***Please note the following contains major SPOILERS for both "Inception" and "The Prestige"***
It's Never too late to talk about "Inception"
So, after seeing the film again, my opinion of the film changed after I picked up on things that I didn't the first time. The first time I became enchanted by it, but left the theater feeling a little cold about it. I loved the last haunting image, but didn't feel the pieces fit together very well.
Inception is definitely a film that needs to be seen more than once, because Nolan throws so much razzamatazz at us, that he’s disguised the subtleties and what he's really getting at, IMHO. He did the same thing with "The Prestige". In that flawed but pretty fantastic film, he made us think as if it's a magician's trick, that the whole point of the story was to reveal how Christian Bale made his Prestige work. And the reveal of that is “The Big Twist”. Duhn duhn duhn. Thing is, when you see it a second time, you realize that it's really not about The Big Twist, but actually about Hugh Jackman's obsession and how his plotting leads to his own death and demise. He’s the Antagonist! We're told a story through the antagonist’s perspective, thinking he's the protagonist. Kinda brilliant. Now, there were flaws in the way that story was told (i.e. why the time shifts? they served no purpose), but in the end, Nolan was going for the best storytelling illusion of all, by tricking us into following the Antagonist as Protagonist.
So, "Inception". It's about dreaming. It's about Dom Cobb’s subconscious. We don't realize it at first, but it's about him coming to terms with himself. Because of the intricate plotting, Nolan has hoodwinked us into following a quite brilliant MacGuffin... the Inception of Robert Fischer, Jr. (There’s a nifty and very subtle trick with his name, but I’ll get to that in a sec). But in the end, the point of the film isn’t if RFJ ended up using the “idea that was incepted”. His subconscious is telling him to deal with things in his real life.
Now, I’m gonna assume that Nolan may be getting a kick out of everyone's "theories". And everyone seems to be stuck in their debates that we’re dealing with a story set in actual reality, regardless of the fact that the MAJORITY of the film is set in a dreamscape. And in my opinion, that majority is like 98.7% of the film, but I'll get to that in a minute. In all the debates I've come across, no one is talking about the significance and meanings of the images we are given within the film. Anyone who has gone down the rabbit hole of reading dream dictionaries or studying Freudian or Jungian theories on dreams knows that what you see in a dream is your subconscious telling you about something that needs to be dealt with in real life. I challenge everyone who’s seen the film to go to Google and type in “Dream interpretation”. There you’ll be listed with TONS of sites dedicated to dream interpretation. Then, plug in the images we constantly see in the film… trains, elevators, dead spouse, children, oceans and beaches, skyscrapers, knives, guns, spinning tops, etc. etc. etc……
Here’s my whacky theory: The movie we’re seeing is basically one long dream. Not several dreams surrounding real life. It's all just Dom’s dream. It’s not that he’s always in a dream and never gets out. It’s more like, the whole thing is a dream, then he wakes up on the plane at the end. Now you say, “well, we saw him go to sleep on the plane.” OK, maybe we did, but maybe Dom is just a normal guy who has a crazy dream. We’ve ALL been there. And in his dream, he dreams about being some Subconscious SuperSpy who hijacks dreams in a James Bond fashion. You say, “But what about all the people on the plane with him? He knows them so well.” We think he does. Everyone has dreams where they are “familiar” or even “friends with” people in dreams that they aren’t so in real life. Best example, dreaming you know a Celebrity. In the dream, you’re sure the relationship is real as anything you’ve ever known. That Jack Nicholson and your Dad go way back. But then you wake up. Also, people are also heavily influenced by the final things they experience in their day before they go to sleep. Last week I was at a friend’s house late, came home and went immediately to bed. I dreamt that night that I was in that house, with the very same people I had been with.
