(Where are 2-4? shutup, that's where! :P)
Slate has a superb piece, "
Five Ways of Looking at Inception" that is simply brilliant.
True to my contrarian nature, I am most enamored with possibility 3,
READING 3: Everything we see is a product of Cobb's subconscious.
Cobb is dreaming on his own—there is no team—and he's working through his feelings for Mal. Maybe there's no such thing as dream extraction in the first place. Maybe Mal didn't even die!
This one seems the least plausible to me, if only because it discounts so much of what we've seen. I can't imagine Nolan would spend that much time and energy laying out all those clues and rules if every single one of them was bunkum.
Well, call me imaginative, but I can imagine Nolan doing that! I don't think each of the 5 different options presented in the article are mutually-exclusive (Cobb could be dreaming and it could also be a metaphor for film-making), but some are. Regardless, I support 3 fully, and for additional reasons as follow:
a) watch the physics of they characters in the chase in Mombasa - they 'crumple' to the ground just as unnaturally as the characters during the purported dream sequences. Also, why does the physics of the van tumbling (off the freeway) and in freefall (off the bridge) affect the 2nd-layer dream's physics (the hotel) but not the third layer's (the winter fortress)?
b) Saito and Mal use similar, sometimes even identical, phrases during the film. Saito tells Cobb he needs to take a leap of faith, a comment made by Mal before her suicide and again made by Saito in the final scene in limbo. Yet Mal and Saito never met in "real" life, so the fact that their phrasings are so similar suggests that they are not separate individuals in the true sense but rather projections of Cobb's own subconscious.
c) (this is a big one): the spinning top is a very clever RED HERRING. Whether it topples or not has no bearing to reality. Why? First, it was Mal's totem. Cobb mentions several times that it was the only thing he had left of hers. Seeing as how other people cannot even let others *touch* their totems, I propose that the fact Cobb uses someone else's totem renders that totem void and unreliable (and if it wasn't her totem, why would setting it spinning in the 'safe' of her house-mind signify Cobb's inception on Mal?)
Second sub-point to c), (and I haven't looked at the script, so I'm going off memory and a second viewing) Cobb specifically says that the totem is used to "make sure you're not stuck in someone else's dream." N.b. - it is never said that the totem will help you determine if you are stuck in your *own* dream, which I posit he is. Another supporting point to this idea that the totem is useless in your own dream is the fact that Cobb refuses to be allowed (for the most part) access to the schematics of the dream-mazes because once he knows them, his subconscious can manipulate the dream world. Now, if only YOU know the physics of your particular totem, then when you are deep in the dreamworld of your own subconscious, you would similarly still know the totem's physics and be able to manipulate it.
Finally, this also explains why Cobb is able to transition more easily between dream-states (and limbo) than any other character, why he's the only one who's been able to successfully pull off an inception, and why he is constantly 'breaking' the very rules he explains to his team.
There is also a "tell" - the old man in Mombasa looks Cobb full in the face when he says, "They don't come here to dream - they come to be woken up. The dream has become their reality, and who are you to say otherwise, sir?" One final discontinuity - in the dreams, Saito dies before Fischer even opens the final room/vault. How could he know that the inception has worked? Yet upon waking, he immediately makes the magical phone call that will give Cobb a free pass back to see his children (who also happen to be wearing the same clothes as in all his dreams / memories? come on!).
Those were the main points that I thought strongly supported the idea that the whole film is a dream sequence. For me, that does not cheapen the film at all. I rarely watch a film more than once, even DVDs, but I've seen Inception
twice four times in the theatre. Definitely getting the DVD, though it won't be quite the same. I just love the combination of the cinematography and the score, the 'feel' of the film is phenomenal. The acting I found very good, and the plot was a bit thin. But the film delivered on so many other levels that the plot didn't bring my enjoyment down. Far from it.
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