totem, a unique way for him and him alone to discern reality from dreams. If it topples, he’s in reality. If it continues spinning, he’s in a dream. Although it audibly slows, Nolan cuts to credits before we know for certain.

Yes, “Inception” can be enjoyed on its surface purely as a cerebral ride with a wicked stinger tease. However, in a film that takes place within dreams, dreams within dreams, dreams within dreams within dreams and, in the climax, the raw landscape of the subconscious, it should surprise no one that the narrative’s face value could easily be discarded.

(On a side note, I don’t know whether “Inception” will contend for a Best Picture Oscar. But if there’s a better-edited film this year, I want to see it right now. At one point, Lee Smith simultaneously edits together five — count ‘em, five — layers of consciousness with suggested hints to an invisible sixth.)

While I think it’s impossible to grasp beyond basic to moderate narrative understanding after the strap-in, hang-on feel of the first-time viewing (especially with Watanabe’s strained English-language dialogue), suggestions are sprinkled throughout that the final moments are all in Dom’s head (from the moment he willfully stays in Fischer’s subconscious to the final shot). In some regards, that makes it a mega, meta “Memento.”

Perhaps the entire film is, too, save for sequences in Dom and Mal’s initial shared subconscious and the torturous reality following their departure from it.

Here are my rationales, and Christopher Lloyd’s counterpoints, discussing the theory that Dom’s regained freedom and family in the finale are not to be taken as literal reality, but as a wish-fulfillment fragment of his slumbering subconscious.

As it’s said in the movie, “The deeper the issues, the stronger the catharsis,” and “Truth? What truth?”

1. Where’s Grandma?
Nick: Unless I missed her somehow, where was “Grandma” in that final scene? Dom’s mother was presumably watching the kids while Dom’s father, Miles (Michael Caine), was off at a foreign university, right? Subconsciously, Dom has no idea who’s watching his kids now or where they’ve ended up. He’d like to think they’re playing in the idyllic backyard of Grandma’s house, so that’s where he envisions them.

Chris: Maybe grandma and Michael Caine are divorced and hate each other.

Nick: That’s a big leap of faith to make. Given the family fallout resulting from Mal’s suicide, I’d think Nolan would bring that up were it to be true.

2. How old are those kids again?
Nick: As to those kids, notice how they never seemed to age. And, again, unless I missed it, there was never a specific amount of time mentioned that Dom had been away from them (although it was long enough for it to have become a burden). Perhaps they’re at the idealized age at which he chooses to remember them in his subconscious.

Chris: The kids did age. I know this only because I spotted in the end credits two different sets of actors. It said James, 20 months and James, 3 years, etc.

Nick: Good counterpoint. I saw that credit notation, too, but didn’t know whether they’d been played in a flashback sequence. I still think the lack of explanation for how long Dom’s been away — and presumably able to build some sort of business around his technology — seems suspicious.

3. One call solves it all.
Nick: After at least touching upon the intricacies of extradition in “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan pretty much just leaves it at the idea that Saito can make a call and get Dom back in the United States — and under his own name, no less. That seems like an atypical gap for Nolan and perhaps a tad too easy for it to be reality.

Chris: I thought of this same point. You could also argue that if he really wanted his life back, he could have targeted the governor of his home state and planted the inception: “I must grant Dom Cobb a full pardon.” Probably a lot easier to get to a governor than businessman Fischer (Cillian Murphy), or Saito, for that matter.

Nick: Ha. When you phrase it that way, it makes me think of Reggie Jackson believing he must kill the Queen in “The Naked Gun.” To me, a lack of explanation for Saito’s pull was the biggest smoking gun for the argument that the reunion is not to be believed.

4. Geek out on Greek mythology.
Nick: Apart from being the noble bearer of reams of exposition, Ellen Page’s dream-architect character is Ariadne, whose namesake is famous for giving Theseus (Dom) a sword and thread to lead him out of the labyrinth of the Minotaur (Mal). However, Theseus abandons Ariadne (much as Dom does in choosing to stay in the subconscious and not following Ariadne out). Perhaps Dom, like an addict, is creating loopholes in his mind that he thinks will lead him out and, in conjuring new characters in his mind, is drawing on his knowledge of Greek mythology.

Chris: Yes, the mythology allegory was fairly obvious, and I think just thrown in to show off how literate Nolan is.

Nick: Greek mythology: Always worth paying attention in class.

5. Arthur seems too good for that.
Nick: For me, this was the biggest huh-what: Dom’s heist pointman, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), doesn’t anticipate that Fischer’s brain would have had a militarized subconscious from training to prevent extraction/inception?! That seems unexpectedly sloppy for a notably fastidious guy like Arthur. Maybe that was another manifestation of Dom’s brain showing the impossibility of ever really getting home.

Chris: Meh. If he’s so fastidious, how come he didn’t notice Dom’s obsession with Mal that kept ruining their missions? Besides, it would be hard to know if an exec received dream training unless you tapped his dreams first. It’s not like there’s a Web listserv where dream companies post a list of their clients. Now maybe if you tapped the CEO of a dream company …

Nick: This is the sticking point that ties a couple of my theories together. OK, so the supposition is that Dom’s been away from his kids long enough to turn his dream-invasion technology into some sort of business, recruit a team and have people (like Tom Hardy’s Eames) who he’s worked with “in the past.” If Dom’s team didn’t teach Fischer in the art of avoiding extraction/inception, then who did? Is dream invasion a growth market? I don’t recall mention of any sort of competitor to Dom’s services.

Maybe, as there was no spoon in “The Matrix,” there is no business. Maybe Dom was just a scientist tragically caught up in his own research, now subconsciously envisioning this as a likely application for his work. (He could be forever asleep in an environment like the one Yusuf [Dileep Rao] shows him.) Also, Arthur did know Mal was tampering with their missions; she shot him in the prologue dream with Saito. He just didn’t know Dom had stashed her away in a metaphysical memory hotel, as Ariadne learned when she took the elevator down to Dom’s brain basement.

Yes, I just typed that previous sentence about a major summer blockbuster.

Austin: I need to see it again for a lot of these points. During the movie, I had a theory that Mal was never real, but an inception planted by Arthur. That was mostly from odd lines like Cobb saying they met in a dream and seeing how her presence defines his entire situation. Their warnings about inceptions ran parallel to her involvement in his life. I’m not sure if that plays out, but I think it just works best as a thematic parallel.

I could just be the romantic or hopeful, but I’m not sure if I want to think that the totem keeps spinning at the end. Thematically, that just felt like less of a cliffhanger, but Nolan giving a “THE END????” type of shot. I think it’s too cruel to think that Dom doesn’t get to be with his kids at the end; even though it may just be a year or so in the real world, he had to endure potentially more than 100 years to get to that point.

Nick: That’s certainly an optimistic view and one that’s wholly possible. If Mal wasn’t real, though (an idea I’d love you to elaborate on), who fathered Dom’s kids?

Tags: austin lugar, Christopher Lloyd, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao, dreams, ellen page, Inception, joseph gordon-levitt, ken watanabe, Leonardo DiCaprio, marion cotillard, memory, michael caine, mythology, nick rogers, perception, psychology, The Matrix, theories, Tom Hardy

91 comments

Posted by Ted Carmichael July 16, 2010 4:10 am

Dom will get out at the end, but the end of the movie is right before he wakes up, is my theory. Just like Fischer had his catharsis at the end, so does Dom … why not reunite him with the kids, once they got what they wanted from him and planted a seed of an idea? Catharsis is more powerful than anger or fear, after all.

That’s right … Dom got played. Probably by Arthur, Saito, and perhaps Ariadne. Hell, maybe the whole "team." Remember the "tail" in Mombasa? And then the incredible number of agents chasing them, popping out of nowhere? What does that remind you of? The cover story – that they are from some pissed rival corporation – is weak, but Dom believes it. They aren’t chasing Dom, but he’a fooled into thinking they are. They’re chasing the folks around Dom, who pretend to protect him but really just get him away from these angry, subconscious projections.

His "safe" – the place Dom hid his secrets that the others were after – was clearly in the basement. But Dom is dreaming. I mean, how else does a guy who’s wanted for murder travel all over the world?

So, according to this theory, at the end of the movie he’s still dreaming, and about to wake up. They’ve planted something in his head – not sure what, but will watch it again to try and figure it out – and he is about to wake up, feeling good about getting back with his children. They’ve changed his mind about something, planted a deep memory, made him think it was his own. And just like Dom’s team used Browning to sell their story to Fischer, Saito/Arthur’s team used Dom’s "Dad" to sell *their* story.

Maybe the planted idea is simply to trust Saito … to "take a leap of faith." But I’m not sure.

BTW – the grandmother, I think, was Mal’s mom, not Dom’s. That’s why she seemed angry on the phone … she blames Dom for Mal’s death. But his guilt is swept away at the end with a "phone call" from Saito, and Mal’s mother – a manifestation of that guilt – is gone.
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Posted by Nick Rogers July 16, 2010 9:52 am

Awesome points, Ted, and thanks for reading!

It’s an intriguing idea that Dom got played by everyone, one that I’d have to consider closely on a second viewing. I’d also noticed that the chase scene seemed a little too neatly resolved with Saito rolling up in his sedan with Eames already in tow. Notice, too, how the walls seem to be closing in on Dom in that alley right before he bursts out into some wide-open space to get away. It hadn’t occurred to me that the agents chasing him might not really be agents, but subconscious projections going after Eames, Saito, etc., but that’s a good theory. If Dom’s being gamed, that might explain Arthur’s major gaffe exposed in the first layer of Fischer’s dream: Not knowing his subconscious was militarized. Again, for a film and a character so resolute about rules and process, that just seemed too sloppy to not be purposeful somehow. Maybe Arthur had tired of being shot by Mal in Dom’s dreams.

If you think an idea was planted in Dom’s head, other than a joyous reunion with his kids, I’d also be curious to know what that was.

Good thoughts, too, on "Grandma" and Michael Caine. If Caine *is* actually a father to a character in the movie, I presumed him to be Dom’s father (based on their classroom conversation about what he taught him, etc., etc.) If he’s Mal’s father, though, well, that gives him all the motivation in the world to manipulate Dom’s thoughts into whatever Saito’s endgame might be.
Posted by Franklinstein July 16, 2010 12:39 pm

Playing off of CARMICHAEL’s concept, what if the idea planted in Cobb’s head is that he didnt murder his wife? Just like everyone some repeat viewings would be needed to confirm this theory but think about how similar the conversation Cobb had with Mal in his deep subconcious was to the conversation Fischer had with his father. Could Cobb have performed inception on himself?

