A Visually Stunning Intellectual Coup!

Rating: 10/10 (18 November 2011)

Inception, as writer-director Christopher Nolan's intricately executed conceptual coup, deals with the fractured reality of dreams, and the consequences of what could be described as mind-control warfare. In this film, it is clear that Nolan is freed from any need to satisfy formulaic convention, which is part of what makes it so exciting to watch. He seems to masterfully blend intense and inventive action sequences with emotion – something that is rarely done in films that rely heavily upon physical gymnastics.
Leonardo DiCaprio's "Cobb" is a corporate raider who is tasked with infiltrating the minds of other men, with the intent to steal their ideas. The world marketplace as we have known it, is filled with individuals who have been doing just that for centuries – only not exactly through any obvious form of mind control. The Microsoft and Apple story is a perfect example of modern-day corporate thievery, when you think about how Bill Gates managed to take the existing Windows concept, apply it to another software business and ultimately copy it away from Steve Jobs and the Apple team.
Cobb is hired by a powerful billionaire to do the opposite of what he has been doing: to implant an idea into the mind of a rival, so that the rival believes it is his own concept. This ideology, in and of itself, could be considered a groundbreaking aspect of the story line. The motivation for Cobb to take on the project, is as an irresistible way for him to return to his family, from a forced exile.
The state of Limbo, which only contains things each character has built themselves, might explain why Cobb's limbo depicts so few projections. It would be far too easy to assume that Cobb remains in his "limbo" world, simply because we are never really shown where anything started. Instead, it would seem more logical that he would ultimately return to his children. Throughout the film, in so many frames, we are shown that they are the most important people to him.
This film is as much about how information is used to control situations and people, as it is about a man who has developed a way to do it through dreams. When Cobb expresses his distress that he used his own wife in a mind-game experimentation, it is easy to see why this would cause conflict for him. Because if you have any level of ethics or morals, doing this type of thing, without someone's knowledge and consent, would be one of the worst betrayals you could ever perpetrate upon another human being. What could be worse than causing someone to make disastrous decisions (as in committing suicide) because they believe it is necessary in order to get back to reality? In studies of sociopaths, manipulating information is one of the classic ways that they gain control over people. And that is what makes them so dangerous.
One of the most brilliant aspects of this film is the fact that an ambiguity remains. We are shown in the film that each person's totem is uniquely theirs, and that merely touching someone else's totem makes it invalid. So how could it be that Cobb, who is using his deceased wife's totem, would have any sort of access to its power? Cobb's connection to his wife's totem could be seen as another way that he has attempted to control her. Especially once he admits that he first experimented with the inception program on her.
Cobb's children do not age throughout the film, and they seem to match his exact memory of them. It would make sense that this memory surely would be out of date since he'd been away from them for so many months. When he finally does see their faces, they look exactly as he envisioned them, but, according to the film's costume designer, are wearing different clothes. Even so, shouldn't his children be older than in his memories? But what if time stopped at that moment. This would allow him to resume his life as he knew it. Which is exactly what human beings do when their dreams have ended.
When that totem top is spinning at the end, it seems that Cobb has dismissed it. He's not looking at it, because he doesn't care. Could it be that since he realized how he tried to control his wife (whose totem that was) – he therefore realizes that it is pointless to try to use it any more? What matters most to him at this point, and probably always, is his children. Anyone who has had children understands this connection. Ever having to leave young children before they are fully developed is a great fear of many parents. There is a huge responsibility to caring for people that you bring into this world.
Also, in the film's opening moments, we see Cobb's hand, with a wedding ring. Noticeably, he seems to only wear the ring when he is in the dream world. By the film's end, he is no longer wearing the ring. This seems to confirm that the top eventually stops spinning and that Cobb returns to the real world.
There is great potential to get confused and lost in this film, just as there is in life. In essence, many people learn that there are many realities to believe in. One person's reality is often not someone else's. Life is, a great deal of the time, about interpretation. What means a lot to one person, may mean nothing to someone else. Forcing your reality on anyone almost never comes to any good. We either learn to accept and tolerate that others have different realities, or we struggle to control them into ours. That's one of the great conflicts of life, and this writer believes, one of the main points of this brilliantly executed, luxuriously entertaining and mind-bending films.