Interpretation of the movie Inception

Inception (2010). Directed by Christopher Nolan.

At end of movie the protagonist returns to a layer of dream, where his children are most important. He chooses this fantasy world, where he accepts his wife's death and he chooses to see his children's faces.

The Spinning Top Ending


So why does the movie stop before the spinning top falls over? Because that's the point he wakes up to the real world from a dream that changes his life. From a dream in which he was able to accept the death of his wife ( in real life the cause is unknown, but he interprets the cause in his dream reality as his fault for first illusioning her with a dream of a wonderful life together, then disillusioning her. )


What were the two main features of projection Mal? She prevented him from doing his job and she kept him away from his children. So in real life, it's his guilt and mourning of her death that is disrupting his career and his ability to provide love for his children.


Rules of the Dream

The point of the whole dream within a dream rules is that while you're watching the movie, you are "dreamsharing", that is, things appear to make sense because the architect (the writer) has designed a world based off of details that you accept as real, and then your own mind begins to fill in the missing information and because it is your own imagination you start to observe, it becomes believable.


Notice how Sato realizes he is being duped by the detail of the carpet. The point is, no matter how good an architect or deception, there will be flaws or clues that reveal the fiction. We should treat the idea of a dream as a metaphor for the movie itself and within the movie, the rules that govern that dream or movie world appear to make sense at a passing glance and we as the viewer or dreamsharer subconsciously invent the missing pieces so that we make sense of it and it seems real to us.


Notice how Ariadne asks about changing the physics of the world. She literally puts one side of the city on top of the other, making it loop back on itself. This is done in the movie itself with the opening scene and the second to last scene. Cobb meets Saito, as old men, and implores him to "come back with him and be young men together". Then the story unfolds from the first time they meet in a dream, at the same location, and arrives back where the movie started, with the two about to return to their former selves. The movie itself is a maze, utilizing the architect's ability to create an impossible path that seems to move forward, but actually loops back on itself forever, which is referred to as a paradox.

How do Cobb and Saito get out of Limbo?

The movie is clear that the place Cobb and Saito meet as old men is limbo and one way to get there is to die in a dream while sedated. How did Ariadne and Cobb get to limbo without dying? Well, the sedation only allowed for three levels of dream, so apparently going to sleep in the third level drops you down to limbo. Not explicitly spelled out in detail how limbo works, because But Cobb and Mal are the only people supposedly known to have been there, and Cobb as an unreliable narrator, says they got out by killing themselves.


How do Cobb and Saito manage to return to their younger selves? Well, while you are viewing the movie i.e. dreamsharing, the rules are presented to you in a way that deceives you into believing they are real *within the dream itself*. That is, while you are in the movie, you accept that this fiction is reality within its own context. But the thing is, those rules don't actually have to make sense, they just need to be suggestive enough for you to go along with it while you are watching/dreaming to not question their authenticity.


So ambiguity is intentionally used in scenes that transition between dream levels. We are never shown how Cobb and Saito leave limbo. All this time we have been deceived into believing the point of view presented to the viewer is reliable and authentic. That the world obeys a set of rules and order, and that we can verify what is real and what is not by testing these known truths, facts. Actually, we are being led along a labyrinth just like a mark in a dream extraction mission. Just like Cobb demonstrates to Ariadne in the cafe that she is not aware of the false reality and she cannot recall how she got there. We are having these suggestions presented to us that convince us that dreamsharing is possible, that totems work, that dreams within dreams can be created, that kicks can wake us. These don't have to make sense, they just need to feel real while we are being conned into making our way through the labyrinth to be led toward accepting an idea. The idea could be anything, that depends on the intention of the mission. But the underlying mechanism is the process of convincing ourselves that our world which may be boring or stressful, doesn't feel right to us, and that this fiction world is more real and we rather choose to accept the beliefs of this fantasy invented to deceive us is truthful.

Does this movie have a lot of plotholes?