–SPOILERS FOR MEMENTO DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVENT SEEN THAT FOR SOME ODD REASON–

I havent seen Memento in a few years but doesnt a very similar thing happen in that film? Where Guy Pierce’s character is trying to cover the fact he could have potentially killed his wife?

Personally I like picking apart this film and I think Nolan certainly welcomes it, but I think I am going to still read the ending as literal and the top falls.
Posted by Nick Rogers July 16, 2010 12:47 pm

Franklinstein: Of all the reasons for Dom to perform self-inception, that would make the most sense. I’m wondering whether there might be a subliminal clue in there somewhere suggesting that as a possibility. I will pay more attention to the similarities of the Mal-Fischer conversations when I see it again. And, yes, "Memento" is much more overt about that very same idea (the whole "Remember Sammy Jenkis" / insulin-injection sequence, with a flash of Leonard in Sammy’s chair). I’m not trying to suggest "Inception’s" ending *can’t* be taken at face value, and it’s still magnificently entertaining and tremendously satisfying if the top *does* fall. Clearly, without showing us, though, Nolan left the door open to such vigorous interpretation. Thanks for reading!
Posted by Ted Carmichael July 16, 2010 2:15 pm

Michael Caine as Mal’s father actually didn’t occur to me … I guess I missed something, but I was just suggesting that Miles and "grandmother" were on opposite sides of the family tree, and that someone pretended to be Miles, just like Eames pretended to be Browning.

As for the "inception" planted in Dom’s head, I’ll have to watch again with that in mind. But it has to be something very subtle, just like Fischer’s planted memory/idea was subtle and deep. Perhaps something as innocuous as "take a leap of faith" mixed with "let it go" (business concerns; focus on your family). I seem to remember one of his regrets was not spending more time with his kids? If Dom – in the real world – is like Fischer and has inherited a large business concern, then the idea to give that up for the sake of family would remove a large competitor in the real world.

Of course, there is no conversation/interaction among the agents after waking up on the plane, getting luggage. That leaves open the possibility that Dom didn’t really recognize them, except as remnants of a dream. In this scenario *Dom* was the target on the plane, and simply flew home to his kids from abroad, now implanted with the idea that he should focus on his family.

Anyway, the movie is awesome. So many layers and potential layers. I’d like at least the possibility of figuring everything out, but I don’t think we quite have all the clues needed for something definitive. And I really enjoyed the original discussion between Nick and Chris … very intelligent analysis.
Posted by Joe Shearer July 16, 2010 10:28 pm

My god, this film was brilliant. I can’t completely discount any of the four or five theories presented here, and if it was any one of them the film loses nothing.

I too made the assumption that Dom was Miles’ son, but again there’s nothing overt that I can remember (one or the other referring to the other as "dad" or "son"), and it’s easy to assume that "Grandma" was Mal’s mother, because unless she was a cruel bitch she would never tell her grandkids that her own son was "never coming home," unless Dom had Mommy issues as a mirror image of Fischer’s Daddy issues. That doesn’t seem to fit though, because otherwise it’s not mentioned in the film.

I really can’t wait to watch this film on DVD and really dissect it. It really is brilliant, and can be broken down in so many ways and from different angles and mean so many different things.

I do think Nick has caught onto something with Ariadnem because that name is just too screwy to be any kind of coincidence.

And Nick you made me LOL with your Reggie Jackson/Naked Gun reference.
Posted by Russell July 17, 2010 12:12 am

Having JUST seen this movie, I’m still trying to piece together details or evidence; but I think that its possible that the whole movie was Dom’s dream. The catch being that Mal was really the one who pulled an ‘inception’ on Dom to make Dom believe that he pulled an ‘inception’. Therefore, making it possible for Dom to believe inception was possible, which allowed him to "complete" an inception on Fischer, there by allowing himself to "be with his kids" in the end. Maybe this is a little far fetched, but I am going to enjoy entertaining this theory in my mind until I see the movie again.
Posted by Chris July 17, 2010 1:29 am

Have you considered the possibility that if Michael Caine is Dom’s father, that perhaps in "reality" Dom has become isolated, and a poor father because he blames himself for Mal’s death. If this is the case, his father may be planting the inception to have him realize it wasn’t his fault that she died, so that he can come back and actually be a good father and/or whatever else in reality. The inception doesn’t necessarily have to be of malicious intent.

Also, question on a plot point. Was Fischer sent to limbo because Mal shot him, and if you die in a dream while heavily sedated you go to limbo? Just trying to figure out how everyone ended up in limbo together through the crazy shared dream structure.
Posted by Chris July 17, 2010 1:32 am

Also, if the whole thing is a dream, does the top topple because his subconscious forces it to to convince him he is not in a dream, and otherwise it would naturally spin? Because it seems odd that at lower levels of his own dream the top would topple but at the "highest" level of the dream it would continue to spin.
Posted by Troy D July 17, 2010 2:10 am

This movie was extremely smart. I loved it. At first, I took the whole movie with simplicity. I thought that Dom was being chased because authorities believed that he had murdered his wife and that once he had successfully performed Inception on Fischer, he was now able to go home to his children with the help of Saito. I also believed that the top was going to fall and that he was back in reality since it did deem to start slowing down. Then I began to speak with my friend about it and now I can’t stop thinking of this movie haha.

At first, we believed that maybe the entire movie was a dream that Cobb was having. What we first came up with was that extraction isn’t actually real and that they didn’t perform that on Saito in the beginning. We also believe that the death of Mal really did happen and that Cobb couldn’t come to terms with her suicide, but maybe he wasn’t being chased though. Maybe he just made up why she really committed suicide in order for his dream to make sense. In his dream, he pretty much created "extraction" and just used his memories of people he had seen to fill this dream. Micheal Caine remained his father, and Mal remained his dead wife, but everything was a dream. Cobb could just have been on a plane ride somewhere, and Adriadne, Arthur, Fischer, Eames, Saito, and Yusuf could have just been strangers to Cobb who were just on the same plane ride as him and he just incorporated them into his dream since they were the last people he saw. Then after waking up, they sort of treat each other as strangers and go their separate ways. And when Cobb gets home, he treats his kids and his father indifferently because of the fact that his dream just seemed so real, but he also came to terms with his wife’s death. I mean, if I had a dream like that, I would definitely act strange, and maybe Cobb just has a really, really good imagination to make such an intricate dream. Also, even Miles just says, "Welcome back," or whatever, which could mean anything. Cobb could have either been on a business trip, or he could have really been running around the word for a few years. I would write some of my other theories, but I’m tired, so I’ll just list points.

1) The kids clothes are the same at the end as they were in his flashbacks. 2) Cobb always seems to be focusing on his top throughout the movie to see if it stops spinning, but at the end, he leaves after spinning it, which could show that Cobb may not care any more if he is in reality or not, and just wants to be with his children. 3) Saito just picks up his phone and gets Cobb back into the states with no problem, but Saito was dead before he could see that the plan worked, so why didn’t he ask if it did if the whole thing was real. Maybe he was just some random dude making a phone call. 4) Cobb and Mal wake up from Limbo with only one "Kick" (suicide) but it took, what, around 4 to wake up Adriadne and Fischer from Limbo, plus they never show you how Cobb and Saito get out…. 5) They never show Mal’s dead body, so maybe death really was a "kick" out of another level of a dream, but Cobb though it was reality so he wouldn’t kill himself, so how will we ever know if it was a dream? There’s so much to be said about this movie, it makes my brain hurt! I can’t wait to see it again… And thanks everyone else for your thoughts, I like reading about what other people think of
Posted by mike July 17, 2010 2:23 am

First off, great theories. I thought the show was awsome, the best I’ve seen in years. That being said, I really felt there were some missed opportunities. First of all, everyone had to realize, once the concept of "Limbo" was introduced in the wharehouse of the first layer of the dream, that the old man in the begining of the movie was Saito and Dom had gone into limbo to get him. So I was pretty much waiting for that to happen. I was waiting for some sort of deception to take place. There were two opportunities that stuck out to me while watching the movie for this to happen. The first involved the architect and Dom’s "idol" (spinning top). He explained to her how it worked, so if she was working against him somehow, she could have faked it. Otherwise that whole scene was worthless, except for explaining to us what his top was for. The other scene was when Dom was in the bathroom and he dropped his "idol" and Saito saw it. Once again, what was the point of that if not for Saito to use the knowledge of spinning top to deceive Dom.

Like I said, I loved the movie, I was just disapointed that there wasn’t more of a twist at the end. Loved the closing scene though with the top spinning but appearing to wobble.
Posted by Daniel Kuzila July 17, 2010 3:11 am

I think the most interesting thing about the ending shot is that Dom spins the top to see if he is dreaming, then walks outside to be with his children, disregarding it all together to be with his kids.
Posted by Lee July 17, 2010 3:46 am

I was talking to my cousin after watching and he brought up something. He noticed that during the different levels, Dom was wearing a wedding band, but outside of the levels he wasn’t. He lost track of the wedding band halfway through, so he can’t confirm. Anyone recall Dom wearing the band at the end when he spins the totem? I’m definitely going to watch it again (and I’ll keep checking this page for new comments!)
Posted by Jesse K July 17, 2010 4:37 am

Part of me wants to think that Dom and saito at the end somehow force themselves out of the dreams. But maybe they both killed themselves and forced themselves deeper into limbo where they both created the real world again but in dream form and that’s why there are little loopholes.
That explains the lack of follow up on other characters. Because there is none. Also suggesting it’s all in Doms head.

