I actually wonder if Nolan just didn't think about it, or if it's something he put in there on purpose as a "clue", a bit like the wedding ring thing. We spend the whole film thinking about Cobb, what he thinks and says, and so we get trapped in his own confused perspective, instead of looking where we should.
I mean, it's really odd. The whole film is constructed around ambiguity, and then there's this little, insignificant scene that potentially gives it all away.

And I seriously don't understand why Inception wasn't even nominated for Best Costume Design.

Maybe in 20 years someone will spot something in Inception, like the Spatial Awareness within The Shining.
Every reality scene within Cobb's own baseline reality, carries much strangeness.. but alas, it is an entertaining sci fi film not set to our current reality.

The whole movie is confusing because Nolan and Pfister had no intention making the dream-scenes and the reality-scenes different. They look just the same, and I mean considering camera movement, filters, compositions, everything. And of course that's the whole point of the film: dreams feel real while we're into them, so we can't tell the difference from real life when we're dreaming. That's why - actually - the dream-scenes look intentionally the same as the real life-scenes. The dream-scenes look very much real, but because of that the viewers have no chance to tell reality from dreams. You have only clues, like the wedding ring, which is I think very much a true and intended clue (mainly because it's consistent).

Interesting enough, on the ledge scene Leo wears the ring obviously, because he's married, even though it takes place in the real world, not in a dream. You have to know logically that this time the ring isn't a clue, it becomes a clue only after Mal's already dead. You have to figure out which scenes are in a dream and which scenes are in real life. This is just like dreaming: there's a term "lucid dreaming" which describes the mental state when someone in his dream actually knows that he's dreaming at the moment. And this is where the visual clues of Inception come in handy: you have to know the difference between real life and dreams. In a lucid dream you always have clues, like bizarre things happening, like you have 6 fingers on your hand, which tell you that you're dreaming. The whole point of the totems is the same. And we, as a viewer of the movie Inception, have to know when the characters of the movie are in a dream. Even if for the first time the whole situation looks exactly like real life. When you have a lucid dream, for the first time you look around in your dream everything feels exactly like real life. But then you notice the clues. This is the way how people should look at Inception. Every scene looks like real life. But you just have to know (and you can know) which scenes are only dreams.

DHOPW42 wrote:The whole movie is confusing because Nolan and Pfister had no intention making the dream-scenes and the reality-scenes different. They look just the same, and I mean considering camera movement, filters, compositions, everything. And of course that's the whole point of the film: dreams feel real while we're into them, so we can't tell the difference from real life when we're dreaming.

reminds of this:
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

tykjen wrote:

tykjen wrote:

Kanye agrees.

iloveheat wrote:I just want to run an idea by you guys....
the scene of the wife's suicide was a dream. Just pay attention at the fact that Cobb is looking at his wife sitting on the window sill as though he was on the outside of the building, although he was and should have been inside of the same building too; and as a matter of fact he was inside the very same room where she apparently was, since they were to meet there. In fact, if you have the chance to wantch that scene again, you will notice that the furniture in her room is the same, same white sofa, same chandelier: of course she is jumping from that room's window, where else from? Therefore how is that he is looking at her as though she was on a different building on the other side of a narrow street?
Now, I know that maybe this is a streatch...but how would you explain that scene otherwise?
So, if that was a dream, the wife's suicide, then ...
What do you think about this? Please let me know...

Despite the increasingly undermining responses, you sir are spot on. It's a dream, the situation simply doesn't exist, starting with hotels that allow easy suicide of falling, exactly parallel rooms in exactly parallel buildings, and the rooms each and every attribute being the same, every last piece of furniture, the flower paining by the door, the sign hanging on the door. I'm sorry but people thinking parallel rooms having absolutely exact same everything including minute details is a coincidence or oversight is just moronic, in a film this meticulous they would not do such an obvious choice of a production design out of laziness.

