With over a week now passed since the opening of Chris Nolan’s Inception, which is perhaps the most cerebral mainstream movie released so far this year, we thought it would be rewarding to analyze it a little further. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a neuroscientist who visits other people’s dreams (along with his own) and has a complex relationship with his late wife through these dreams, the film’s story is rife with philosophical quandaries and interpretive possibilities. Below, we try to take a look at some of both. To further appreciate any film you must look more intently at it and focus on the finer details, because sometimes these details can change how you view the bigger picture. Not that we would be so presumptuous to say that we are about to unveil some monumental factor that will knock your socks off, but taking the following analysis with a grain of salt might cause you to reconsider what you think you already know about this mind-blowing film.

Caution: It is highly recommended that you see Inception before reading any further

Part 1 – Interpretation of the Ending

At the very end of the movie when the various team members are receiving their last “kicks” (the series of jolts that awake them from each successive dream level) we see that Cobb (DiCaprio) has elected to stay behind to try and find Saito (Ken Watanabe) who is presumably lost in his own limbo due to “dying” while dreaming under such heavy sedation. What “limbo” is exactly is not really explained, but we are told that it’s more or less a dream that’s almost impossible for you wake up from (to read exactly why this could be considered a bad thing, see our review). When Cobb finally meets up with Saito again – a meeting which we saw the beginning of at the onset of the narrative – the business mogul has aged severely and barely remembers the events that transpired in the previous dream levels. Cobb too has only limited recollection of the film’s preceding ninety minutes, but both vaguely remember the deal they struck that would allow Cobb to finally go home to his family. At the moment of this recollection the film cuts to everyone waking up on the airplane, where we see Saito alive and well and beginning to make the phone call that will allow Cobb to pass through customs once they land in Los Angeles (fulfilling his end of the previously mentioned deal). We then see Cobb pass through customs and arrive at his home where he is greeted by his son and daughter, successfully completing the objective he carried throughout the movie.

On the surface it would seem that everything ends on a very happy note, but there are a number of details within this ending that we must explore. First off, we are forced to ask exactly how it is that Cobb was able to recover from being in limbo with Saito. Before the cut back to the airplane we see that Cobb possesses a gun, and earlier in the story we are informed that dying in a dream is a way of waking you up. But later on we are told that this tactic doesn’t work while under the kind of deep sedation that the group had to be in so they could go down 3 dream levels. To die in that situation would leave you in a state of mind that would make you unaware of where or who you are, unable to wake up (i.e. trapped in limbo). We know that Cobb goes into limbo with Saito because he could not have run into him otherwise since Saito died in the third dream level (where Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) finally confronts his father and the Inception occurs that will cause him to break up his father’s company). So if Cobb and Saito are unable to escape limbo, how is it that they wake up back on the airplane to L.A.? The simple answer is that they didn’t.

What could be what happened are two different scenarios. First, Cobb could have used the gun to “kill” himself and enter yet another level of dreaming that would take him so far into his mind (even though he is in Saito’s limbo) that his subconscious and higher consciousness became fused, allowing his subconscious to fully control what he is able to perceive; which would likely be the events that we first presumed actually took place (waking up on the plane, seeing his kids, etc.). Secondly, he could have conceivably – being a master of dreams and in a state of limbo – performed Inception on himself. By this I mean that he could have, with his subconscious and higher consciousness in such close proximity (if not by now being one in the same or working in tandem), implanted the idea in his own mind that he would wake up and return to his children. The film explains that performing Inception requires the implanting idea be basic and simple, and preferably emotional in a positive way. The idea of going home and reuniting with your children fulfills all of those requirements. So, with Cobb’s subconscious desperate to fulfill this fantasy and finally able to make him truly believe it is real, we see what he wants to see.

There is reason, however, to think that we are not meant to believe what it is he believes. Some of you might have already thought “but what about the totem?” – Don’t think I forgot. At the very end when we see Cobb spin his totem we are not able to see if it continued to spin or toppled over (supposedly indicating either that he’s dreaming or back in reality). The possible reason for this could be that it doesn’t actually matter. That we don’t know if it continued to spin or toppled over is supposed to instill doubt that Cobb has indeed returned to reality. This is director Chris Nolan’s final clue. Immediately before we pan back to check on the spinning totem we see Cobb reunite with his kids, who haven’t aged a day and are wearing the exact same clothes as when we saw them in previous dreams and flashbacks despite Cobb supposedly not having been home in quite some time. It is important to notice that when Cobb spins his totem he does not stay long enough to see whether or not it topples over. This could indicate that he doesn’t in fact care, which would be because his subconscious is trying to fulfill its fantasy (which A) it has already convinced the higher consciousness to believe is real, and B) it can control whether it spins or topples anyway because it controls what Cobb perceives). What’s more, if you remember back to the very beginning when Cobb is taken by Saito’s men and has his pockets emptied, both Saito and his men at one point possess Cobb’s spinning totem. Knowing, once we’re able to see the context of this meeting, that this happened right before Cobb and Saito appear to have awakened back on the plane, does this give us further reason to distrust the totem when we see it spinning in the closing shot? The rule of totems is that no one besides you is ever supposed to touch your totem, because that is the whole purpose behind them. The corruption of the totem was no doubt noticed by Cobb, which could have been another reason why he didn’t bother to see if it toppled over in the final shot. So, even if his subconscious had not taken full control of his powers of perception, he knows he can no longer trust his totem. His disregard for whether the totem stops spinning could then also be a conscious decision to no longer care about his mental state because he is finally able to reunite with his kids. In the end, all that mattered to him was living his real dream.

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Read Part 2  >>

Edit: After watching Inception now over a dozen times I have been able to view certain aspects of it in several different lights, which have led me to be less certain about my comprehensive interpretation. I certainly still consider the above analysis valid, but there are plenty of would-be “clues” to support differing and equally valid perceptions.