The last scene of movie the Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan. We never get to see whether if the spinning totem falls - meaning that it is reality. It is unclear if this is only a dream or reality. I'd like to share an opinion so everyone can decide for their own.
First, Cobb's totem:
The spinning top is NOT his totem, it's his wife's one and I think almost everybody will agree with that, if not go and watch the movie again. It's just a misleading symbol for both Cobb and the audience.
The spinning top is NOT his totem, it's his wife's one and I think almost everybody will agree with that, if not go and watch the movie again. It's just a misleading symbol for both Cobb and the audience.
So what is Cobb's totem? Well I think he has two of them.
The first one is his wife being alive. She is alive in every single dream and only there.
The second totem is the fact he can't or don't want to see his children's faces while he is dreaming a 'lie'.
He only can accept to see them at the top, the reality.
Now look at the final scene, his wife is finally gone and he is able see his children, both things that would never have happened in a dream. Not exactly the way the original (physical) totems work but a personal indicator for him to define a dream.
The spinning top is a useless totem and really a symbol for his wife. He learns to give it up in order to go back to reality just like he did with his wife in the deepest level.
So it doesn't matter if it falls or not, he ignoring it and then look at his children instead is the important thing here.
Classical Mind F***
Then think back to the scene with Ariadne at the Cafe.
What is the first thing Cobb teaches her about a dream? - You never know how you got there.
What is the first thing Cobb tells Fischer at the hotel to show him it's a dream? - You never know how you got there.
Well we literally saw how Cobb got to the final scene. He left the plane, passed the airport check, got picked up by his dad and arrived at his house. He didn't just appear there out of nowhere like in the scenes before (hotel, snow base...)
You still can think the ending is a dream but therefor everything you see also needs to be part of a dream, including the whole mission, the team, the dream sharing itself, hell even the story of Cobb and his wife.
So what would be the point of this movie if everything is fake? Not very likely imo.
Of course this is just what I think, I don't want to say it's the only true meaning of the story, just what matches the best from my point of view.
