I haven't read this yet, but it looks pretty good. Spoilers for the movie, obviously: Inception’s Dileep Rao Answers All Your Questions About Inception

Gris, I don't subscribe to that theory at all. If so, why did the top fall several times in the course of the movie to confirm that he WASN'T in a dream? Oh, because everything was lies and bullshit, of course. No, the only IT WAS ALL A DREAM theory I'm willing to entertain is the more obvious one in the last five minutes. But I'm not actually willing because THE TOP FUCKING FELL GODDAMMIT.

But the only reason we believe the top has any significance at all is because Cobb says it does. And if he's not a reliable narrator, then the top reality-test is just one more lie he's telling himself.

PC: FWIW, Rao (who has spicy brains) agrees with you.

10K!

I like this Rao character! I don't remember him in Avatar, but I did like him in Drag Me to Hell.

And, Jessica, I agree with you that if it's all a dream, the top-signifier doesn't mean anything. But I don't see enough evidence that the WHOLE thing was a dream. Like Rao says, in that viewing, we never see the real Cobb, the actual reality, the final layer. There aren't any hints that the reality layer in the film is a dream, as far as I can tell. Besides the very on-the-nose names. Also, if the other characters are just projections, how do they go deeper into the dream layers with him? You basically don't have to believe anything said in the movie at ALL if it's all a dream. Personally, I don't find that interpretation satisfying. But if people do, that's cool, and it's to Nolan's credit that he made a movie where IT'S ALL A DREAM does work. (Also, ha, if the top-signifier doesn't mean anything, that final shot is meaningless and signifies nothing! You can't have it both ways!)

Um, I just got to this part in that article:

It's like people who are convinced 9/11 is an inside job.

And you know what, fuck him. Speculating about psychological levels of reality in a movie that's about psychological levels of reality is like being a 9/11 truther? I'm calling this interview Godwin'ed and ignoring it.

For me, if it's NOT all a dream, then it's an unbelievably boring heist movie. I can't accept that the Fischer storyline really is what it's presented as, because the resolution is just too stupid for that.

OTOH, I felt the same way about A Beautiful Mind and the last season's premiere of House, and both of those turned out to take place in reality, so....

Whereas I thought the heist was exciting and really liked the Fischer storyline, unexpectedly caring for his character by the end.

Right now, I'm reading the Salon recap. I think they did this with Donnie Darko too, so I'm interested to see how they unpack it.

Strega, if you haven't read the Salon recap, you should, since they agree with you on the meta-commentary. At least skip down to the Q&A.

They (and whoever wrote the IMDb FAQ) disagree with Rao on who's dreaming the snow level. Ariadne's question about whose subconscious they're going into (which drew a laugh from the audience) was answered "Fischer," so I thought it was Fischer's dream, but then again I thought it was all Fischer's dream, as I forgot how everything worked and all the dreaming and controlling and whatever. I think it does make more sense for Eames to be the dreamer since he's on the team; they're still using Fischer's subconscious, always.

I did like how they explained their notion that Inception is not actually a movie about dreams.