Inception Explained: What’s Up With the Ending?

The film Inception was released in 2010, its director Christopher Nolan wrote the script a few years before the film adaptation, but did not dare to immediately start shooting the film. And looking at the result, we can conclude that Nolan postponed the shooting of the film for good reason. “Inception” has been in high positions in the ratings of films for several years now, the reception is quite strong, this film is definitely not going to move anywhere in the near future.

The meaning of the film Inception and its ending

The peculiarity of the picture is that behind the dynamic plot, which not everyone will be able to understand the first time, there is also a certain philosophy of the protagonist. We see the hero’s value system: he is a spy, his main job is to find out information hidden in a person’s mind or to inspire a person’s mind with some thought that will allow him to be deceived in reality. It turns out that Cobb (the main character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio) makes money by lying and falsehood, but it is worth remembering why he is now making money. Initially, it was just entertainment for him and his wife, they fell asleep together outside of work, but now he just wants to return home, where his children are.

In that illusory world, Cobb and his wife Mol were able to build a whole world for two, according to the hero himself, they spent about 50 years in that dream world, managed to grow old together. However, if Maul wanted to continue this unreal life, because everything was perfect there, and very similar to the truth, then Cobb remembered that this was only an illusion, and he wanted to return back. To convince his wife to get back together, Cobb uses a suggestion technique – he inspired Maul that the world around him is unreal. It is important to pay attention to what detail he does this with. Usually, everyone who plunges into a lucid dream has his own totem, by which they are aware of the line between reality and dream. Mol’s totem was a spinning top, which in a dream did not stop spinning around its axis, but in reality, according to the laws of physics, the movements of the top gradually faded. So Cobb showed Maul a top that never stops spinning, her own totem. So he was able to convince her to die in this unreal world together and return to where their real lives had just begun.

Since Cobb did not lie, and the world was really an illusion, the heroes were able to safely return to reality, but Maul could no longer get rid of the idea that the world around her was not real and committed suicide to arrange an ejection. Ejection is an emergency escape from sleep; this can be done only by dying in the space of illusion. Maul believed that she would not die, but only fall into her real life, but she was already in it. However, Cobb’s wife could not take this fact for granted. She committed suicide, and arranged everything in such a way that suspicions of her murder fell on Cobb. Probably, Mol hoped that she could thus convince her husband to die in order to join her.

However, Cobb understood that it would be death forever, and not just in his dream, so he did not follow his wife, but now he could not return home to his children, he had to leave the country to avoid punishment for a murder that he did not commit. Now Cobb has a new profession, he penetrates people’s dreams. Since he mastered the technique of suggesting thoughts in a dream well, he receives an order in which he must not find out secret information from a person, but suggest a thought in a dream in order to obtain the necessary information in reality.

So, Cobb receives a task, after completing which, he will have the opportunity to return home to his children. During the dives of the protagonist, it becomes clear that he still cannot get rid of the image of his wife. Moreover, she does not just appear to him as a pleasant or sad vision, she interferes in the plots of his dreams, sometimes trying to prevent Cobb from carrying out plans. It must be understood that this is only the image of Mol, there is not a drop of a real girl in her, this is Cobb’s own memory of his wife. It turns out that Cobb himself cannot forgive himself for the death of his wife, which, by the way, he openly admits, and accuses himself of the image of his dead wife. For Cobb, there are two totems – the same spinning top of his wife and guilt, recognizing guilt, he recognizes the real world.

Despite all the difficulties, Cobb still completes the task assigned to him, and gets the opportunity to return to his children. Most of the questions from the audience arises about the finale of the film. While the daughter and son are running towards their father, Cobb himself for some reason starts the top on the table, the camera focuses on this frame, but the light fades, and we can no longer see if the top has stopped.

Some viewers believe that he did not stop, which means that Cobb did not return to the children, but, like his wife, Mol did not cope and remained in the world of illusions. However, this is the simplest interpretation of the finale. The actor who played the son-in-law of the protagonist, once in his interview advised the audience to pay attention to what scenes his character is present in and where not. Cobb’s son-in-law does not travel in dreams, which means he cannot be in the dream world, therefore, if in the last scene we see this character, then we see the truth, and Cobb still met with the children.

There is also an opinion that the spinning top is not only Cobb’s totem after the death of his wife, but also a symbol of his affection for her. Having launched the top, the hero no longer looks at him, all his attention is directed to the children, that is, Cobb is already free from memories of Maul, he is free, because he realized that in the real world he has children – the main wealth in a person’s life.

The controversy surrounding the finale has not subsided so far, one thing is clear for sure – with the last shots, Nolan clearly wanted to convey something to us. Once he admitted that the film is a collective dream, as in his film, which means that with this picture the director tried to inspire something to his audience.

Write in the comments your meaning of the film Inception. We look forward to waiting!

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