Film: Inception

Inception. Great movie. See it. Trailer bellow.



Working at a movie theatre has, amidst the endless reminders of the shortcomings of our species, revealed some unforeseen pleasures to be had from the watching of humans en masse. One of my favorites is watching in anticipation as several hundred people work-out the punchline of a joke. The quickest and loudest people give courage to the more mild-mannered folks who in turn allow the timid ones to audibly chuckle. All this noise and positive energy feeds back into the crowd and, as they catch their breath and wipe away the blissful tears, the room is filled with an almost tangible sense of camaraderie and well... humanity. I love it.

SPOILERS---SPOILERS---SPOILERS---SPOILERS---SPOILERS

Very similarly, at the end of Inception, as Mr. Cobb spins his totem (the little metal top) and walks away to his kids, the crowd gets a good 30 seconds to figure out what it would mean if the top doesn't fall. As they think back 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, or even an hour into the movie they can see that the closure which for nearly three hours they worked so hard for, has just slipped through their fingers. The very audible sigh of annoyance uttered by the sold-out crowd is priceless.

What do I think the ending means? Well let me start with what I don't think happened:

1. The totem was wobbling and was going to fall, they just didn't show it.
Fail. Even if it did fall after the cut to black, the filmmakers choice not to show it means they at the very least wanted you to think about what it would mean if it didn't fall. Also, the last ten minutes of the movie following Cobb "waking up" on the plane are filmed like a dream (i.e. abrupt cuts, the dreamer is suddenly at locations with no time between, the scene at his house seems like a reconstructed memory with the same angles/lighting).

2. The whole thing was a dream.
Possible but unlikely. The totem falls several times in the beginning of the movie thus proving reality. Unless the totem concept is entirely in Cobb's mind, which is kind of a cop-out. Also, there would have been projections trying to kill them any time they were in public. "What about the men from the company that hired them for the opening job? They could be the projections!" you say. Like I said, possible but improbable. It is kinda cool to think that Mal was right and if Cobb would just die, then he'd wake up to his real life with her.

What I think really happened: when Cobb visits the Yusuf the chemist, he tries out the special sedative/dream mix. We then see a quick montage of dream events and memories before Cobb presumably wakes up. However as Cobb tries to spin the totem in the bathroom, he is startled by Saito, fumbling the totem and stowing it in his pocket. He never reestablishes reality from that point on. This means that the entire caper could be a result of the shared dream Cobb has with the dozen old men in the chemist's basement, the rest of the cast being Cobb's projections.

This is not as depressing as it sounds, however, because Cobb does finally let Mal go and sees the faces of his kids again, meaning he may have found closure or catharsis, as Cobb likes to say.