You can think that the unexplained mechanism behind all this dreamsharing is lazy writing or has plotholes. And that is all true, and would be nothing more than that in a movie that is not consciously trying to point out these things to you. But Inception is at heart about the process of conning ourselves into believing what we choose is real, what is not... what ideas drive our actions and what emotions govern our lives. And the point of it all is that what we believe and feel is NOT based all on facts and reality. There are glaring plotholes in our subconscious narration, things we deny, things we perceive irrationally, and strong emotional triggers that distort our interpretation of what is actually happening. We are also moved to beliefs and philosophies based not on actual experience, but on fictions created as books, movies, television, culture, which basically are a medium for dreamsharing. And these dreams are designed by conmen whose intention is not to swindle you for money, to extract your information, that thought is a misdirection of the movie itself, but actually the only real intention was inception itself, to implant an idea in your mind. To create details from personal experience that feel real, that move the reader/viewer/dreamer towards certain ideas about how to interpret reality.


The whole objective of the dream mission is to implant an idea into your mind, by showing you a fiction that *feels* real, no matter how irrational or facetious the subterfuge is. Notice Sato says the first time, why he chose to enter the dream if he knows it is a setup. Why does the viewer choose to watch a movie and if he knows it is a deceit intended to extract money from his pocket? Sato's answer is because it is an audition. The important thing is not whether the valuables are extracted i.e. the mission itself (the moviegoers money comes out of the pocket already once you are in the theater, before movie started). What Sato cares about how well he is being deceived, how clever and convincing is the subterfuge. That is, he wants to be convinced and not be able to know he is dreaming until he wakes up.

The movie is a metaphor for dreaming

http://jonnegroni.com/2013/04/25/what-you-missed-about-inception/

In the above article, there is a really neat observation that the length of the movie in hours and minutes is the same as the length of the wake up song in minutes and seconds. Another play on the idea that the entire movie is a dream, and that as the dreamer you are being woken up throughout the course of the film. The song is the cue that the dreamer is about to be woken up, and the entire course of the movie is a dream in which you are being awakened.


Another play is on the idea in the movie that dream time is stretched longer so you experience a long time in dreams within a short time in reality. So in that analogy, you think you are in this world but you are actually dreaming in the span of 2 minutes and during that time, the music has been playing in your ears for what seemed to you like two hours.


The Totem cannot work like it is explained in the movie

Okay so there is a lot of misdirection in attention here. So that it is worth noticing some reasonable questions that should tip you off to the deception that the "reality" of the point of view of the movie is questionable. Which are never addressed, because the conman Nolan has been moving you along toward the target, rather than allowing you to scrutinize the fabric of the carpet.

• what is Mal's job? 

Mal creates a totem, because she is in Cobb's dream. So to figure out if she is dreaming, she just needs to spin the top and see that it behaves as expected. But in order for that to work, Cobb must not know the feel of the top. So Mal has to keep the top on her at all times in real life AND never let Cobb get a hold of it.

Cobb never...

The totem doesn't make sense. It cannot work the way it is explained. So it is a false sense of security. It is a ploy designed to misdirect your attention to verifiable facts to further convince you that the dream is reality. At first explanation, the totem logic seems reasonable. If I carry an object that only I know its true nature, no one can replicate it correctly in a dream, so in another person's dream the object will behave differently than I know is true. There is a huge fallacy in this logic that is not readily apparent! No one would construct a dream and provide you a copy of your totem. You have to bring the totem with you into your dream for it to exist at all, and if you created it, it will behave in the dream as it would in reality!


So the totem, is an invention of Mal to FURTHER convince herself that her dream WAS IN FACT reality! Completely opposite to Cobb's stated intention for the object! Ask yourself, why was it Mal who invented the idea and not Cobb? Because according to Cobb, Mal wanted to forget that the dream was not real.


Why is Mal's totem a top?

From the script:
He SPINS it onto a table it CIRCLES gracefully across
the polished ebony... a SPINNING TOP


notice that CIRCLES is capitalized. coincidence? nope. That is why the top is chosen as the iconic totem. Because of its very nature. It when behaving as a dream, is an endless cycle. It returns to its starting orientation over and over again. It keeps upright by VERY ESSENCE of this behavior! That's what allows it to not topple! The paradox can exist only as long as it endlessly loops itself, otherwise it collapses.


