Warning! Spoiler alert! This analysis is a major spoiler for Inception. Please do not read it until you've experienced Christopher Nolan's movie for yourself.
ANALYSIS
ANALYSIS
In the beginning of the movie, you see two characters you have no idea about – Cobb and Saito. Then, in the next scene, Cobb tries to extract information out of him through his dreams. Saito is a wealthy businessman, who wants Cobb and his team to implant an idea in the mind of the heir to a multi-billion dollar empire. His name is Robert Michael Fischer. Cobb gets a chance at redemption and in order to get back to the US and see his kids again, he has to complete this job for Saito. His team seeks the help of Yusef who prepares a powerful sedative which makes the dreams so stable that they can start numerous dreams within dreams. As they need 10 hours to perform the job, they sedate him on a flight from Sydney to LA and enter his dream.
Now the thing about dreams is that the dreamer fills it with the content of their subconscious, but the people sharing the dreams can alter the environment. If the dreamer's subconscious finds a person changing the dream, it comes under attack by the projections of the subconscious (hordes of people). If you die in a dream, you wake up. However, in this case, the sedative is so potent that if you die in a dream, you end up in limbo, an expanse of infinite raw subconscious. It is the deepest anyone can travel into the mind.
Fischer's subconscious is trained to combat intruders like Cobb and his team so they have to resort to Mr. Charles tactic in order to gain Fischer's trust. Cobb impersonates Mr. Charles and alerts him about the dream he is in and thus Fischer breaks into his own subconscious. They manage to pull it off and Fischer along with the team burst into a hotel room where they enter another dream within a dream. Arthur stays behind to fight off the subconscious and protect Fischer and the team.
The third dream level in the inception on Fischer's mind is dreamed by Eames. They arrive in snow-covered mountains (BTW. have you noticed the wallpaper in the background?) where they have to break into the security facility to access Fischer's and his godfather's secrets.
Eames, as the one who knows the dream and can navigate the maze, leads Fischer's projections on a chase as Fischer and Saito make their way to the hospital. However, Saito dies of the gunshot wound he had received in Level 1. The musical cue warning that the van in the first level will hit the rail of the bridge begins to sound, but the sleepers in the Mountain fail to hear it. When the van does hit the rail, it causes an avalanche on the Mountain. Cobb realizes that the only other kick from Level 1 will come when the van hits the water, so the team needs to hurry. Ariadne tells Cobb about a shortcut, which allows Mal to enter the dream. She shoots Fischer and kills him, sending his mind to Limbo. Cobb then kills Mal.
With Fischer dead, the team is prepared to give up on the Inception attempt, but Ariadne suggests that she and Cobb rescue Fischer from limbo, administering a kick to sync with another kick in Level 3 to wake him. Eames agrees and sedates Ariadne and Cobb. Eames then plants the charges that will trigger the mass kick later. After completing that, Eames uses a defibrillator on Fischer, which in unison with the kick administered in limbo, wakes him up.
Fischer, now awake and alive, enters the vault of the hospital which contains a projection of his moribund father, who tells Fischer that he was only ever disappointed that Fischer wanted to be like him, considering it an unworthy fate for his son. At this point, inception has occurred and Ficher is convinced that he must split up his company.
Once inception has occurred, Eames detonates the charges, causing a mass kick that, in combination with a kick from limbo, wakes Ariadne. The kick also allows the sleepers in Level 3, including Ariadne and Fischer to all wake from Level 3.
At the beginning of the movie, Cobb says that an idea is the most resilient and contagious parasite out there, growing and taking hold of the brain until it's impossible to eradicate. His wife is long dead, but his subconscious still projects her throughout the whole movie because of guilt. Dom blames himself for the death of his wife because he planted an idea in her mind that the reality was a dream. She consequently committs suicide by jumping off a building in order to wake up, despite Cobb's pleas. Accused of murder, Dom must flee leaving his kids behind in the US with his parents.
One of the last scenes shows Cobb waking up in the airplane and everyone smiling at him with pleasure. Mission complete! Saito keeps his promise to get Dom back in the US, and they end up at the airport and go through immigration control without a single problem.
Cobb arrives home and sees his kids faces for the first time in many years. His father greets him and they are all happy. At this point, Dom spins his top and approaches the kids. The movie ends with the top still spinning, but wavering a bit. It's ambiguous because if the totem continues to spin it could mean that it is a dream. We'll never know if it's a dream or reality because the scene stops suddenly and doesn't show the top toppling over.
There is a possible explanation for this. The first one involves Cobb testing Yusef's sedative for the very first time. After he comes out of the dream, he goes to the bathroom and tries to spin the top. He never gets to spin it because Saito interrupts him. This means that he doesn't verify that he came out of the dream. As a result, the rest of the movie was Cobb's dream entirely.
INTERPRETATION
A plausible interpretation of the movie that appeals to me is floating around the Internet (or limbo!). It claims that the movie is a metaphor for the way Nolan, as a director, works. Catharsis found in a dream is as real as catharsis found in a movie, and as real as catharsis found in life.
Therefore, Inception is about making movies. Cinema is the shared dream that is of interest to the director.
There are many indicators that Inception is a dream and even dream sharing might be a dream. This would mean that Dom isn't an extractor and can't infiltrate other people's dreams. At one point, his dead wife, Mal challenges the authenticity of his world where he's being chased across the globe by faceless corporate goons.
Let's take a look at totems. They're personal items unique to the dreamers, used to tell if someone is awake or asleep. Cobb's reality is defied by the totem he uses. His top spins endlessly when he's dreaming and topples over when he's awake. The problem is that the top wasn't always his totem. He got it from Mal who committed suicide. Cobb remembers her death. It's unusual that she is sitting on the ledge of the building opposite the rented hotel room to which Dom was lured. When you think about it you might say that she rented another room across the street, but what are the chances of planning it out that way? It's very plausible however, in dream logic.
So is the whole movie a dream or reality? Or maybe both, interweaved? Do you dare to jump off the ledge to find out?