Except that same room is trashed on Cobb's side, among other things. You're telling me she went over there to trash the place, leave the top as a cryptic message that, if anything, miscommunicates because she leaves it down for reality and the very act of leaving it for him would mean that it's his to tell reality with now, a bizarre gesture for someone who is about to try and convicnce someone that they have no ability to tell reality and need to take a leap of faith no matter what anything says. And again, it's down, knowing what it means, she'd be going out her way to tell Cob the opposite thing that she wants him to believe.

For the record, after the suicide, she's now labeled as someone who was sick, even if the doctors previously didn't believe Cobb about her madness, the suicide would confirm him and certainly put a huge grain of salt on her claims of what's going on. and a suicide can be told apart from a murder. It's just like the inability to go home that one phone call fixes, none of it's true, Cobb can go home he just believes he can't.

The top appears in response to him stepping on the flute, an action that happens 3 times, once as a recreation of this scene, once here, and once in the hotel lobby. Each time it creates a break in Cobb's perception and ability to tell what's going on. Here he gets it as he's going to lose Mal as his totem, he gets Mal's totem magically seemingly Because as he steps into Mal's death scene, she will no longer represent reality for him but cuz Cobb knows about his own Inception and that it corrupted Mal's undetstanding, her believing it was spinning (them dreaming) means to Cob it's dropped. The loss of Mal because of different readings of reality immediately makes Mal's totem Cobb's because he believes she's lost and so reality can be told by the top being opposite of Mal's perception. That's the meaning of this moment. Later when Cobb breaks a flute everyone stairs at him as if he's become the subject suddenly and thus the projections are suddenly alert, then his children run by in response to this switch, because the situation changes. He loses his sense from this moment on and, later, the window whites out as if it was in reference to the hotel. the other side of the hotel no longer exists because after Cobb's perception brake, his reality is now one with Mal's.

And voila, as a result, mal is physically manifested in the next scene and they interact from here on out. Remember the line "As we go deeper into Fischer, we're going into you too" This is a double Inception, the other on Cobb to get Cobb home.

You were correct, and it's a fundamental concept to understanding the dysfunction going on. Cobb is genuinely lost because when you are lost in limbo you lose sight of reality, his totem was Mal and she came with so that's all he needed. Thus Mal's top was key for them to actually get home in concept, but Mal fucked it up by manipulating it, and Cobb made it no better. Cuz now Mal believes topp spinning should be her reality totem. but she jumps off and ends up in limbo where we don't see her real self until muchhhh later again. She was right that they weren't home buy because she has no clue anymore where home is, she loses faith in reality's existence. She latches on to the riddle and decides that she can just stay in limbo as long as she gets Cobb to join, because that's what the riddle says.

It's a story about models of reality and in their case corrupted models of reality, manipulated by others at a deep subconscious level or just corrupted by the resulting dysfunction, and how difficult it was to get everyone home. The only answer, because the top is so corrupted was a leap of faith, and there in lies the film's wisdom. Because our models of religion have been manipulated in ways and corrupted (religion, politics ect) the only way to happiness and reality is to take a leap of faith.

You're view was an astute and is the beginning of a long list of clues to how dysfunctional this dream world is. The clues take place a many in the percieved reality (hotel ledger, eames conterfeiting chips magically once he sees Cobb, the moment in the mirror in Mombasa, the consistency of the image of his kids, the surrealness of his charges and how easily they were dropped, these moments can continue to be considered jsut moemnts that don't make sense all people want but this director is meticulously attention oriented, you really think 5 or so bizzarely impossible moments we're just mistakes? There is more going on in this movie that most people are willing to understand, and they respond to insight about how truly complicated it is (it's built to be soo complicated that we can never fuly know, just like life) with saying you're reaching or over reading into it. This film has an ambigious ending, it's created for analysis and debate, reading into it is part of the experience.

God catch on the ledge, and sorrry if it was confusing i kept referring to doubters as you, that's just the tone that was fluid to write in. I'm supporting ur point, not rejecting it.