Anyway, concept of totem is misdirection bogus again. Because all Cobb needs to do to show Mal that their world is not real is to sculpt something he cannot do in reality. Like fold the city in on itself. One observation not sure what to do with at time of writing is, Cobb never intentionally does anything "unrealistic" while he's in a dream. It's like he can't. Ariadne can, shapeshifter guy does. His are projections of his children, mal, and a train.


Why does Cobb spin the top every night?

When Cobb spins the top, it's not to see if it will topple to show him that his world is real. It's to see if he can convince himself that his world is a dream, by making the top spin forever. Nolan said on several points that the point of the spinning top is not whether it falls or not, its that Cobb walks away. And the general interpretation of this scene is that to Cobb it doesn't matter whether the top falls down or not, it is reality to him now. That is the right conclusion, but it misses a key piece to the how/why that walking away is significant. It treats the top's fate as governed by his environment, that Cobb is observing to FIND OUT whether the top falls or not. Actually, he knows the top is going to fall down. He's trying to MAKE IT SPIN FOREVER.


Why? Because he was able to convince Mal that the world is not real, so she would escape from the dream. Now he is trying to convince HIMSELF, because he WANTS to wake up to her and the children in REALITY. But the problem is... he realized in limbo that the world is a dream, but when he woke up one level higher, he believed that the next level was reality. He thinks this world is real and he is consumed by guilt because he thinks she is actually dead. And he doesn't want to go down a level to stay with her, because he knows that is not real. But he doesn't realize this level too is a dream, so he is unwilling to believe she is right, and follow her to take his own life. But he REALLY WANTS to.


We think that he is checking the top each time he wakes up from a dream because he wants to be sure he is not in another dream. Actually, he knows he knew the truth that limbo was a dream and was able to pull Mal out by manipulating her top to spin forever. So he is testing (that's what he does every night with his tests. why it's important for him to dream, because they are together) to see if when he wakes up, he is actually still dreaming and can make the top spin forever.


Cobb is an unreliable narrator

What are Cobb's radical notions? That an idea is the most resilient parasite. Cannot be forgotten.


Cobb thinks he is the most skilled extractor, steal thoughts from other people, their secrets.


Notice Cobb says Saito has to be more open to his than his wife, his psychiatrist. If Saito is a projection of a part of Cobb himself, this would suggest Cobb is under Psychiatric treatment and his wife is also a player in his treatment. That in order to help himself, he needs to be more open to himself than he has been to the closest people around him.

Details, recurring images, and themes

Note why does the watch when first appeared shown upside down? Are we saying time is going backwards? Or is this more play on the circle idea, that which ever way you look at a circle, a loop, it remains the same geometry. Not an optical illusion like the impossible staircase that reveals its paradox when you look from another perspective.


Trains appear throughout the movie. In the first Saito extraction mission they are on a train. Trains move on set tracks. They move in parallel and completely opposite directions. Elevator is similar, elevator reappears. It moves up or down along a fixed track. So there is contrast between movement and motion. One of a circular spinning top, a paradox staircase, a circular "maze" that is actually a labyrinth with NO EXIT; and another motion of a straight line along a fixed track, with an anti-thesis in the opposite direction paired alongside it. A clear two modes, forwards and backwards. Up and down. Left and Right.


There is the theme of water. The rain in the Fischer heist. The van hitting the water, and them waking submerged and swimming to the surface. Snow in the third dream level. Waking on the shore seeing his kids. The memory of the kids with mal on the shore. The house on the cliff by the water. The water surrounding the little house that Mal hides her totem. The surfs and the ruined cities crumbling in water. The bathtub where Cobb first gets 'dunked' to wake him from his dream in the house by the cliff.


Mal asks, if i jumped (from the cliff into the sea) would I survive? Cobb says with a clean dive, you might.


Oh in that Saito castle scene. It is not known at first, the rope goes slack and Cobb falls lower than he wanted. It is assumed Mal got up and found Saito but never shown. But this mission is a metaphor for what Cobb did to Mal. Cobb breaking into Saito's vault ( like he did with Mal's to plant inception that her world was not real ). Cobb's rope pulling Mal toward the open window, where she jumps to die and wake up from what she thinks is dream and what Cobb thinks is reality. And it is implied that Mal does to Saito what Cobb did to Mal, reveal to him that this world is a dream.

