And I know you've discussed this with everyone who's seen it -- IS HE DREAMING?? I think so. Remember when Alfred said, near the beginning of the film before introducing Juno, "come back to reality?" Yeah. Also, we can talk about the hallway fight because that was real cool too.

The no gravity hallway stuff was some of the greatest stuff I've ever seen.

The ending with his "totem" spinning and straddling the line between balance and falling left that pretty much up to the viewer, I think.

Oh that's definitely true. The whole movie is peppered with evidence for both arguments, so essentially people can essentially debate and discuss different takes on the film. I think that the last shot of Cobb simply not caring to look at the top lends itself to a version of the film where he's dreaming. The fact that he is ignoring the top seems kind of 'meh' to me if he's in the real world anyway. Other things, like the Micahel Caine line I mentioned, imply to me that a team (including perhaps Ariadne) are trying to inceive Cobb to wake up.

I originally thought he did return to reality before the ending with the top at the end. Then when i saw the top even with the wobble I thought he wasn't in reality, but had no clue why. Then I read the the whole 'he is still in Limbo theory,' and I am more inclined to believe that.

However, there likely is no correct answer. Christopher Nolan portrays this with the wobbling top at the end. At this point, he PLANTS AN IDEA in our minds to not only question what really happened, but about our existence in this here world. What if we are dreaming or on some other level of existence, but we don't know until we pass on.

As far as the was it all a dream element. On one hand the surface appears to be that Cobb is back to reality at the end, though a couple things bother me. The meanings of the names Ariadne and Eames. Respectively being the one who helped get Theseus out of the Minotaur's maze and Eames the name of an influential architect. Ariadne was the one who ostensibly led Cobb to his redemption with Mal, and given his architecture background not surprising an architect's name could crop up. This could just be Nolan bringing in plot irrelevant referential naming, but I think with 10 years of time to work on the story I don't think much will be plot irrelevant. Also stretching a bit, Mal being part of his mind always threatening him, grand mal seizure, again huge stretch but a thought. Also Saito getting his hand on Cobb's totem which also appears to have been critical to Mal concerns me. Plus the doubts Mal raised with everyone being out to get Cobb, and how easily it appears Saito could clear him once he made his peace with Mal. Also the fact that the kids look identical to how they were in his dream, same position and everything, not as if he never knew their faces, perhaps they've just been unlocked from his memory now. Still if it is a dream, filled with Cobb's subconscious, it it all his own dream or is he shared dreaming still. I could ramble on and on, but at the core it doesn't really matter. I like that the ending is unclear but not in such a way that negatively impacts the rest of the movie or feels like a cop out, since it really is about the journey and the journey is excellent.

The song that played to wake everyone up was "Non, je ne regrette rien {"No, I regret nothing} by Edith Piaf.

And when I just read "Ariadne" a few posts up, I thought "Oh yea, they only mentioned her name once," and recalled that I wanted to look it up. Turns out it's the Greek Goddess nick-named "Mistress of the Labyrinth." Just another little thing.

The no-gravity hallway scene was so great.

The one kick to get everyone through the dream state was incredible.

I was thinking that at the end there, he was going to see his wife waving for him, there to pick him up. I'm pretty convinced he wasn't dreaming then.

All of the characters were extremely one dimensional save Cobb and again, his story didn't do anything for me. Fight scene in the hotel was awesome. It was a cool movie but I wouldn't put it at "great." I kinda surprised myself, I thought I would love this.

That's true, but it didn't bother me at all because it was a heist movie. People aren't going to be expounded upon much more than their function in the group. So yeah if Cobb doesn't do anything for you then there's not much else. But I thought Leo played the role well.

Did anyone else make that connection? Dead wife haunting Leo.. Obsessive and can't let go..
I wish they developed the characters more, especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt's. He was pretty cool.
I wonder.. what kind of security training would you go through to dream up a whole army of soldiers to protect your secrets?
And how can a van, driven by a pussy-ass Indian guy with a pistol, get riddled with bullets and no one inside gets hit?

Anyone else thinks that Leo is still stuck?
Leo's totem. That wasn't really his totem to begin with right? So he shouldn't be able to tell if it's a dream or not.
And that whole thing with his kids still lookin the same with same clothes in the end points towards it still being a dream.

Fuck it. Trying to interpret things in this movie is like trying to interpret things in Lost.

Leo's dead wife haunting him, like you said. Working toward letting the past go. Caught in delusions/dreams. Probably other stuff I'm forgetting.

dream.

Its up to you.

As someone on YouTube pointed out, Hans Zimmer's "danger motif" music is simply the song "Non, je ne regrette rien" slowed down...

YouTube Video

So as the totem spins and wobbles in the last shot of the movie, you're being asked

1.) Is Cobb Awake or is he dreaming?
2.) Was Cobb *ever* awake? Did dreaming even have anything to do with the movie (insomniacs will fantasize about sleep after all)
3.) Are the viewers simply part of the film's scenario as being subjected to the "whole picture"? Think of it this way...

I wouldn't say I was moved by that story, but I was intrigued. I liked the idea of some bitch haunting his dreams, and the explanation of how he fucked up her life was very satisfying. Stubbornly taking things into his own hands, and then stubbornly telling his wife (unsuccessfully) to calm the fuck down -- and at the end he still is stubborn in his belief that he was right all along. It just tells us a bit more about how the guy is really like, and that's always good.

Lehah, read the article by Faraci. There's not much to interpret in the ending, even if someone (like I) still would like to. The top is irrelevant to everything, because it was given to him by the wife, completely unlike how the totems were supposed to work. The casual viewers (read: the likes of Lost fans) would like to find meaning in everything in this movie [, but the details don't really matter (like you can't remember faces of people, just feelings you have about them) in a dream]. I guess the casual viewers might also draw silly comparisons to other "similar" movies like Shutter Island or The Matrix.

Well, there is one connection to The Matrix. The endless, exhaustive exposition by Morpheus/Cobb in the beginning (the whole first Matrix, actually) to set the tables straight. Not really that necessary...

I didn't really feel the love between Mal and Cobb. It was left pale on purpose.

Ugh, where are people getting this "the whole movie was a dream" nonsense? Faraci is just making stuff up.

He gives pretty poor evidence for this, and I haven't seen much better elsewhere online. "Hey why is his wife on the opposite ledge?" doesn't cut it (my answer: she walked along the ledge and followed the wall of the building).

There is only one question raised by the ending of the film: is Cobb still in limbo or not? That's it. You don't therefore get to question if everything was a dream; it simply doesn't follow.

I mean, sure, you can question everything, but without some basis for dream/not-dream comparison it's meaningless conjecture and can be applied to any movie (or reality, with similarly nonsensical results). This movie is great as a layered heist film and there's no need to project "deep" thoughts onto it.