I agree though, the part of me that saw a summer blockbuster believes that the top stops.
Posted by Kaleena July 17, 2010 4:59 am

I think that the real world occurs when Watanabe offers him the gig to go layers deep into Fischer’s head. HOWEVER I think this is a set-up by Dom’s dad who is Michael Cain. I do believe the grandmother is Mal’s mom. I think that Michael Cain sees his son’s life is ruined forever and he’s miserable, so he sets up an inception on Watanabe and gives him the idea to offer the job to Dom. Notice Watanabe has mental training in his dream state by "other trainers" who could easily be Michael Cain. I believe he’s the best at it and he taught his son Dom. Caine readily has Ellen Page at Dom’s disposal when he gets this mission and she’s the best architect there is. Too Convenient. Also during all the layers of dreams the "prototypes" are attacking supposedly based on who’s subconscious they’re in but notice Dom never gets hurt and other characters do. These are really all Dom’s prototypes and Caine knew they would work to fight off the other characters. As the other characters get hurt it demands that Dom go deeper and deeper until he reaches his base subconscious. There’s that line where Dom talks about going into limbo if you die in your base subconscious and that you basically exist in your subconscious forever. So Watanabe makes the promise to Dom before they enter the mission to complete it by returning them to young men and he accomplishes that by shooting Dom in his deepest subconscious. When Watanabe grabs the gun notice Dom is reciting what Watanabe should be reciting. Then we never see who shoots who. I believe Watanabe shoots Dom and that’s when the end scene emerges. This is Dom’s idealistic universe to live in and here he lives in Limbo and is merely dead to the real world. Cain knows he will be happy here and everything is tied up. There’s a key part in Watanabe’s initial dream within a dream sequence where he tells Dom "I’m auditioning you" and it’s never explained what he means by that. We assume he means auditioning to see if he can accomplish the job he has for him but I think it goes deeper than that. The failed first mission gives them an enemy which is that corporation (i forget the name) and gives him a reason to be indebted to Watanabe . That’s all I have for now.
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Posted by Tina July 17, 2010 7:45 am

The thing that really stuck with me, and I think is one of the points which can get overlooked – is the totems. Remember you should never touch someone else’s as you should be the only one who knows it’s properties so you can define reality? Saito handles Dom’s totem twice (from my count). Also that totem was originally Mal’s – not Dom’s. And did Dom planted the idea in Mal’s mind that the top would continue to spin if it was in a dream, and therefore in his own mind?
Ah, if only more films inspired this kind of analysis!
Posted by Ricardo Sime July 17, 2010 7:50 am

Here are my beliefs and questions?
1- Mal was right and when she committed suicide, she really did go back to reality?
2- The dreidel cannot continue spinning because if it spins in the end and it stops in all the previous parts, that makes no sense.If there was ever a time for his subconscious to believe that everything is real, it would be the end of the movie.
3-Who shot who in the end?
4- Mal could be the one trying to extract Dom all along and he has reached a level of dreaming where his defenses are so great, that she can’t get in.
5- How did he reach the shores of Saito’s subconsciousness?
6-He couldn’t be dreaming in the end because that would mean his subconscious made up the faces of his children, faces he never did see.
Posted by Russell July 17, 2010 11:17 am

To Ricardo Sime’s #6 above, I believe that the reason Dom was able to see the faces of his children in the end was because he could finally start dreaming again, rather than using memories in his dreams. Plus, he should already know what the face of his children look like.
Posted by Joe Shearer July 17, 2010 11:29 am

@Kaleena: Great argument. Your points are all valid, and I can’t think of anything that refutes any of those points. It’s entirely possible that Michael Caine’s character was the one who trained Saito, and therefore is the trigger of all of this.

@Ricardo: For #2 you’re assuming the entire film was a dream. I don’t think that’s the case given the rule of the ever-spinning dreidel (assuming that’s legit in the first place). I think one thing we can rule out is that the entire film was a dream, but exactly how much is and is not a dream is the issue here.
Posted by Andrew July 17, 2010 12:25 pm

I’m enjoying reading all these theories. A couple things that came to my mind, though, that I don’t think anyone on this page has mentioned:

1) In the explanation of the top, didn’t he say that it’s so he can tell if he’s controlling the dream or if someone else is (as opposed to being able to tell if he’s in reality or not)? This would mean that the outcome of the top’s spin could be any of THREE possibilities: It falls over and he’s in the real world, It continues to spin and he’s controlling his own dream, it falls over and he’s in a dream world of someone else’s creation who doesn’t realize the way his top works.

2) A couple of you had pointed out the significance of a name taken from mythology. Well, perhaps, like Lost, many/all names have significance? Another obvious example of this that I noticed was Mal, which is Latin for "bad".
Posted by Trevor July 17, 2010 1:08 pm

I have read many of these post (not all) and hope I am not double posting this theory. I have three main points as premises to my conclusion, the kids wearing the same clothes (time slowing), Cobbs totem that does not matter, Mal sliding her finger across the knife.
I will start with my conclusion that Cobb was dreaming the entire movie including at the end, and that Mal is actually alive and was right in her theory that they were still in a dream when she killed herself. The scene/day Cobb decided he had to run when handed the plane ticket as he was watching his kids is the highest level of dream we will see in the movie (Cobbs reality). This is where time comes in. Cobb immediately leaves the country and goes into a dream to fix things. This is where he is able to live out a long career and meet many people to find the resources to get him back to his kids (which will be the same day that he left them in the highest level of the dream). I forget the exact numbers but ten hours in reality equal a very large number of dream years, and the number keeps multiplying as you go deeper.
More evidence to suggest Cobbs highest dream level (his reality) is that his totem does not matter if he thinks that it is reality. Also because assuming he literally meant that it was Mals totem and not just a copy of hers (which I think is safe to do) it would not work for him anyways thus giving him the false idea that it is reality when it falls.
My weakest argument falls onto the scene where Mal runs her finger across the kitchen knife when she is depressed about still not being in reality. They show this scene multiple times where she runs her finger seemingly hard enough to cut, but no blood is produced. While it is true that you can bleed in your dreams she may have found a way to control that if she knew the knife was not real. Again this evidence may be a little weak, but each time it showed this scene I saw no blood, or wincing pain reaction, and the fact that they showed this scene multiple times.
Again I dont remember the exact math of present time (dream or reality) vs. time in the next level, but it is entirely possible that only 3 hours passed in Cobbs top level dream.
Posted by tomelders July 17, 2010 4:12 pm

I can’t shake the feeling that it comes down to simple addition and subtraction. If Dom and Mal lived alone in their dream world, then they must have been subconscious deep. Also, the amount of time they spent there means they must have been several levels deep in order for fifty years to pass by. But when they left, they only died once. So they only went one level up. So Mal is right, they were still in the dream.

I think Mal was trying to extract him all along and that there’s two version of Mal. The real one trying to extract him, the second one that he created and kept in the basement.

As for the inception in Doms head: I expected Ariadne to come clean about being his daughter who was also trying to extract him. I also seem to recall she had his totem for a few seconds in the film, which you’re not meant to let anyone touch as I understood it. She could have swapped the totem with a perpetual spinning top, thus performing the same inception that Dom performed on Mal, but in reverse.

Anyway, those are my theories.
Posted by Zs July 17, 2010 4:18 pm

I think the answers to these questions might come mostly from answering these riddles:

1.what is the precise nature of the totem? People are right that it’s weird that Cobb had Mal’s totem – note that it appears at key moments.
2.what is the precise nature of the dream machine? Are dreams like normal- or is there added reality because of the sharing? There has to be a dreamer andthere are participants in the architecture.
3. most importantly- what’s the deal with mal’s doll house? Note that in that final level of subconsciousness Cobb begins to say something about ‘inception’ and re all that the first thing he tells old Saigon at the beginning is that ideas are like viruses. So there’s some idea that is central to the movie.
Posted by Zs July 17, 2010 4:20 pm

Sorry some typos from phone keyboard.
Posted by sam j July 17, 2010 8:13 pm

I believe Cobb was "Incepted" not Fischer. When waking on the plane Cobb looked dazed and confused and all other characters were smiling asif mission acomplished. Maybe he had to believe he was the leader and ideas were his for it to work.
Posted by JC July 17, 2010 10:18 pm

one other possibility i’ve been floating around: the first mission does not "fail" but all an elaborate set up for Saito to "hire" them, in order to get him to think its his idea to clear Cobb’s name. therefore, the whole movie would take place in Saito’s unconscious and he is the real "mark" of the entire film. (Otherwise, why did he just hire a group of guys that had failed in trying to extract information from him, and how did he just manage to show up magically on the roof when they were trying to escape). Just another theory to kick around – I think the fact that Saito frames the story gives him some other significance
Posted by James July 17, 2010 11:01 pm

Just wanted to start by saying I really enjoyed this movie. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie that made be think this much, and want to debate it.

With that said, I also agree with the earlier stated theory that I think it was all a setup for Dom. I think the entire movie was about planting an idea in Dom’s head, the idea that he didn’t kill his wife.

The points to this i’d like to add, and questions I have are.

A) I’m not sure we ever saw anything that was Actual Reality. I’m left wondering if everything we see was a dream, and memories.

B) The dreidel spinning or as totem was almost meaningless in this theory for a few reasons. It was exhaustively stated that no one should know how your totem works, nor should they touch it. However, multiple people touched/used/knew about Dom’s totem. Saito even spun it on the table while they were in limbo. Secondly, it wasn’t even Dom’s totem, it was his wife’s. So in theory it shouldn’t work for him anyway, he should have had his own seperate totem from the start. In fact I wonder if he does have his own totem and its subtly hinted somewhere in the movie.

C) The agents chasing Dom could definitely have been projections, but it wouldn’t explain why they were chasing after Dom and not Eames, who the "Agents" clearly disregard and run past. With that said, who’s subconsious would they have been in? Because if it was Dom’s they wouldn’t have chased him.

I just saw the movie about an hour ago, so that’s all I have for the moment, but hopefully I’ll come up with more after sleeping on it.
Posted by M July 17, 2010 11:45 pm

Two macro level theories:

1) Inception is about early onset Alzheimers. Mal had alzheimers and she therefore has no recollection of growing old with Dom. They do grow old together, but she’s unaware. Eventually, he may have, in fact, killed her because he can’t stand to see her reduced grasp of reality and the movie is his way to wrestle with his subconscious and the uncomfortable truth that he assisted in her death when it became apparent to him that they weren’t going to grow old together. In his mind, he traps Mal in her life as a young woman to preserve their happy memories, and we get only one glimpse they they were old together, walking amongst their architecture, in the dream world they had imagined as a young couple. Otherwise, he has to have an superagent-fantasy to ease his pain, wrestling with multiple layers of his own demons just to exist in the world where his kids grow up without their mother.