Now, go with me here... What if those people on the plane are playing characters in Dom's dream (where he puts a face to aspects of his psyche), because they’re the last ones he sees before he goes to sleep. In that final shot on the airplane, everyone wakes up peacefully. The briefcase with the tubes is noticeably absent, and they do not try to get anything out of Robert Fischer’s sight. (A side thought, and boy are their many with this film, if Saito was Fischer’s rival, wouldn’t there be some kind of acknowledgment that the two men, who can supposedly both afford their own private jets, be sitting side by side on this flight? Without even acknowledging each other? Also, the thing about RFJ's name? His father is named "Maurice Fischer". Juniors can only be Juniors if their father's name is the same. Curious...) Then there’s Ariadne (Ellen Page). Notice her glance at Dom. It’s kind of a “what the fuck are you looking at freak?” sort of look. Not to mention, her name is Ariadne, which is a strange enough name as it is. But, in Greek mythology, Ariadne is the daughter of King Minos, who created the Labyrinth and helps Theseus through it to beat the Minotaur… coincidence, that Inception’s Ariadne is basically DOING THE SAME THING?
Everyone keeps saying, this’s and that’s about how what does and doesn’t work. Again, this is only because their assumption is that this story is grounded in conscious reality, but it’s not. I realized that some of the illogic, specifically the sudden rules about dying leading them into limbo, and other things that the characters say are “truths”, but in actuality it’s all just part of dream logic. How often do you have a dream where things make OBVIOUS sense in the dream, but once you wake up, it’s completely ridiculous in conscious logic? One must be aware of this when watching the film, because even the “conscious reality” in the film has certain things off about it. Such as, why is Michael Caine in Paris? And then “home” when Dom comes back? Nothing is ever revealed as to what Michael Caine is (other than Dom’s father? Wait is he Mal’s father? Did they ever really explain? I’m gonna assume Dom’s father). Also notice how the Mumbasa part seems to be more of a dream than actual reality. People keep looking at Dom. The Kobal Engineering guys are chasing him. Into an alley that when he first went in was just a regular alley, but by the time he got to the other end, he has to squeeeeeeze out. Then. Saito SHOWS UP OUT OF THE BLUE!? The logic is explained by Saito keeping tabs on him, but that’s kind of convenient in actual reality, no?
So with all this, the biggest thing is the symbology. We’re told that Mal died, that Dom’s grieving her death, that he witnessed her dying. We're meant to believe this is a memory. But notice how she’s on the ledge of the building across the way? Notice how the interior of that room is also the interior of the suite Dom’s standing in?
Now, with the narative, we are assuming the OBVIOUS. We THINK Dom needs to deal with the death of his wife and his mourning. BUT, it's interesting... in dream interpretation, if you see your spouse get killed in the dream, it usually has to do with divorce or relational separation in the real world. Knives (which Mal plays with CONSTANTLY in the film. Another quick side note, "Mal" in latin means "death". Or "bad".) are also a dream symbol for aggression and anger towards someone. Interesting concept, no? That this whole fucked up dream, is really his subconscious telling him to move on. I guess it works also if she died, but what if the Real Mal just left and divorced him, rather than her actually dying. We’ll never know. But it seems to be that it could be she did just leave him.
This leads me to the two big symbols. The one everyone is obsessed with... The Top. And the one I'm obsessed with... Dom's Children.
Everyone is so focussed on that final image of the Spinning top. Because, in the film's dream, the rule is that the Top doesn't stop spinning while in the dream. At the end Nolan cleverly (perhaps pretentiously) cuts to Black and Credits roll, just before we can tell if the Top falls or not. It wobbles.... but we'll never know. Tops in dreams mean remaining idle. That's Dom's subconscious dilemna. He can't move on from Mal. So, lets say the top falls. Even if the whole thing is a dream, it still means he moved on. But I think the top is just Nolan's other MacGuffin. It only follows it's symbolic logic.
I think the only symbol in the film that truly tells us that Dom is awake is his children. Through the entire film the WILL NOT LOOK AT HIM. It's the "frustration" thing in dreams. Where you're trying to control what's going on, but your subconscious refuses. But Dom doesn't try to get them to look at him. He just sees them as "guides" through the dreams, though deep down he's desperate for them to look at him. At the very end... they look. And he hugs and gets to love on them. To me this says he's in reality. And he's happy, because he's finally let Mal go!
So what do you think happened? Everyone's got a theory, and none of them appear to match. Interesting.
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