Inception is The Most Beautiful Love Story I've Ever Watched!
Suresh K. Nagumalli, Ph.D.
LC-MS | NMR | R | Toxicology | Chemometrics | PBPK modeling
There are count less videos and articles on Inception explaining the dream levels, the inception technique and in the end if Cobb is in dream or in reality and so on. However, I will talk about the most beautiful love story in the movie. Nolan cleverly and carefully inserted the most beautiful love story in the middle.
Portraying love and writing a story about love is challenging. It is much more difficult to introduce conflict into love. Sometimes the conflict comes from your parents (The Note Book), sometimes in the story when the girl doesn’t love the guy back, the guy becomes a player (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past). Whatever is beautiful for some will be ridiculous for others (Twilight). For some love is just lust (50 Shades of Grey). Among all these different kinds of stories, there is still one aspect of love most of the stories rarely touched - letting go of your loved ones'.
If you have a tool with which you can enter your dreams and share your dreams what will you do?
Eames: They come here every day to sleep?
Elderly man: No. They come to be woken up. The dream has become their reality. Who are you to say otherwise, Sir?
Will you use the tool to be with your loved one if they are dead?
Ariadne: You are trying to keep her alive.
Cobb loved Mal very much and they grew old together (in a dream).
Ariadne: How long were you stuck there?
Cobb: Something like 50 years.?
When Mal died, Cobb had to find a way to relive those moments.
Ariadne: Why is it so important to dream?
Cobb: In my dreams we are still together.
The main story of Inception is to plant an idea in Fischer's mind to dissolve his empire.
Eames: If you're gonna perform Inception, you need imagination.
There is a subtle plot in this story which involves Cobb deciding to let go of his wife, Mal. In a way Cobb performed Inception on himself.
Ariadne: The truth that, at any minute, you might bring a freight train through the wall. The truth that Mal is bursting through your subconscious. And the truth that, as we go deeper into Fisher, we are also going deeper into you. And I'm not sure we are gonna like what we find.
We (audience) learn about inception/dream machine through Ariadne. We also learn about Cobb and Mal love story though Ariadne. Cobb has been battling through guilt all his life as the idea that killed Mal came from him.
Cobb: You don't understand. These are moments I regret. They are memories that I have to change.?
After being hopeless and confused, riddled with guilt, chased by anonymous corporations around the globe, Cobb finally accepts that his wife is gone and there is nothing he can do about it.
There are many interpretations of what does a spinning top toppling at the end scene means. I like the interpretation from Nolan himself. What's important is not whether top is spinning or not, it's whether Cobb cares or not about the top spinning. Cobb spins the top three times before that in the movie. First time he spins the top, he is very anxious though displayed very subtly by him cocking the gun and breathing heavily and only able to relax after the top falls. Second time when he is teaching Ariadne and third time when he is in Mombasa, he is visibly agitated because he wants to know whether he is in a dream or in real world. But, in the end, he doesn't care whether the top falls off or keeps spinning. He leaves it to be with his kids. He let go of his wife Mal and is finally at peace with himself.
Ariadne: You can't let her go, can you? (to Cobb - in the beginning)
Cobb: I need to let you go (to Mal - in the end)