2) Inception is about sibling love (non-sexual, but totally devoted). (this one admittedly doesn’t hold together as well…) but, the children, who grew up building sandcastles together, living in a dream-like and never-ending youth, promise to stay together. They grow up to become Dom and Mal. Dom’s in denial because it almost becomes sexual. Mal wants to hold on to that world, and believes that through the power of the imagination, as represented by layers of dreams, they can live their early dream of staying together forever. Their architecture is the example of the sandcastles for grown ups. When we later go to Dom’s horrible place, we realize that she was willing to trick him to stay with her, and when he says "No," he is accepting that they have to grow up, while she can not. She tries to give him an ultimatum that they must stay together, and when he won’t take that leap, she kills herself. He has been partly unaware of what a powerful influence he was in her life, and when he realizes that, he lives with the guilt of her death, which he processes at multiple layers, but always hauntingly seeing them play together as young children. The best hint of this aspect of the story: he’s in denial about this relationship, so when they are in the basement, he says he has to leave to go see the children, she says, – notwithstanding that only the two of them are in the basement – that the children are already "here." ie. Mal and Dom and the children are the same people at different stages of their lives. In the end, unable to reconcile all of the pain he has caused himself and Mal, he survives by choosing to live in the world of child-like peace. He spins the dreidle, knows it won’t stop, but he doesn’t need to see the spinning because – to reconcile his psychological problems he goes off to the world he seeks – the dream of a happy childhood.
Posted by Gina Wagner July 18, 2010 1:16 am

@Chris – Yes, the rule was set that if you die in the heavily sedated state in the dream, you go to straight to limbo. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Many of these theories sound very far-fetched and reminds me a great deal of my American Literature class in high school where students took such great pains to interpret stories, but I am glad that the movie left open so much room for interpretation because I believe the goal was to stir things up and get people talking like this. Look how many comments you have, that’s WAY above average! And it’s because there’s so much discussion to be had. I would have been disappointed if a clear decision had been reached about that top spinning at the end. Letting the audience choose his real fate is smart all around.

You all could have 20 different theories and not be wrong or right so let the mental gymnastics ensue!
Posted by Beau July 18, 2010 2:09 am

Please correct me if Im wrong but earlier in the film didnt Cobbs children call him while he was in his hotel room? How did they know how to contact him? Let alone know where in the world he was? Certainly his grandmother didnt provide this information because it seemed that she didnt want the children to talk to their father.
Posted by Cu July 18, 2010 2:48 am

Regarding the theory that Cobb is still dreaming since he and Mal only "died" once after staying in limbo: I believe that in that case they only needed to die once in order to wake up because they weren’t heavily sedated like the team was when preparing to infiltrate Fischer’s mind. Remember the scene in the warehouse where they wanted to kill Saito so he could wake up? The chemist reveals that while that would normally work, it’s the heavy sedation that would prevent Saito from feeling the kick. When Mal and Cobb got stuck in their dream, they were just lying in their house and I don’t think any heavy sedation was involved there.
Posted by tomelders July 18, 2010 6:23 am

I think we saw a couple of times that you need to travel up through the dreams one level at a time. In the opening scene, Dom shoots Arthur, and Arthur is present (I think) in the apartment scene with the riot outside, which is also a dream. So he only went up one level.

Then when Ariadne rides the kicks back to "reality" we see her pass through each dream level then kick up even further. Odly though, we don’t see how Dom and Saito get back. Nor is it explained.

Saito’s bullet wound was in the first dream level, so dying in that level permeated down through the other levels. He ended up in Limbo because he was so heavily sedated that he couldn’t wake up, so I guess his consciousness looks for the only place left to go, and that’s the subconscious level, which we’re told is dangerous, and so deep that seconds feel like decades. As i understood it, the passage of time is increased exponentially for every dream level. The subconscious being as deep as you can go.

So, for Dom and Mal to grow old together in dream world, they must have been more than one level deep. We don’t see them come back up through multiple levels so I’m assuming they didn’t. Or do we? There’s also a couple of seconds where we see Dom and Mal as very old people, but when they lie in front of the train, they’re young….. my brain hurts.
Posted by Joe Shearer July 18, 2010 7:29 am

Regarding how many levels Dom and Mal were, if Dom attempted inception on her they were certainly more than one level deep.

With a film like this, however, it’s not entirely possible that some of the rules and other things are red herrings on their own, or are otherwise misleading or don\\\’t apply in certain contexts.
Posted by Beewirks July 18, 2010 10:42 am

Ok I read almost everyone’s theory on this and all of them seem so plausible. I have a theory of my own but I don’t know if anyone brought it up. What if the inception on Dom was him planting the inception on Mal about how she needed to die to get back to the real world. What if that whole thing was set up by Michael Caine. What if theres a whole outer layer of a story that we weren’t privy to?…maybe Michael Caine (who could be Mal’s dad) put Dom through this labyrinth of dreams as torture for a messy divorce from his daughter or something. So Caine plants the inception on Dom and in turn he plants the inception on Mal, killing herself and forever giving him grief and guilt, but Dom finds a way through his mind to make peace with it and in the end, uses the Saito situation as the catalyst for him to forgive himself….or maybe I’m crazy and this idea hasn’t been thought through but I’d like to hear you guy’s take on this. I know a few of you came up with good reasons why the end of the movie was still Dom’s dream too. Either way, I’m going to see this movie again and I will keep in mind all the theories I read here..Good day
Posted by justmy2 July 18, 2010 11:14 am

"Also, even Miles just says, "Welcome back," or whatever, which could mean anything. Cobb could have either been on a business trip, or he could have really been running around the word for a few years. I would write some of my other theories, but I’m tired, so I’ll just list points."

Want something even more out there…What was Michael Caine in Batman? A butler. Is there anything to say that Michael Caine is really his father and not just a butler/nanny taking care of the children?

I guess that is too out there…
Posted by justmy2 July 18, 2010 11:29 am

This….

"B) The dreidel spinning or as totem was almost meaningless in this theory for a few reasons. It was exhaustively stated that no one should know how your totem works, nor should they touch it. However, multiple people touched/used/knew about Dom’s totem. Saito even spun it on the table while they were in limbo. Secondly, it wasn’t even Dom’s totem, it was his wife’s. So in theory it shouldn’t work for him anyway, he should have had his own seperate totem from the start. In fact I wonder if he does have his own totem and its subtly hinted somewhere in the movie."

and this…

"Please correct me if Im wrong but earlier in the film didnt Cobbs children call him while he was in his hotel room? How did they know how to contact him? Let alone know where in the world he was? Certainly his grandmother didnt provide this information because it seemed that she didnt want the children to talk to their father."

Keys..

I don’t think the ending is open ended. I don’t know what it is, but I think Nolan wrapped it up, and only gave the suspenseful ending to create the "Matrix" like side industry of coming of when the actual resolution.

I suspect there are enough easter eggs included upon multiple watchings to wrap it up if you review it enough. Brilliant film-making and brilliant marketing.
Posted by Ted Carmichael July 18, 2010 12:41 pm

A very interesting discussion!

@BEEWIRKS – You theory certainly seems possible, and I don’t think it contradicts anything. But I’m not sure how much evidence there is in support of it. For myself, I’m going to watch it again carefully with the following in mind:

1) If an inception was planted in Dom, and his waking up at the end was just a catharsis to make the inception seem like his own idea, then what is that inception?

I’m assuming that this inception – if it exists – is parallel to the one Dom performed on Fischer. I.e., it is a simple idea, stated early, that Dom accepts as part of his process of letting his wife go, and forgiving himself for her suicide. In other words, I am assuming that this process, of leading Dom to get over his wife’s death, is simply a means to an end … just like Fischer’s catharsis is a means to an end.

2) More and more I am coming to the assumption that Dom is awake at the end, but he woke on the plane after being the target on the plane. I will look for more evidence to support this, but the way the other players acted leads me to believe that Dom didn’t really know any of them, except maybe fleeting memories in a dream.

3) I will try to keep track of who is the "host" dreamer at each stage. This might have bearing on who the "subconscious projections" are "attacking" in each dream level. Does anyone remember? In the first level it is Fischer’s dream, so Fischer’s subconscious is being defensive (attacking the van). In the second level, isn’t it Fake Browning/Eames who is the host dreamer (in the hotel)? I don’t remember. Does this make a difference, in terms of who’s subconscious is repelling the others? Who was the host in the next level, down to the mountain / snow cabin? Was it Fischer again? Or someone else?

4) I will also look carefully for Dom’s wedding ring at the end (as someone mentioned) and at the kid’s clothes (which someone else mentioned). I might have to wait for the DVD to really look for clues. I’ll also look for clues about Dom’s dad (Miles) possibly being an impostor when we first meet him.

5) I will try to figure out if Dom’s implausibly easy travel to Paris, Mombasa, etc., gives more clues … particularly in terms of, is Dom dreaming, and are those agents really chasing Dom, or are they after someone else? If they *are* chasing Dom, yet it’s a dream, then whose subconscious might it be? I’m convinced that they are projections rather than corporate mercenaries, but who knows?
Posted by A to Z July 18, 2010 12:52 pm

Just entertaining some thoughts… any chance that Dom’s actual Totem was his wedding ring? In an early shot they show him with it on… and I believe he only wears it in the dream sequences. He wasn’t wearing it at the end… And the idea with Mal planting an inception in Dom’s head makes sense since the Top was supposedly her Totem to begin with. And didn’t they make a point of no one else touching or using another person’s Totem??
Posted by saaara July 18, 2010 2:16 pm

My head is spinning after reading some of the theories, I think some people are getting a bit convoluted and far fetched.

I choose to not believe that the whole movie was a dream. The "it was all a dream" device is the biggest storytelling cop out and I just don’t believe that Christoper Nolan would take it.

I like the idea that the real inception was taking place in Dom’s head— but I don’t get why such a smart/savvy team of extracters would spin such a convoluted inception on Dom. They would have relied on way too many things to just conveniently falling into place. I thought the movie did a great job of setting up the Fisher inception and the heist aspect of that— as well as building to such a satisfying moment where the inception actually takes (when Fisher goes into his subconscious and sees his father, decides to dismantle the business)….i think that subplot had a lot of merit and making this all about conning Dom or doing an inception on him takes away from that. It also makes his relationship with Page’s character feel disingenuous. It’s very possible that Watanabe hiring Dom for corporate espionage and everything that followed to get him home was actually what happened.

