Is this a common theory about Inception?
I’d always taken the film at face value: Cobb is hired to perform corporate espionage, he succeeds (after much tribulation), and is rewarded with being able to return to his children.
I have known there are other readings, particularly that Cobb himself is the subject of inception, but I’d never given them much scrutiny or credence.
But then I watched last night… and I started to wonder…
I’d boil my hunch down to two points early in the film, in case this is well trodden ground (and that is partly my question: Is it?).
Everything about Ken Watanabe’s character. The film begins with him and begins with him posing a coded question *to* Cobb — starting his renewed self-realization. As we later learn, this is the climax of the heist. His scouting Cobb could easily be seen as planting the seeds for inception; we see Cobb do the same kind of role play later in the film. He is the one to introduce the idea of inception. And he is very intent on working with Cobb and insists on going on the mission. In my new theory (I think), he is playing the Cobb role in Cobb’s inception.
This is more supplementary, but Michael Caine’s interaction with Cobb struck me as a bit “off” this time. He doesn’t act as if this is his fugitive son in law; once I had this idea planted in my own mind, he came off more like “you need to get past this and go home.” And he connects Cobb to Ariadne, his “guide” if I remember the meaning of her name correctly.
Perhaps more than anything, this helps me make sense of why we start the film where we do, which has always puzzled me a bit. And I like that.
Anyway, sound off with your own thoughts or theories.