Are the characters real?

I think all the characters are projections of parts of Cobb's self. Even Cobb is not really Cobb, but part of a persona of an individual we never see in reality, but only through his dream world manifestations. They are one-dimensional on purpose and have allegorical names. Dom is the dominant persona his main characteristic is guilt. Mal is the illness her personality is primarily revenge but also temptess. She is like lucifer in that a fallen angel, once most loved of Dom now is his nemesis. She often lures him into his love for her then turns nasty (stabs him with knife) when he doesn't agree to her bargain. Saito in japanese apparently has meaning of "correct", his role is of all-powerful wise. I guess you could contrast Saito and Mal as playing roles of God and Satan, since Dom has made a promise to both and they are two opposing forces that offer him a version of his paradise. Saito promises to return Dom to his children and forgive him of his "crime" of killing his wife, which is really just purging his own mind of his guilt. The projection Mal offers him to live with her and the children forever as they were in limbo. Ariadne helped Theseus out of labyrinth where men were sacrificed to Minotaur. She is the young, brilliant student and also like a life coach nudging him in the right direction to escape getting lost in his emotions over the loss of Mal. Eames means "wealthy protector" in Irish but, i think this name if has any meaning is more a play on the world Earnest ( the rn together resembles m), because his character is that of a forger, a man who deceives others with making his own appearance convincing to be someone else. His attitude is more laidback and conflicts with that of Arthur's stuffy button-down planning approach. Arthur's name doesn't connect in any apparent way. The most famous Arthur that comes to mind is that of King Arthur, who was pragmatic in wanting to keep his knights together rather than let them scatter in search of the holy grail. So in that sense, one could say that as the organizer and reliable producer in their missions he is like King Arthur governing his knights of the round table. Haha round table, another possible if reach stretch reference to the circle idea. Note Inception is like a holy grail, and Arthur says it doesn't exist, not possible. But Eames without hesitation says that it is real, and it's not a question of what to do, but how to get an idea to its simplest form. Arthur is clearly the practical and what do we know type and Eames the imaginative and creative type.

There's only one thing you need to know about Dom

Dom says to Ariadne, "there's only one thing you need to know about me." What was it? He never answers the question explicitly. Why does Nolan write that line, and then not answer it? So the audience can keep that question in mind as they watch the movie unfold.

I think the answer is guilt. Dom says the "there's only one thing you need to know about me." line to Ariadne as he starts to show Ariadne his children, but he can't look at their faces. He says later it's because he wants to see them in real life, but I find that reason to be unconvincing. He literally can't face his children. I believe that's a sign of guilt.

Somehow everything Dom does in the movie is tied back to his own guilt. Dom blames himself for Mal's death. Even when they are on a mission that has nothing to do with Mal, she is there to sabotage him. The only reason Dom accepted the mission was to return home to his children. Even the target of the mission is about the relationship between a child and his father (with no mention of the mother), and how the dreamed-up father shows his remorse to his son for not being there for him emotionally.

Notice how the pinwheel is another manifestation of the circle theme. It spins. ^_^
It is implanted as an idea into the target's mind, like Dom implanted the top in Mal's mind.
It is locked in a safe and convinces its owner of an idea that shapes his reality.
Mal's top convinced her to kill herself for her children. The target's pinwheel convinces him to live his own life, not for the sake of his father's disappointment in him.
Mal's totem was a harmful idea, created with good intentions to free her from a false reality. The pinwheel was devised with bad intentions to sabotage the target's inheritance, but ended up benefiting the target with a fake idea.

What is the message Nolan is 'incepting' into our minds through this movie?

Inception is about irrational feelings shaping our interpretation of reality. It's about how we come to believe in the things we do, and how we our dreamed-up (fabricated) intentions control our actions. Perhaps we thought of the idea ourselves through our own experience, or perhaps it was implanted in our minds with the use of elaborate stories and language. It's about mind control. It's about how one irrational emotion like guilt can overwhelm a man's senses and motivations. If harmful thoughts can be implanted, perhaps life-affirming ideas can be implanted too. It's also about the experience of the movie itself to be like a dream. How movies play a role in influencing people's perceptions of reality.