Plus, isn’t that the paradigm shift in Shutter Island? Spoiler coming up: that we think Leonardo is a detective, but he’s actually the patient? Looking at this strictly from a hollywood angle, I don’t think a huge star like him would sign up to do two movies with the exact same paradigm shift— plus, Dom getting played weakens that character a lot.

I did love the idea that drug addiction and dream addiction were very much treated the same way. Mal and Dom were basically 24/7 heroine addicts— choosing to live in an altered state. He wanted to get off the drug, she didn’t. I also had the same thought while watching the movie that when Mal kills herself, she actually does go back to reality— but that would again mean the whole movie was a dream and I’m not sure I believe that.

Another hint that the ending was real and that Dom does get reunited with his kids: there are at least two points in the movie where Dom makes Ellen Page’s character and Cillian Murphy’s character realize when they are dreaming— he says how come you can never remember the beginning of your dreams and asks them how they got there (in the case of Page, the corner cafe, in the case of Murphy– the hotel bar). Well, when Dom goes home…we clearly see him get off the airplane, go through customs, get picked up by his father, and arrive at home. Presuming there was a ride home off camera, Dom knows exactly how he got back to his house— this is the first and only time there’s exposition on how a character went from one place to another (i.e. reality)
Posted by Troy D July 18, 2010 4:26 pm

@CARMICHAEL, due to your last point (#5), I realized that Cobb usually does end up in certain places fairly easy and they never really show you how he gets there. Then I remembered that when he was explaining to people, say Ariadne and Fischer, that they were in a dream, he would ask, "Can you remember how you got here?" This reinforces the theory that he is in a dream even more because maybe they made him think he was some sort of extractor, but I’m sure if someone asked him that question, he wouldn’t be able to answer… just sayin…
Posted by ELL July 18, 2010 8:21 pm

There are a ton of great theories here. More and more I think the last scene/"level" was just another dream of Dom’s. I could delve more deeply into a lot of the theories here, but I’m still digesting. Some thoughts…

1. From the first time I saw it, I was dubious toward the scene of Dom’s children playing in the back yard. Something was very much off about that scene. It was as if that scene was shot with a different film stock, or with a lower frame rate than everything else in the movie. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is, but that scene is different. It has a very dreamlike quality. Did anyone else notice this?

2. Further, what would be the odds that, when he first reunites with his children after X number of months/years have passed since he last saw them, that they are wearing the same clothes and doing EXACTLY what they were doing in his last memory of them. Zero.
Posted by Ted Carmichael July 18, 2010 8:56 pm

@TROY D: Yes, I agree … Dom did seem to just *appear* in a few convenient places, and he didn’t seem to question some things that just happened. Or, at least, he accepted some things with a minimum of evidence, which is a very dream-like quality.

Something you said before, about him not caring about the spinning totem at the end. I thought about that some, and that’s what made me believe he had just woken up after a business trip, glad to see his kids, but not overwhelmingly so. Because it occurred to me: why else might he not care about the totem? Well, if it was just something he happened to have in his pocket, with no special meaning, then he wouldn’t wait to see what happens. He might spin it idly, and not care whether it keeps spinning or not. So it seems to me the whole concept of totems – or at least this particular totem – might just be an artifact of his very long dream.

So for me, that reinforces the idea that they planted a deep idea in his dream, and reinforced it with a catharsis. Besides … he can always look at the totem next time he’s in the room, see if it’s still spinning. If it’s a dream, it’ll still be going, right?
Posted by Tereska July 18, 2010 9:37 pm

Could it be that time passed and the kids did grow up, but when Dom looks at them for that split second upon return he envisions them as the young tots he left behind? Living the moment he regrets most in life, the way he wanted to live it? The only reason that I am CONVINCED that the kids grew up is because during their call in the hotel, they sounded and spoke far more mature than the kids we see. Also – what spinner wobbles and keeps going? It was always smooth circulating all other times! It’s reality.
Posted by MA July 18, 2010 11:33 pm

Cobb: "How do I know you’ll be able to come through"
Saito: "You don’t. Take a leap of faith."
Helicopter scene.

Mal before death: "Take a leap of faith."

Dream.
Posted by Chandria July 18, 2010 11:57 pm

Well, I just saw the movie this afternoon and after reading this entire page, I must say…there are some interesting theories on here. It really does make your head spin! After my initial reaction, I do believe that Miles (Michael Caine) is Dom’s father and he did the inception on his son to help him cope with the loss of his wife. However, he has lost him in the process and cannot get him back into reality. Hence his comment to his son upon his visit “Please come back to reality".
I do believe the end sequence was also a dream for numerous reasons:
1. When Dom "awakes" on the plane, he does not seem to recognize anything/anyone around him, which could indicate a "limbo" phase.
2. His father is waiting for him at the airport? How did he know he was coming back and when would he arrive…etc.
3. He looks around his own house like he is surprised being there.
4. The kids are the same age and are in the same clothes, doing the same exact thing as he has seen it in his dreams. The only thing changed is the fact that they turn towards him…Before, he never had enough time and always missed the chance, and now that he is in "limbo" he has the time to see their faces.
5. I agree with most people that the "totem" spinning or toppling over does not necessary mean what he believes it meant. After all, it does not meet the criteria he set forth as to what a totem should be. It was Mal’s, so it would never work right for him just for that reason alone.

Overall, I do have some parts I am still trying to explain…like the scene where they are both old, walking around in their fantasy world hand in hand. Also, how much of Dom’s sequence been in real world vs. inception? We now know that we cannot rely on his "grounding totem" for that information. Finally, I do believe the reference to Ariadne is a nice touch and having her first task to create a maze was clever. Someone on here mentioned that Ariadne could be his daughter trying to help him come back to reality…I never considered that, but interesting theory. Especially considering that Miles is the one who recommends Ariadne as the new architect…after asking him to come back to reality (which is ignored by his son Dom). He then tells him that she is even better than he used to be, which could be interpreted as a proud statement from a grandfather to let his son know how his daughter followed in his footsteps…etc. Well, this is all I have for now. I am sure there will be more once I see it again and think about it some more.
Posted by Ricardo Sime July 19, 2010 1:26 am

Is it just me but when Dom is talking to Fischer after the lady robs him, aren’t the projections looking at Fischer, not Dom? The scene is setup in a way to make you think Dom is the target, but he is not. The constant reappearance of the Kids and Mal proves that we are in Dom’s dream.
The more and more i think about it, Mal was right. They were still in a dream state. The whole movie is n attempt by either Dom’s father or Mal to make Dom realize that nothing is real.
It is never explained why the room Dom walks into before Mal jumps is messed up.
I really want to see this movie again. I can’t wait for dvd.
Posted by Susan July 19, 2010 1:35 am

Saito means "website" in Japanese

Cobol is a computer language

Just thinking about names since Ariadne is such a significant mythological name…
Posted by Alex P July 19, 2010 1:45 am

I think he was still in a dream at the end of the movie. In fact, I beleive the whole movie (other than his "flashbacks") was a dream. The end was memory of his house. The only reason he does not notice the top spinning is because he can’t differentiate between dream and reality and hence in his subconscious the top is not spinning. No one else also notices it because they are only projections of Dom’s subconscious and not real and hence that is their reality and the top is not spinning. His wife "may" have died and he went into the dream to cope and his wife in the movie is only a memory.
The fact that he saw the faces of his kids was confusing. I was thinking that his wife (after she killed herself and assuming she was not just a memory) may be in reality or a lower stage of a dream and waiting for him. Supposedly he went really deep. I think he was in a limbo within a dream within a limbo or a dream and was able to get out of one limbo but didn’t realize that he was still in another one.
He was lost in that dream and it became his reality. Because it was his reality the top wouldn’t spin. The ending was open-ended but the top was spinning on a crack in the table (I think…I would have to watch it again).
In the end he was "free" within his dream
But not in true reality. Everything was a dream of his own subconscious making. Honestly…only the writer knows and he may not even know…it was just written to make us think about it.
I’m just curious if he killed
Himself and ended up in another life again…I guess he jut has to get old and die and maybe he’ll be young again? Who knows? Lol.
I got some good ideas from here, though:
1.) Where’s grandma?
2.) Is Michael Caine "HIS" dad?
3.) Why are his kids dressed the same as when they were younger?
4.) Maybe the agent’s were chasing his "friends" and not him…he was the inception target
5.) They didn’t look into Fisher’s background? really?
Posted by MS July 19, 2010 3:08 am

Re: Ricardo, the room Dom walks in before Mal jumps is messed up because she made it look like there had been a struggle. She filed a letter with their lawyer saying she was fearful for her life when with him, and in this way, she hoped to induce Cobb into jumping with her–take a leap of faith with her, or spend life persecuted.

Also, for those who are kicking about the idea that projections were after Cobb, remember Mal questioned whether he had invented "anonymous" corporations and henchmen chasing him. If Cobb feels so guilty, it makes sense that someone would be out to get him. It makes sense that his own subconscious would literally be trying to kick the crap out of him. He’s beating himself over what happened…

The core emotion being dealt with here and examined is guilt. If Cobb is the target of inception, the idea that he has to move on, that they grew old together, is the only idea that makes sense, most likely planted by either Cobb himself or maybe Miles.

I don’t understand why it has to be only one or the other who was implanted, however. Fischer was the target of his inception, and while on the job, Cobb realizes (after all the "experiments" and "extra preparations" he did before the job) he can purge his own demons as well. Thus, we have double inception. Kill two birds with one mindtrip, ya dig?
Posted by Brad Chin July 19, 2010 5:12 am

Okay so I haven’t finished reading yet because there is so much but the idea that Cobb’s team is against him is defeated when Arthur tricks Ariadne into kissing him. If they were playing Cobb then Ariadne would not be tricked by Arthur because she would only be playing the role of newbie towards Cobb
Posted by Tiffany July 19, 2010 6:14 am

All very interesting views. My question is.. towards the end with Doms last encounter with Mal, he told her that they did grow old together and two scenes were shown of them old walking and holding hands. But if they did grow old together, how is it that when he convinced her it was a dream and when they lay their heads on the tracks to wake up they were young? Was he planting the idea that they really did grow old together in her mind and his subconscious mind?
Loved the movie!!
Posted by Gaz July 19, 2010 8:36 am

A lot of interesting theories and reading them is just making the post-buzz I’m having from seeing the movie even better. In response to MS though I feel I should point out that while it IS clearly explained by Mal that she’s going to frame Dom for her death in what she percieves to be that level in order to force him to escape to the next the reason for the room being a mess can’t be to show there was a struggle as when Dom reaches the window of that room and looks out Mal is on a ledge in the building opposite him and not actually in the same building.

