Yo dawg I heard you like dreams, so I put you in a dream within a dream within a dream.
So Inception has just passed its tenth anniversary and with Tenet possibly coming out soon I thought I’d take another look at the film to break down all of the cool little details in it.
There will be Heavy Spoilers here so if you’ve been living in a dream world and haven’t had a chance to check it out yet then I recommend that you turn it off now.
Cobb’s Totem Explained
Right, let’s start at the top.
So Inception has an ambiguous ending that at the time left every viewer debating whether our main character Cobb had returned to the real world or if he was actually still stuck in a dream.
It’s something that fans went back and forth over for the past decade but Nolan actually did drop a specific clue into the movie that confirmed Cobb made it home to his family. Throughout the film whenever the character is in a dream he can be seen wearing his wedding ring. This is because his wife Mallorie is very much alive whenever he’s in his sedated state and thus he doesn’t want to quite cast away the memory of her.
This is probably a theory that you’ve seen dotted about on the internet before as it’s been about for a while now, however one thing I haven’t seen that much centres around Cobb’s Totem.
Throughout the entire movie, we are told that the spinning top is actually his Totem and that this is what he uses to assess whether he’s in the real world or not. I actually don’t believe that this is Cobb’s Totem at all and I think that the simply tells everyone that it is because he’s so paranoid. Cobb clearly struggles with grasping reality in the first place and I feel like he’s the kind of character that would keep his true totem to himself. We are told in the film that no one should touch anyone else Totem and that doing so can cause issues. The spinning top itself also belonged to Mal so it is unlikely that Cob would take it.
The fact we know that the ring indicates what is real and what isn’t to me tells us that the ring is actually what Cobbs Totem is. If he’s wearing it he knows he’s in a dream and if he’s not he knows he’s in reality which is far more trustworthy than the Totem. Cobb spins the top at the end of the movie but upon seeing his family’s faces goes to them instead and allows it to spin without him seeing the outcome.
Doing this pretty much invalidates the spin showing that he simply doesn’t care about the outcome because he already knows the truth.
Characters Names
The cool little easter eggs don’t stop there either and if you take the first letter of all the characters’ names in the movie and rearrange them they actually spell out the words Dreams Pay.
This is because of Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur, Mal, Saito, Peter, Ariadne and Yusuf.
Their names also have specific meanings behind them, Cobb was actually the name of a thief in Nolan’s first film The Following. It also means Dream in Sanskrit. On top of this, it could be seen as meaning Cobweb which is of course a trap laid out by a spider.
Ariadne is actually from ancient myth and the name comes from the Minotaur and the Labyrinth. This is fitting as she builds mazes.
Yusuf is the Arabic version of Joseph, someone who interpreted the Pharoah’s dreams in the bible and Fisher may come from King Arthur. In the myths, Fisher’s kingdom changed due to the wounds that were inflicted upon him and throughout the film we see the locations change depending on his mental state.
The movie itself is of course about a crew that makes money from carrying out heists in dreams and thus dreams pay.
The Plot
Now as for the story and its many easter eggs, we open in the middle with Cobb washing up on the shore, unsure of exactly what’s going on. Nolan stated that he wanted the movie itself to feel like a dream for the viewer in that we didn’t really have any idea how we got there or what exactly was going on. The credits of the movie reflect this too and the title text Inception appears three times at the end of the film. This is meant to represent the three layers and as we watch the text pop up we are coming further out of the dream that the movie has taken us through.
Cob is taken to Saito’s palace which the character actually constructed for the character earlier in the movie so he could rob him. As we know that all the dreamer’s subconscious can exist down there it makes a lot of sense how he was able to copy it so well.
We realise that Cob is carrying out a heist on Saito’s corporate plans for his competitors. We’re introduced to Mal as she looks over the edge of a balcony, something that teases how the character died in reality. We also see a picture by Francis Bacon. This was actually created by the artist to remember his lover who sadly died. This painting is a representation of Bacon trying to hold onto his lover but how he has created a twisted memory of them, much like how Cobb has with his late wife. Cobb goes about stealthily killing the projections in Saito’s subconscious. Though his gun has a silencer on it he also puts his hand over the gun to catch the cartridge as it ejects to not make any extra sound.
