I've watched the movie 5 times and most of it fits for me. If you haven't read my interpretation of the movie, I'm a fan of the straight-forward theory: Cobb's a guilty man, needs to get rid of his guilt, comes back to "reality" and reunites with his children. While I'm very lucky with that interpretation (the wedding ring just fits so well) there's still some things bothering me.

Obviously the movie hints at the fact that there's an inception made on Cobb. Cobb saying that you need catharsis in order to create a successful inception. The whole "as we go deeper into Fischer's mind, we go deeper into yours" talk by Ariadne. The parallel scenes of Cobb letting Mal go and accepting his guilt and Fischer letting his father go and accepting the fact that he wanted him to create his own empire. Both Cobb and Fischer waking up. The fact that Ariadne says "How could I ever create enough detail to make the dream seem real?" while Cobb insists that dreams always seem real, but then Cobb in the "catharsis-scene" realizing that after all he can't imagine Mal in all her detail anymore (subconsciously accepting Ariadne's thought that dreams are never as detailed as the reality). Leo said in some inerviews that Cobb truly is experiencing a catharsis and Ariadne being sort of a therapist to him. And let's not forget what the name "Ariadne" means.

My current view is that Fischer's catharsis comes from an inception, but Cobb's doesn't. It's just a product of Ariadne's efforts to heal Cobb in order to save the mission and the others (and maybe a comparison of true inspiration and false?). But that still seems so weird to me. You don't really need to think that the whole movie is a dream to consider the theory that Ariadne is doing an inception on Cobb. She could do that in the dreams they created for Fischer's inception. But is the whole Fischer stuff invented to heal Cobb from his guilt? That seems weird too.

Tell me what you think about it, guys.

I don't think so.
Remember that performing Inception is bloody difficult. Almost impossible. So... a noobie like Ariadne couldn't have done it.

Maybe it happened without anybody noticing. Or maybe it's just a way to compare genuine inspiration with inception: Fisher's inception was planned and excecuted by a team of profesionals in the area, whearas Cobb achieved a catharsis because of the very chain of events and emotional journey he was into (which is what they "imitated" or what they tried to build for Fisher)

Abbadon wrote:Maybe it happened without anybody noticing. Or maybe it's just a way to compare genuine inspiration with inception: Fisher's inception was planned and excecuted by a team of profesionals in the area, whearas Cobb achieved a catharsis because of the very chain of events and emotional journey he was into (which is what they "imitated" or what they tried to build for Fisher)

Yeah, that's what I said is my current view on it. And it's the most satisfying view when watching the film.

Rob wrote:But is the whole Fischer stuff invented to heal Cobb from his guilt? That seems weird too. Tell me what you think about it, guys.

Guilt is the central point like you point it out Rob. Totally agree on the inception being made on COBB. Gives a different spin to the movie when you think of Ariadne as a healer or a therapist. This character seems obviously a projection given that it has a transparent to-goog-to-be-true name.
If we accept that COBB's inception is in fact another name for a healing process. More precisely I think the inception is the one COBB made on himself by creating the whole story to avoid the fact he ran away from his children. The healing would be coming back to reality, unravelling the maze of his mind (Ariadne again).
That's why Robert Fischer seems to be the key of the movie because it gives us a hint to understand where does the guilt of COBB comes from. Bobby Fischer's father, the famous chess master, and model for Fischer's character in the movie, ran away from his children when Bobby was two. Given that father/son relationship is the basis of the inception made on Fischer, and that COBB is obsessed with is own children, I think that COBB's guilt has more to do with his children than killing is wife. MAL's character is part of the inception, it's an evil projection he created to justify he abandoned his children.
So my explanation for COBB's guilt is that he ran away from his family, blames his former wife of being evil (MAL in french: the actress is french) and drifted into his inception to avoid looking at the real himself. And get stuck in it, because an idea is like a virus, a parasite.
What do you think?

While it wasn't my personal interpretation when I watched the movie, I have noticed several details that would seem to support the rest of the team planning to pull an inception on Cobb. Be warned that a lot of this is based on pure speculation, and I actually find it more satisfying to take the movie at face value. But the clues are out there if you're looking for them.

1. Mal was getting too dangerous. Cobb kept bringing her into dreams, only to get screwed over every single time because his subconscious seemed to be developing a mind of its own. Worse yet, he would not listen to conventional reason, even though he knows the exact nature of his madness right from the start. He knows he's playing with fire, but he still insists on burning himself and the people around him because he's too attached to her memory. There is no way to reason with someone like that. The only way to get him to let go of Mal would be to go inside his mind and make him move on.

2. Saito said that he let Cobb and Arthur in his head because of an "audition." While we're obviously led to believe that he wanted to get them in a position where they would have to pull an inception on Fischer, it kind of stretches the believability a bit when you consider that, aside from secondhand information gathered by spies and the like, he had no real way of telling when exactly they would come after him, or how he would defend himself once they did. That doesn't work very well when you're trying to control the situation to the degree he was implied to. Therefore, it stands to reason that he either knows Arthur, or was contacted by him before the job.

And while he could have just found out Cobb was in Mombasa by checking flight records, it does seem rather odd that these supposedly highly trained corporate mercenaries are less accurate than caffienated squirrels with guns duct-taped to their hands when they shoot at Cobb, and sometimes it looks like the only way they could have missed is if they weren't trying to hit him. Then, just when it looks as though they've closed in, Saito conveniently shows up to drive him to safety. What can we conclude from this? The mercenaries were sent by Saito, in order to get Cobb to trust him.

Why go to all that trouble? Cobb is frequently referred to as the "best in the business." The entire plan was basically a larger, more intricate version of the Mr. Charles gambit. They needed to convince him that he was incepting someone else to even get into a position to pull it on him. It does bear mentioning that whatever plan they had likely went out the window around the time they found out Fischer's subconscious was militarized, and they were supposed to have a lot longer to affect Cobb's worldview. Just because they weren't the ones to actually pull it off doesn't preclude they possibility that they were planning to.

3. Miles insisted that Cobb "come back to reality," indicating that this is a discussion they've had before. Notice that he was the one who chose Ariadne, and the two of them just seemed to click instantly on an emotional level. I think Ariadne was unaware of the plot to incept Cobb, which is seemingly represented by her choice of a bishop as her totem (i.e., she totally got used like a chess piece). She accompanied him throughout everything, and she was the one who finally convinced him to confront Mal. This was different from the inception the others were planning because the emotional catharsis ended up being genuine, instead of arranged like the team did with Fischer.

Alone, none of these details proves much, and I'll admit that some parts of it are stretching things. But together, they form a very compelling interpretation of the film that adds a whole new layer to the events.

You can believe it or not.

Rob wrote:

Abbadon wrote:Maybe it happened without anybody noticing. Or maybe it's just a way to compare genuine inspiration with inception: Fisher's inception was planned and excecuted by a team of profesionals in the area, whearas Cobb achieved a catharsis because of the very chain of events and emotional journey he was into (which is what they "imitated" or what they tried to build for Fisher)

Yeah, that's what I said is my current view on it. And it's the most satisfying view when watching the film.

sorry, did i just repeated what you wrote? i read it pretty fast