People seem to be over-looking this. I reckon this memory has either been implanted or at the very least manipulated to make the ‘memory’ have more impact for Dom by having him face his wife as she jumps instead of speaking to her from inside the same room. Also I’d have to rewatch it to check but I’m sure the lighting/interior of the room through the window Mal is on is looks very similiar to the room Dom is in suggesting it’s the same room viewed from two different perspectives (which could be a paradox similiar to what Arthur does twice with the staircases).
Posted by christopholis July 19, 2010 9:49 am

a) I think the movie is supposed to be entirely ambiguous by the end. Meaning, you can come to either conclusion: Dom is still dreaming by the end; or Dom is actually awake, finally.

b) but the case for him still dreaming (and I noticed this on the second viewing) can be picked up in Mombasa. When Dom tests Yusuf’s drugs. He has a brief dream, and then wakes up, and then spins the dreidel, but it doesn’t take and he gets interrupted by Saito.

I think the idea is interesting; he’s still in Mombasa, dreaming for 40 hours, just like that whole other group of people. Everything that came after Mombasa (connected to Dom) was part of Dom’s elaborate dreamscape, which means he went even deeper than the "team" did his own dream.

c) the case for his being entirely awake, is written all over the face of Robert Fischer at the end, in the terminal. My take was that Fischer was in on the job– everyone was– and the actual job was ridding Dom of his attachment to Mal, by planting an "emotional" idea.

just my take.
Posted by mike July 19, 2010 11:02 am

My theory…someone else might have come up with the same idea but I haven’t had time to read every post.

What if Mal was right all along, i.e. her belief that they were still dreaming, and her "suicide" was just her escaping and a last ditch effort to try to bring Cobb with? Of course she was depressed…her HUSBAND, Cobb, was delusional, unable to come to grips that they were still in a dream, having somehow forgotten that the "100 year" dream was a dream within a dream. She finally flips out and decides she must escape, and gives him one last chance to come with.

From that point on, he is guilt ridden and haunted by her projection…just not in the initial dream level, as his subconscious is convinced she is dead in there.

The "team", including Saito, was hired to try and get him to reconcile and let go of the guilt, so that they could somehow get him out where, as Mal had originally told him, her and his REAL children were waiting.

As an early poster said, the team was planting an idea in his mind for a purpose…and that is the purpose I believe was in play. For now anyway…only seen the film once.
Posted by mike July 19, 2010 11:19 am

Well shoot, christopholis actually touched on that in his point C.

Again, I take it a step further…I think when Mal "killed" herself, she was right…they were still dreaming. She paid the team to rescue Cobb and part of that was making him let go of his guilt for her "death"…he had to let go of this to return to her.

Whether or not this succeeded is questionable. The way Cobb walked into a scene at the end that was identical to his prior visions calls it into doubt…i.e., the power of false regret ruined him.
Posted by Dooney July 19, 2010 11:22 am

I love reading through all these theories. I would suggest that maybe Dom’s totem is his wedding ring…
Posted by mike July 19, 2010 11:45 am

Troy D wrote:"4) Cobb and Mal wake up from Limbo with only one "Kick" (suicide) but it took, what, around 4 to wake up Adriadne and Fischer from Limbo, plus they never show you how Cobb and Saito get out…."

This is the best evidence of your theory that he is just some guy on a business trip or whatever, having a really elaborate dream and subconsciously providing HIMSELF with catharsis for his wife’s death. Think about it: they never really go into detail as to how this dream system operates…they just plug into it. It’s just accepted…again, a dream-like reaction. No explanation is needed.

Only hole in this theory is that, as you also pointed out, his children appear as they did in his prior visions. If Nolan had ONLY changed that this would be a closed case. Just goes to show how clever the guy is…
Posted by ELL July 19, 2010 12:47 pm

GAZ said "People seem to be over-looking this. I reckon this memory has either been implanted or at the very least manipulated to make the ‘memory’ have more impact for Dom by having him face his wife as she jumps instead of speaking to her from inside the same room. Also I’d have to rewatch it to check but I’m sure the lighting/interior of the room through the window Mal is on is looks very similiar to the room Dom is in suggesting it’s the same room viewed from two different perspectives (which could be a paradox similiar to what Arthur does twice with the staircases)."

Great point. More and more I think Mal was actually right, and she is probably just trying to get Dom to come out of the dream world. The fact that she is in a different building from him is a very important point. That’s quite an undertaking that she’s done (if it’s to be believed as real). Are we to believe that she rented the hotel room precisely across from the one where Dom is? …then, of course, trash the room, go down the elevator, go across the street to the other hotel, go back up the elevator, and climb out onto the ledge? That’s a lot of faffing, and it’s totally unecesarry if that’s a real life event. It is, however, the way a scenario like that might play out in a dream, where everything is fraught with symbolism. Her being close to him, face to face, but just far enough away to where he is completely helpless to intervene…very dreamlike situation.

As I think about this situation, the more the threat of getting lost in this world seems feasable. It would be an actual threat! Say we actually could do something like this forced dreaming scenario and stack dreams. What if you forgot how many times you had stacked the dream?
Posted by MS July 19, 2010 1:20 pm

While I do understand the reasoning of the point GAZ made, regarding her being in a different room, just think about it for a second. She wanted to talk Cobb into jumping with her. If she tried to do that in the hotel room she had trashed, she wouldn’t have the chance to go through with her leap of faith–Cobb would just grab a hold of her and pull her back in. She knows this. She had the knife in her hand…Cobb was there to pull her back. She created a situation where it was impossible for Cobb to pull her back. Either he jumps with her, or he watches her die. This is an all or nothing gambit on her part, which explains the extra steps she made.

Also, it’s not as if Cobb was in the bathroom while she trashed the room and took the elevator down and up and talked to the manager for the room across…she could have easily done this all before Cobb even got the message to go to the hotel room, comfortably waiting in the room across. In the end, I think that’s really the only way to look at it.
Posted by Andrew July 19, 2010 2:11 pm

@Ell
I’m not saying this to discount the possibility of Mal’s ledge jump being merely a dream, but I don’t think the possibility that it’s an actual real memory should be completely discounted either. I think it’s still pretty ambiguous.

When I was watching the scene, I did wonder if there was maybe some dreamy loop going on, so I tried to see if the stuff in her hotel room looked as trashed as in Dom’s hotel room. It didn’t.

Also, IF her suicide really really happened, and her goal was to create an air-tight situation where Dom not only wouldn’t stop her but would also probably join her, why WOULDN’T she go to the trouble of renting two rooms across from each other and trashing one of them. It’s totally plausible. This was done on their anniversary, clearly something she had time to prepare for, and when her plan ends in a double-suicide, money is of no concern!
Posted by Danny G July 19, 2010 2:27 pm

I have my fair share of theories, but I’ll leave them for later as it’s late at night and I have just come back from a second viewing of the movie with more details and some questions to pose too…but before I go into that tomorrow, I’ll leave u guys with this thought…Dom says ‘an idea is the most resilient parasite’…the fact that we are all here debating this shows that the greatest act of inception was not on any of the characters in the movie, but it was done on us! An idea, so resilient, now consuming us, brought about by chris Nolan’s dream (he actually does say this in ‘an iterview- that a movie is an insight into a director’s dream)…part of an interesting experiment – and boy am I loving every second of it! Good nite guys and gals, and sweet dreams…
Posted by Brad Chin July 19, 2010 3:28 pm

There is also the possibility that Cobb has two totems. The one from Mal indicates the level of dream that he wants to be in (the one he’s addicted to) and the ring indicates that he is in reality or the highest level of dream.
Posted by Brian July 19, 2010 3:52 pm

Borrowing from my website (www.birthvillage.com) and it’s plethora of baby names I’ve compiled the following meanings:

1. Dom -> Content
2. Mal -> Messenger of God
3. Ariadne -> Most Sacred
4. Eames -> Prosperous protector
5. Yusuf -> Comes from Yosef meaning -> God will increase. Also, Josef was a dreamer and interpretor of dreams.
6. Arthur -> As in, King Arthur and the knights of the round table.
7. Saito -> Correct

Do what you will with it.
Posted by Ralph July 19, 2010 4:27 pm

Just throwing this out here, but something I thought was that Dom’s "team" was actually trying to extract information from Dom in order to really determine if he is innocent or guilty. They finally found out the true story about Mal’s death and are able to vindicate him and he is then able to return to U.S. to be with his family. All of this was setup by Michael Caine.
Posted by Roulette July 19, 2010 4:46 pm

@ DANNY G: Very amusing observation. I enjoyed reading that because I didn’t think this movie lived up to the hype after I saw it. But now this resilient parasite is getting worse in my head haha. This whole movie is a paradox, much like the staircases.

So, points to notice on my second viewing:
- Dom’s (actual) totem (possibly the wedding ring)
- The scene with Dom at the beginning before he actually takes the job.
- The relationship with Dom and the Architect.

I’m not going to get into the argument of whether or not the whole movie was a dream. I read every single comment here, and I noticed that not many people have talked in great length about the Architect, who I believe has probably the most pivotal role in the ending and holds a clue. You guys can take it and use it however you want, but I just wanted to point it out and why I feel the last part was a dream.

Upon recruiting the Architect [Ariadne], Michael Caine explicitly says that she is better than Dom with her creations. She is the one who built every level of the dream if I’m not mistaken AND she’s the only one with Dom in limbo [after providing the kick for Fischer, to revive him in the 3rd level]. After Mal’s death and Dom’s stabbing by Mal in that level [Remember that Dom is the host], the architect provides her own kick by jumping out to go through the levels up to the first where the van is underwater. Everyone gets out except for Saito (dead) and Dom who was left in the deepest level of his subconscious looking for Saito. When the crew asked the Architect in that first level about Dom, the architect says "He’ll be alright…" in a rather somber tone leading me to believe that the last scene starting from the plane when they all finally come to [or perhaps even the scene with old Saito and Dom] could be an extra level that the Architect built for Dom to be reunited with his kids.