Cobb gets the secrets but is caught by Saito who was informed of what they were doing by Mal. Now Mal is an extension of Cobb and there’s actually a cool little moment here which gives that away. When Saito discovers that Cobb managed to steal his secrets Mal can actually be seen smiling for a split second showing she’s happy he got away.
Use of Music
We learn about dreams within dreams and are also introduced to the song Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.
A slowed-down version of this song is actually used at the beginning of the movie and we of course see Cobb sort of waking up on the shore.
Frank Sinatra did a play on this for his infamous song My Way but a lot is going on in the original version that hints towards the psychology of Cobb. The song is actually about having no regrets and leaving the past behind, something that the protagonist refuses to do because of his wife’s death. Cobb even has an elevator that provides access to floors filled with regret so it’s clear he’s got a lot he would like to change. However, in the end, he finally lets go and reunites with his family, shedding the idea of her which has held him back throughout the film.
Cobb is the Mark Theory
It is possible that Cobb could even be the job himself and the mission is actually to try and wake him up and get him to come back to reality which is a topic for another video. Michael Caine aka Miles hints at this and yeah, let me know if you’d like me to discuss it in more detail.
Numbers
After the job goes south, they wake up on board the train and Cobb leaves as quickly as he can. He’s told to just find another carriage but he gets off the ride completely after saying he doesn’t like trains.
In the movie, we learn that he and his wife used a train to kill themselves in the deeper levels so that they could wake up. Cobb is tormented by this train and it actually shows up in the movie at a very awkward moment. So yeah, he really doesn’t like trains.
The train carries the number 3502 on it and we discover that this was the room number that he and his wife spent their anniversary in at a hotel.
Another number which reappears in the film is 528491. Fischer comes up with this random sequence as a number and later it appears as the blonde lady from Westworld’s phone number. It is also part of the room number that the team stay in. This is room 528 and the room directly below it where Arthur sets explosives in is 491. Yikes, in the finale Fischer also opens the safe with the code 528491.
If this hasn’t blown your mind then you should also know that #528491 can be used as a hex colour code to display the shade of Cyan which was used on a lot of the branding in the movie.
BWAAAAAM
That’s the noise of every graphic designer’s head exploding.
Meeting The New Team
Cobb goes to Michael Caine and is introduced to Ariadne. Cobb puts her through her paces and gets her to design a maze. Initially, he gives her a notepad with a grid on it. She draws a rectangular maze and fails time and time again. The grids are holding her back and thus she flips the notepad around and draws it on the back of the pad where there are no lines to distract her. Cobb also can’t tear this out because it makes for the base of the book
When planning out how they’re gonna carry out their heist they spend the majority of the scenes in the dreamworld. This is because time works differently in a dream and using the time dilation that is present within the realities they have longer to plan out the mission.
We also meet Eames who is a forger. When we first come across the character he’s gambling and actually loses his hand. However, he still goes up with a full stack of chips likely meaning that they are fake. This is kinda hinted at by Cobb picking up one of the chips and Eames saying that his forgery goes far beyond handwriting.
We also meet Yusuf who works with chemicals and sedatives. You might notice his cat climbing around and licking a pot beside him. The next time we see the cat it’s asleep so we can kinda guess what was in that.
The Plan
Slowly they put it all together and board the same plane as Fischer which is chartered by Saito.
Cobb orders water which Fischer then gets as well, this allows Cobb to sedate him as he takes the glass first and passes it forward.
You could say he Intercepted the drink.
I’m here all week thank you.
Here they enter the first layer. Now a cool little detail in this is that all of the cars have their own State Motto in this reality. Normally, American cars have state mottos so that you can tell where they’re from. In Inception, these all have the phrase “The Alternate State” written on them. The alternate state is of course a reference to dreams which are often classed as an alternate state.
