my understanding of the ending

Rating: 10/10 (31 May 2012)

First of all i want to thank Chris Nolan...thank you thank you thank you
Reading some of the negatives reviews here I am deeply saddened by the fact that many have not even tried to understand the rules of the dreams and the role of the different characters before criticising the movie.. No, the director hasn't used different dream states to his plots convenience... there is a calculated difference between different stages of dreams and the limbo.. just because you got confused doesn't mean the plot is.
ANYWAYS to those who question how Cobb and Mal were able to fall into a limbo just on there own...I want to share my own thoughts on the subject. Many have said that limbo requires at least 3 dream stages, and hence requires at least 4 people to reach it, 1 person to stay on each dream stage allowing the others to go into deeper stages. But as I understand it, the limbo is not a higher level of dream state, rather it is an 'unconstructed' dream state as mentioned in the film. Therefore you can fall into a limbo without having constructed multiple dream layers. You can just construct a single dream layer then kill yourself to fall into an unconstructed limbo on the supposition that you are under a strong enough sedation. And thats how Cobb and Mal were able to fall into a limbo without extra personnel. They took a strong sedative that would stop them from waking up before it wore off and killed themselves at the first level of dream state, thus falling into an unconstructed limbo where Mal refused to wake up(kill herself) even after the sedation would have worn off because she accepted the limbo as reality( losing her mind, like when Ariadne tells Cobb after he decides to stay in the limbo in order to find saito "don't lose your mind"). Cobb then had to convince Mal that they were in a limbo and they killed themselves by going under the train, waking up after spending a lifetime in the limbo.
Furthermore.. having debates over the validity of Cobb's totem and whether it was about to topple at the very end is counterproductive and will have us circling in a paradoxical loop.
1. Saito's handling of Cobb's totem does not ruin its purpose, they were already in a constructed dream.
The reason why Arthur teaches Ariadne to keep her totem safe from others reach is because if an architect in the real world gets hold of her totem and observes its purpose, then the architect is be able to imitate such a totem and construct it into his architecture defeating the purpose and integrity of Ariadne's totem.
Therefore the integrity of Cobb's totem is protected throughout the film, the only other person who knew about the totem, Mal, is dead.
2. The ending doesn't simply pivot around the simple notion that if the totem spins on- its a dream and if it topples- its reality. We must take note of the scene where Cobb tries to persuade Mal that they are in reality by confronting her with his inability to control his totem. Mal argues back saying 'thats because you don't know you are dreaming'. IMO this is a very very important factor.
The last dream state or limbo Cobb puts himself into is his OWN( or his to create). The previous dreams of eames, Arthur and yusef have collapsed due to the synchronised kicks.
Lets suppose Cobb was still in the limbo when he came home to his kids. From the moment Cobb wakes up on the plane he looks confused and he checks the others to see if anything is strange. He gets home and still very vague, spins his totem but before he could see if it toppled he runs to see his kids.Now up until this very moment Cobb had restricted himself from seeing his kids faces until he was absolutely sure that they were real. But here he's not so sure. He doesn't know for a 'fact' that this is real but his wanting to 'believe'that its real ( Mal' what do you believe') has carried him from the airport to his home and to his kids despite the fact that he doesn't know for certain that they are real. But then why does the totem seem like it is about to topple at the very last cut? Because he doesn't know for sure and/or doesn't want to believe that this is a dream. And because this is HIS dream he has control over his totem, and his SUBCONSCIOUS, his longing for his kids, may well have toppled his totem to convince himself that this is REAL.
So as you can see, whether the totem topples is not so much the issue because at this very last scene and at this last scene only his totem has lost its purpose. The totem could topple in both dream and reality. This film has given us a truly open ending. chris Nolan is a genius.
i give this movie 10000000/10