Earlier in the movie, Dom looks away from his kids when they were turning around, so he [nor we] ever saw them. BUT the Architect was with him in that dream as she went down the elevators, so I believe she did see them and decided create that for him in an extra stage, and I feel he was content with that, which is why he didn’t care at all about the totem. Yes the totem was wobbling, and it never did before in any of the dreams, but then again, it was never his to begin with. If I missed something, let me know. Just food for thought.
Posted by Roulette July 19, 2010 4:48 pm

@ DANNY G: Very amusing observation. I enjoyed reading that because I didn’t think this movie lived up to the hype after I saw it. But now this resilient parasite is getting worse in my head haha. This whole movie is a paradox, much like the staircases.

So, points to notice on my second viewing:
- Dom’s (actual) totem (possibly the wedding ring)
- The scene with Dom at the beginning before he actually takes the job.
- The relationship with Dom and the Architect.

I’m not going to get into the argument of whether or not the whole movie was a dream. I read every single comment here, and I noticed that not many people have talked in great length about the Architect, who I believe has probably the most pivotal role in the ending and holds a clue. You guys can take it and use it however you want, but I just wanted to point it out and why I feel the last part was a dream.

Upon recruiting the Architect [Ariadne], Michael Caine explicitly says that she is better than Dom with her creations. She is the one who built every level of the dream if I’m not mistaken AND she’s the only one with Dom in limbo [after providing the kick for Fischer, to revive him in the 3rd level]. After Mal’s death and Dom’s stabbing by Mal in that level [Remember that Dom is the host], the architect provides her own kick by jumping out to go through the levels up to the first where the van is underwater. Everyone gets out except for Saito (dead) and Dom who was left in the deepest level of his subconscious looking for Saito. When the crew asked the Architect in that first level about Dom, the architect says "He’ll be alright…" in a rather somber tone leading me to believe that the last scene starting from the plane when they all finally come to [or perhaps even the scene with old Saito and Dom] could be an extra level that the Architect built for Dom to be reunited with his kids.

Earlier in the movie, Dom looks away from his kids when they were turning around, so he [nor we] ever saw them. BUT the Architect was with him in that dream as she went down the elevators, so I believe she did see them and decided create that for him in an extra stage, and I feel he was content with that, which is why he didn’t care at all about the totem. Yes the totem was wobbling, and it never did before in any of the dreams, but then again, it was never his to begin with. If I’m missing something, let me know. Just food for thought. Thanks for reading.
Posted by ELL July 19, 2010 5:10 pm

ANDREW. You definitely have a valid point. It would be worth the effort for her to set up the whole thing elaborately if it was real. She’s willing to commit suicide afterall (if she’s wrong), so there’s certainly no level of effort she’d spare to make her point.

But, for me, part of the problem lies in the set-up. The trashed room, the note she supposedly left with the attorny claiming that she’s afraid of him, etc. All that stuff would be pretty damning certainly, but it would not be impossible to overcome. Yet…it is viewed as an absolute no-win scenario by Dom. His only recourse was to FLEE. There was absolutely no option for him to explain the entire thing to him, and rely on possible forensic evidence to demonstrate that she actually fell from the opposite balcony (thus proving Dom didn’t push her). …the trail of evidence would also include who is anyone rented that adjacent hotel room, where did her body land in the street, etc. It’d have been a messy trial for sure, but one not impossible for Dom to be proven innocent. …but it was taken as a certainty that he had no chance of proving himself innocent.

That fact, I believe, is very dreamlike. Similar to the rogue agents always tracking him. Why are they tracking him? It’s not totally clear. They just are. I feel like in dreams there are a lot more absolutes than reality. It’s more emotional/visceral and about dealing with the current situation (not analyzing WHY it is happening). In a dream, you don’t think "who is trying to break into my house?" or "what in the world is that monster?". I think if you did, if you applied analytics to it, you’d realize you were in a dream and you’d wake up. But you don’t do that, you just RUN!

I think if Dom had considered the option to explain Mal’s suicide in detail (spilling his guts) he had a strong chance of being absolved of responsibility. Further, if his case was SO overwhelming it becomes even more unlikely that one phone call can make it all go away.
Posted by nicolicious July 19, 2010 5:25 pm

i dont know about anything…. my head hurts… i think the whole thing is just a dream….

but more importantly isn’t Marion Cotillard the hottest crazy bitch you’ve ever seen? Just stunning…

great cast, im going to see it again…
Posted by Hannah July 19, 2010 6:06 pm

Nick, I just wanted to point out that the dreamsharing technology and such was NOT Cobb’s technology. They blatantly say that it was developed by the military. Cobb also says he is the best mind thief, but that does NOT mean that he is the ONLY one. Plus if he *was* the only one doing this then WHY does Saito say he’s auditioning him??? If he’s the only person in the world able to do it, then it would seem that Saito had no other choice. Which was not the case at all. It seems blatantly obvious that there are other people going around stealing stuff from people in their dreams other than Cobb and the people he has worked with. Which also means that it has become common enough that there are people out there teaching these CEOs and such how to defend their subconscious.
Posted by KJAMES July 19, 2010 7:12 pm

I read a lot of these but I came up with my own conclusion before this. First off, I don’t think the whole movie is a dream. Multiple times in the film Cobb spins the top and it falls over and he sighs with relief knowing he is in reality. If the top didn’t actually work that way because it was Mal’s or because other people touched it than the final shot of the top would make no difference. The part that interested me the most was the final scene of old Saito and Cobb. We see old Saito reach for the gun while the top is spinning but we don’t see what happens. I think that Saito shoots Cobb and he goes into an even DEEPER level of subconscious. One that is unexplained because it’s more about feelings than thoughts. It looks like he woke up but he actually went further into his consciousness. There’s also the fact that Cobb always looked away when his kids would turn to look at him because he knew they weren’t real but if he saw their faces it would become his reality. At the end he sees his kids faces (in same clothes and in same positions) and accepts this as his reality even though it is a deep dream. He no longer cares if the top falls over or not because he saw his kids faces again. That’s just me though.
Posted by Bryan July 19, 2010 7:53 pm

Perhaps this has already been discussed, but I am at work and only have time to digest the initial post and a few of the comments.

What about that dang Lawyer and Plane Ticket? Why does Nolan start out by showing a sliver of the ticket at first, then a little more, then even more and finally almost the whole ticket? What is the destination written on that ticket? Is it my own mind playing tricks on me or did I read that it said "Los Angeles" or "Northern California"?

And why does the Lawyer keep repeating something to the effect of "You have to go now!" over and over and over again. Could it be that this is the "kick" Dom is getting from someone on the outside telling him to wake up?

What if this whole film was a navigated stroll through Dom’s subconscious guilt over the death of his wife? What if we were simply taking part in the Freudian psychotherapy session administered by Dom’s hypnotist?

What if I stop obsessing about this film and get back to work?
Posted by Alex July 20, 2010 5:03 am

Just my take. The spinning of the top is an example of our belief in the dream. It actually doesn’t matter, and this is what is amazing. Whether the top falls or doesn’t in the end makes no difference. Wow, this film was incredible. Stop and think about how simple it all really is. We are the ones incepted. We watch this business man wake up on a plane. The people around him were all part of his dream. Anyone else of significance in the film most likely represented some part of his life and its struggles. His wife committing suicide after having two kids and his guilt, the stress of the traveling “business man”. More interesting would be to examine how those characters represented some part of his life. For example, why was Ariadne’s character the only one that knew about Mal – it would seem that she was the younger Mal in his dream, he incepted her at the café when they first dated, she was there with him in the end. Maybe Dom’s character just got back from Japan and screwed some business man there, and his conscious is getting to him. I believe the moment that he woke up on the plane was the only time in the film that we found ourselves in reality. The top spinning was probably something he just did when he came home, a memento from his wife. All the commentary is simply us trying to explain his dream.
Posted by David Parker July 20, 2010 7:01 am

This film has one intention, to put you in a maze, similar to one designed by the architect, and see where you end up. It’s designed so there isn’t any definitive ansewer, but merely your own interpretations, based on how you veiw life. Freakin’ brilliant! You can watch the film a dozen times, each time approaching it from a different angle, and come up with diferent theories.
BTW, did anyone else notice that the song used for the "kick", NO REGRETS, sung by Edith Piaf? Is it coincidence that the actress who played Mal,also played the part of Edith Piaf in LA VIE EN ROSE? Not sure if it has any meaning, but it has a very dreamlike quality to it.
When is the last time filmgoers brains were engaged like this, in the middle of July no less? God bless Chris Nolan.
Also, if you haven’t seen his first film, FOLLOWING, check it out.
Posted by Nikki July 20, 2010 4:03 pm

Not only is the whole movie a dream – it is one gigantic metaphor for filmmaking and, even further, a reflection of Nolan in particular as a filmmaker. Now, before you disregard the rest of what I’m going to say – hear me out. Leonardo DiCaprio helped develop the final stages of the script with Nolan and in publicity for the movie has said that he based Cobb off of Nolan and compared Inception to Fellini’s 8 1/2, which we all know is an autobiographical movie about the director and basically a movie about filmmaking.

Not enough evidence to be convinced yet, right? Where is there evidence of this in the movie? Well, in a nutshell, here is what I think and have worked out through many discussions with my friends who also saw this movie. Every member of the team represents a player in the filmmaking world. Cobb is the director, Arthur the producer, Ariadne is the screenwriter, Eames is the actor, Yusuf is the techie, Saito is the production company, more or less the financial backer that has the monetary stake in the production and success, and Fischer is the audience. Nolan speaks about the similarities between the team in the movie and the team it takes to produce a film in Film Comment. Now think back to the roles of each character – everything makes sense. We all struggled to figure out how Mal fit into the puzzle. Was she just a character used in order to create Cobb’s issues? But no, because every minute detail of this movie is so unbelievably deliberate that this couldn’t be it. We think that she represents the struggles of a director as Nolan perceives them to be. In this way, it would seem that he thinks it the ultimate challenge for a director to leave out his own baggage, struggles, prejudices and what-have-you in order to create a more perfect shared dream (aka movie) that will more accurately resonate with the mark (aka the most individuals in the audience).