They take Fischer to a safe house and I love how when Eames is adopting his Browning disguise you can slowly see him changing in the mirrors on the dressing table.
After Fischer’s subconscious descends on the location the group flee to a bridge whilst they go further into the mind of their target. A cool little moment happens when Yusuf actually sticks his middle finger up to Fischer’s forces before he drives off the bridge. This is a bit of a blink and you’ll miss it moment but it’s really cool.
They arrive at the Hotel Valfierno which we can see written on a napkin. Eduardo De Valfierno was allegedly a con man who put together a group that stole the Mona Lisa in 1911. He wished to make copies of it to sell them off to six buyers but the group were caught and the painting was returned in 1913. There’s actually no evidence that Eduardo actually existed so this is a cool little easter egg for the name of the hotel.
Clever Film Making
They trick Fischer into going further into the dream with them whilst Arthur stays behind to set up the kick. This starts one of the best scenes in film history and I don’t even care, that Hallway fight still looks amazing.
Now the lack of gravity provided a lot of challenges for the filmmakers, namely with Elliot Page’s hair and how it would move. Thus Nolan said that they would tie it up in a bun to stop it from moving about. In the rooms we also see certain things moving around except for the duvets on the bed. Hotel duvets are tucked in tightly so this would stop them from moving around.
The way that the scenes are edited is also a very similar technique to what Nolan would later use in Dunkirk. The top-level scenes time-length-wise are shorter than the middle which are in turn shorter than the bottom level. So just as time gets longer the further we go down in the levels, the lengths of the scenes do too.
Deeper into the Dream
Now in the Ice Base, I wanna call it, it’s very similar to the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s secret service, Nolan actually said this was his favourite bond movie so it’s great to see him paying homage here and hopefully one day he gets to direct one.
They infiltrate the base but Mal, unfortunately, shows up and intercepts their plans. No one is actually able to warn Fischer because before he enters the complex from the pipes his radio cackles and he turns it off. Thus they weren’t able to tell him.
They enter the subconscious that Cobb and Mal built to rescue Fischer whilst Arthur moves the bodies about. I love how he had to tie them up to transport them about and he even closes the case before things go zero G so that the equipment inside doesn’t go floating around everywhere.
Cobb’s Guilt
In the third layer, Cobb expresses the guilt over spinning the top within Mal’s mind as this made her lose her grip on reality. This is where it’s once more confirmed that Mal’s totem was the top and thus it does add a lot of weight to our theory at the start of the video. We also see that it was the train that killed the pair and this is why Cobbs hates them so much.
Now I have seen people think that Cobb was a bad dude for doing this, however, all he was trying to do was make Mal realise that the reality they’d built was well…real. However, this inception worked too well and upon exiting it she started to question every reality.
Cobb sends Ariadne and Fischer up to the top layer and travels to Saito which is what we see in the opening of the movie. Because Saito died before Fischer and the others in the upper layer he’s been down there much longer and has aged considerably.
Happy Ending?
It’s also possible that the entire movie has just been a flashback of Cobb sitting like this and this is why we cut back to it instantly at the beginning. In dreams, you can often go from a time and location instantaneously and Cobb himself may be sort of daydreaming about what led to this moment as he remembers it.
Fischer comes face to face with his father who gives him the windmill that we saw the young Robert have as a child and thus the idea that he should go on a different path from his father is planted within his mind.
Cobb rescues Saito who makes the call to allow him through at the border and thus he gets to go home to his family. On the table, we can a small little building made out of blocks. Cobb’s son even says “we’re building a house on a cliff” hinting that he may follow in his father’s footsteps as an architect. Either way, it doesn’t matter as he gets his happy ending and to be with his family.
It is possible that the entire movie was actually inception carried out by his family to finally get him to let go of his wife, but as I said, ‘nother time, ‘nother video…maybe next week, let’s see.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.