Inception. What a fantastic idea. The ability to plant an idea in the mind of a subject and let it manifest. Nolan has created a film that in theory has no boundaries. Dare to dream, he literally allowed imagination to take control and run riot on a cinema screen with some cracking actors. Epic!
The nagging question once you’ve watched this film is surely enough to drive even the most intelligent minds at MENSA insane. Asleep, or awake?
It would be pretty damn annoying, the wiles of the film drawing you in, making you believe you’re gunning for a man who has tragically lost his wife, fighting desperately just to go home and see his children. He finally gets his true dream of returning home, and ohhh and it was all a big fat lie to begin with, it would almost be as irritating as Cillian Murphy’s jaw line.
I must say that the number arguments for Cobb being asleep at the end of the film are mounting thick and fast; his children haven’t aged, the totem is still spinning and I’m sure the list goes on and on with endless speculation and relentless theories as to the true ending of Inception.
There are several occasions throughout the film where by Cobb spins the totem and it topples, thus giving us the interpretation that he is awake. However as it is Mal’s totem, surely it doesn’t matter if he spins it, he has no control over it therefore it will topple. But where is Cobb’s totem?
Another irksome niggle is that Mal manages to penetrate his dreams throughout the film, popping up at the most inconvenient times and proving slightly troublesome to say the least, this doesn’t happen when he is supposedly awake. She is absent from one of his obvious dreams, and this is clearly pointed out by Ariadne, Cobb replies that she is already gone at this point, so it could be argued that he is unknowingly repressing her and that is why she isn’t penetrating his life “up top”.
In reality when they are in the house and Cobb is looking at his children in the garden, it isn’t a dream it’s a memory he is reliving. As Mal wasn’t part of that memory she isn’t included, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t appear at any moment. As Cobb is having difficulties controlling his dreams throughout the film, surely his subconscious should take over and thrust Mal’s projection into his ‘reality’?
Throughout the dream sequences Cobb is shown wearing his wedding ring, however when he is supposedly ‘awake’ he isn’t wearing his ring (this includes the closing scene in the film). As the story is fundamentally about catharsis, a sense of having to redeem yourself and right the wrongs that were made, it seems that it is possible to argue that the wedding ring was on Cobb’s finger to remind him of the guilt he feels. As the ring is missing in the final scene it could be interpreted as he is indeed awake, or it could be because he has relinquished the immense guilt surrounding Mal’s suicide and therefore the need for his wedding ring died along with the projection of his wife.
Also, if Mal did indeed wake up when she jumped off the side of the building, why did she not then give Cobb the kick he needed to wake up and join her in reality?
Another irksome niggle was Cobb’s children, this is a tricky one as many people have pointed out. Seemingly they haven’t aged, they are wearing the same clothes as they were in Cobb’s projections, and they are in the same place in the garden when he arrives home, coincidence? This theory is easily clarified by looking at the cast list. Two actors play the children at ages 20 months and three years, two more play them later on at ages three and five years, therefore they have aged.
However, there is one very distinctive concept in the film that solidified my belief that Cobb was indeed awake, the idea planted very early on in the film. You are in a dream, it feels real, but how did you get there? “We came from the uummm…”
But we see the characters board the plane in Paris, heading for LA. We know where they’ve been, how they got there and exactly where they are heading. Proof they are awake? Possibly.
The film is very much open to interpretation, and it just goes to show how people’s thought process takes hold and goes into overdrive. At the end of the day, we’re all talking about it, was he awake, was he asleep. You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t interested in the concept, taken in by the experience and wanting to know other people thought.
The real irony of the film lies in the fact that the audiences are in a metaphorical dream state whereby they’re watching the film. When the lights come on, and the final coda plays everybody in the room wakes up. But the idea has been planted in your mind; what you just saw wasn’t real, Cobb was indeed asleep. Or was he?
Nine years on from The Matrix, arguably the greatest movies of our generation, both in narrative and visual effects. Inception is definitely a worthy adversary for the title. And I mean, come on… how suave is Arthur?
