Overdose Delusion

Screenshot from Inception, 2010

I said I'd write up an analysis of Inception after another viewing and I've now seen it thrice - twice on the big screen, and once on the small screen *cough*. I've already pre-ordered it. Here I've tried to reign in my branching interpretations...

»Spoilers Throughout«

For a lot of people, and myself on first viewing, the debate centres around Cobb being left behind in limbo to look for Saito. When the van submerges in the river we see Cobb and Saito are the only ones who have not been kicked out and begun to surface. I've seen this interpreted as Cobb drowning and the final sequences of return home to his children being his Jacob's Ladder-esque dying fantasy. However, the Fischer kidnap and chase sequences all occur in Yusuf's dream. As with shooting Saito, drowning here would simply lead to limbo and as Cobb is already in limbo, dying at this point is inconsequential. When does the dream begin, if the ending is a dream?

Twice it is stated that no-one should interfere with or otherwise touch your totem as this would invalidate the purpose of it - that the physical properties of the object are known only to oneself as the dream world is primarily textural and tactile, rather than visual. This raises a problem with Cobb's spinning top totem in that it is not actually his. In the course of the film we see that it was actually Mal's, that she had locked it away to forget that she was dreaming. Cobb sets it spinning within the safe causing Mal to understand she was not in reality. Though we see that Cobb and Mal were indeed in a shared dream and awoke to reality, it is still true that Cobb interfered with the spinning top which raises some doubts in my mind - perhaps Mal can no longer trust her totem in reality which sets her on the path to suicide. If we ignore that though, it still stands that the spinning top should not be an effective totem for Cobb. I've seen it proposed that Cobb actually has an unconscious totem - his wedding ring. That in any dream sequence he is seen wearing it, but not in reality when assembling his team. This would in effect be the audience's totem.

The real challenge in Inception, is to identify when Cobb is in reality, if ever. Cobb believes in his totem's effectiveness, and if we do too then there is one point when it fails to establish the nature of reality: After awakening in Yusuf's cellar, Cobb drops the totem when interrupted by Saito whilst attempt to spin it. He picks it up but does not retry. If we conclude that the ending shows the totem about to topple, then it is effective throughout and Cobb does surface in reality, including the ending. This still leaves the exception of sampling Yusuf's sedative in Mombassa. Whether or not it topples in the final scene is not important, the cut to credits before an answer is there to prompt discussion. The real question is why Cobb walks away from the spinning top before he has an answer. He sets it spinning but walks away to see his children. He may be doing what Mal does in their dream when she puts the totem away and accepts the dream as reality. The exit from the plane and walk through the airport does seem off - each of the characters looking at Cobb without saying a word, and I swear I can hear the respirator-like sound of the dream machine when the immigration official checks his passport.

»Highlight hidden text to read spoilers for Memento«

In Memento, Leonard creates and realises his own narrative through manipulating facts as he has retrograde amnesia and will not remember tampering.

If Cobb is still dreaming in Yusuf's cellar and has joined the other Mombassa residents in embracing the dream as reality, then he has escaped Cobol Engineering, come to terms with his wife's death, returned home and reunited with his children. Perhaps Cobol imprison him in his own dreams for his failure at the start of the film? Perhaps his family has put him under as a form of therapy - "Come back to reality". Perhaps he accepts the dream and does there what he cannot surmount in reality - "Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion". If this were the case, it would be an inversion of the films Nolan cites as influences. The Matrix, Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor all have someone awaken into reality - Cobb would instead drift into a dream and become lost in his own world.

As the old man says, "Who are you to say what is real?"

[804]