Inception is one poetic love letter from Nolan to the cinema. Shared dreaming is essentially what it feels like to experience a movie with every person watching it with you. The shared dream (movie) is also a dream created by the team who creates it – the writers, the directors, the actors, etc. Implanting an idea in the mind of an individual is exactly what films aim to do. They try to bring the individual watching it on a narrative journey to discover something about themselves, humanity, or the world. The catharsis is the most important theme in this movie… it is ultimately what Cobb is seeking and the key to inception for Fischer. It is so powerful and moving and it is what movies aim to do to the viewer – to move them, to make them cry, to make them laugh, to make them question, to make them perceive ideas, relationships and the world in a new way. Filmmaking is dreaming. And though everything we see is a dream, the deeper meanings and emotions are real, and this is what every great film strives to achieve.
Posted by Marv July 21, 2010 2:18 am

I didn’t read all the comments but i just thought it might be a possibility that either the entire movie was within Cobb’s subconscious or starting from the point where they go to test the powerful sedative with yusuf. This is very possible because after waking up from the sedation he was about to spin the top when interrupted by saito and after that the top was not spun until the very end of the movie at which point it kept spinning. So my theory is that the sedative put him into a dream state in which they continued their original plan and went so far down that he ended up in limbo. So the whole plane ride was in a dream. They said the sedative put a person under for 3-4 hours.. meaning up to 40 in the first dream state ( the rest of the movie). The planning took place the night before the flight and the flight was 10 hours long only then going for about an hour longer until he reached his kids ( he obviously already knew what his kids looked like from before mal died). All of the plan happened within a 40 hour time period.
Posted by Michael July 21, 2010 3:03 pm

Has anyone noticed that Robert Fischer’s name is the same as that of the great chess player, Bobby Fischer? There may be a solution in which Fischer has destroyed Saito (i.e., Saito hasn’t come back from limbo) and Fischer has successfully resisted the inception. This solution would seem to require at a minimum that Eames (or another forger) is impersonating the wakened Saito in the final phase of Dom’s dream.

Dom’s name seems to be an in-joke, since DOM in computer programming stands for "document object model", a tree-like structure with successive nodes. The structure of the dom is similar to the dream structure in the film, a descending tree with a series of nodes and branches and a root node.
Posted by Jd July 22, 2010 1:00 am

Fantastic movie! One of the best i’ve seen in a long, long time. With that being said, here’s my input:

Ive read through most of the comments made above and I’m still feeling that the main "reality" of the movie (ie. the scenes we see Michael Cain, including the final scene of the movie, the main warehouse where the team prepares to for the inception, the trip to Buenos Aires, etc.) is a dream world created by dom.

There was a point in the movie where dom says to Ariadne that Mal was declared by three American psychiatrists to be "mentally unstable." Given this fact, i cant see how the American government would blame him for her death. simply put, it was an act of suicide committed by a mentally unstable person. why would dom be deemed a criminal and have to flee the country?

The only reason i can come up with is that dom believes he is the reason Mal killed herself. only he (and by the end of the movie Ariadne) knows about the inception he did to her. as a result of this belief, in dom’s dream world (ie. the world the audience was led to think of as "reality" that i mentioned above), he banishes himself from the united states and thus from ever being able to see his children. this is his guilty conscious taking over and punishing himself for the inception he put in Mal’s head while they were stuck in limbo. he will not allow himself to return to the US and see his kids until he has come to terms with his wife’s death and the role he played or, more importantly, think he played in it.

The end of the movie indicates dom’s acceptance of his wife’s death and his coming to terms with the role he played in her passing. This was all supported by the scene where he and Ariadne go from the snow/mountain-side fort to the mal/dom-created limbo world. it is here, after persistent pestering from Ariadne, that dom confronts mal (which in this case represents his guilt) and comes to terms with it.

Therefore, dom is able to get back into the US (all it took was one phone call and the alleged wife-murderer is allowed back into the US using his real name and passport –> more of a reason to suspect that this was all a dream) and see his children. Even though dom’s todem was still spinning as the movie ended (which as he explained earlier in the movie meant that he was in a dream world, not reality), this was the "reality" he wanted to be in. dom simply didnt care if it was real or a dream, he just cared that he was finally able to be with his children and that he had let go of his guilt.
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Posted by Danny G July 22, 2010 11:24 am

Looks like loads of ppl have not really paid attention to the movie and bringing the wrong facts here…JD, sorry to burst your bubble mate, but Mal had three psychiatrists declare herself SANE before she did what she did, so that the authorities WILL NOT be able to believe Cobb’s story that she killed herself…she then had a declaration written by her attorney that she feared for her life when she was with Cobb…so that he would have to jump with her coz she had fixed up his life…watched the movie twice mate…that debunks your theory…sorry mate
Posted by ELL July 22, 2010 12:50 pm

@DANNY G

Regardless of how many pychiatrists declare someone sane someone could still do something rash, so that’s certainly nothing insurmountable. Further, think about how ridiculous that statement is really? Why would someone be compelled to actually have themself "declared sane" by a psychiatrist…and even more have THREE psychiatrists declare them sane? Why not five or seventeen?

Say Dom went into court and explained the whole situation, and that she had been trying to set him up. Don’t you think that would support his argument that she, for some reason, thought it necessary to be "declared sane"?

The idea that it is said that THREE psychiatrists declared her sane actually furthers my belief that it was a dream. That’s not realistic, and Nolan pays close attention to details like that.
Posted by fotokat July 22, 2010 1:00 pm

I believe that the sato character and the rest of the team were put together by the Micheal Cain character to rescue his son from his grief. I think that Cobb bailed after the death of his wife because of his guilt over his use of Inception on her. I am not sure if Cobb is even wanted in the US for her murder or if that is part of his subconscious guilt.

Cain mentions that he should be home with his kids, that presents won’t cut it and is pretty flippant when he states that the US would make an exception to bring Cobb back. He also begs Cobb to come back to reality. They seem to have enough contact for Cain to know how Cobb has built up a whole story around the death of his wife and he knows how Cobb has been making a living as an extractor. I think he pur Sato up to creating a job to bring Cobb home. Sato is an international business man so maybe the Fisher thing is legit, he would need to get something out if the deal.

Aradne takes to dreams pretty easily and I think she was part of the play. Like Aradne in Greek mythology she is there as a guide to bring Cobb to catharsis. The rest of the team is in on it as well.

I only have one question. Eames said that he had tried Inception once and it didnt take. Could they have tried Inception on Cobb at some point, learning allof his secrets to figure out how to finally help him? Would he have remebered that? Would love to know what you think
Posted by Magical Egypt – Episode 8: Cosmology | Movie City Online July 22, 2010 2:02 pm

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Posted by negev79 July 22, 2010 3:56 pm

Nick – I think "metaphysical memory hotel" would be a great band name. Make sure they pay you royalties if they make it big though.
Posted by Bill Dixon July 22, 2010 10:43 pm

I think the straightforward explanation is that Mal was right. She got out. It may be the case that she is planting the inception. Her dialogue about nameless agents chasing Cobb around lends creditability to the idea that Cobb is still stuck in Limbo. She killed herself and he didn’t. Unless we know for certain that they were in reality "layer" when she jumps then we don’t know if Cobb got left behind. What if Mal was right. At the ending the top is still spinning. Cobb will find it still spinning and then figure it all out.
Posted by Inception: the beautiful mind f*ck movie | theredheadsaid July 24, 2010 3:46 pm

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Posted by Zach July 26, 2010 12:21 am

@Bill Dixon
I totally agree.

I believe that the movie was called ‘inception’ because it is really all about Mal trying to plant the inception in Dom’s mind that she made it out and he must kill himself to be with her. She must have escaped into reality when she killed herself, only to find that Dom was still stuck in limbo. so she set up a shared dream with him and forced him into low levels of his consciousness to plant the inception that the world he believes is real, is not.

Many aspects support this, especially the last scene. The one part of this theory that I struggled with was that the top falls over often at the beginning of the movie, even though it is supposed to spin forever in a dream. However, in the movie Dom says that the totem used to spin forever when Mal spun it in her dreams, so it might not spin forever if someone else spins it.

I only saw the movie once, and I’m still working on the theory, but I would like feedback!
Posted by Drew July 30, 2010 8:31 pm

Just a thought— in the movie, when he is assembling his ‘team’, they never use any form of transportation, they just transition from one part of the world to another.

I believe this might suggest that the leads ‘team’ is manifested versions of himself, his ego, superego, and id… I think his team may have been projections (these guys all found a way to kick butt; almost like superheroes… and minimal to no backstory for each). Also, there were no moments of those characters being around when he wasn’t.

Ariadne was different, and found a way to join him through all stages. Obvious Greek reference aside, she gave him the tools to navigate the labrynth… and she also ‘killed’ Mal in one of the deepest layers of his psyche. She ‘planted’ the idea that projection Mal was not real (without a safe!). She also retrieved information about his postion in the death of his wife. Finally, she ‘knew’ he would be OK… this might be because the id, ego, superego were all OK and as they are manifestations and/or projections of himself, he also must be OK.
Posted by Dan Redman August 4, 2010 8:53 pm

@TED CARMICHAEL RE: your questions about who the "host dreamer" was at each level, the trick is who wasn’t there in each sequence. Dream 1 (unless the whole movie was a dream) was the one in the rain, and it was Yusuf’s dream they were in. He drank too much on the plane, so it was raining. He stays on that level from then on, because they can’t go deeper if they’re the host. Dream 2, the hotel, was Arthur’s dream. That’s why it went zero-G when the vehicle Arthur was in was suspended in mid-air and it kept focusing on Arthur’s sleeping body in the van. Dream 3, the snow fortress, was Eames’s dream, because Ariadne asked if Eames had made modifications to her level map, which he could do by virtue of being the dreamer. Beyond that, Limbo didn’t require a host dreamer since it was a shared dreamstate populated by the subconscious of whomever was in it. The question would have to be (if it’s all a dream from the very beginning) whose dream are they in at the REAL first level? It can’t be Cobb, because he descends through all the levels.
Posted by Ted Carmichael August 12, 2010 6:35 pm

Thanks, Dan, for the re-cap.

However, it can be Cobb’s dream if he is the target of the inception. Just like Fischer is in all the levels, even though he is the target of Cobb’s inception, and thus "dreaming" at the highest level. I think.

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