Fascinating stories usually contain at least one substory that bursts with dramatic potential — one that, if developed, could well be a fulfilling story unto itself. Here, we look at a sub-story in a Nolan film — Inception that has completed 10 years now. I’m talking of the Cobb-Mal romance that occurs in a dystopian wasteland, a romance that unravels more in our minds than in the film — which is only fitting, considering that much of Inception happens largely in its characters’ heads.
This is a romance fully deserving of a film unto itself… And it’s a story I would argue isn’t the tragedy it is generally thought to be. The relationship between Cobb and Mal profoundly affects the events in Inception. The heist planned by Cobb and team meet several obstacles, including Saito getting shot and Arthur failing to prepare for Fischer’s militarised subconscious, but no threat is more disastrous, as Ariadne notes, than the presence of Mal.
Much of what we learn about the Mal-Cobb relationship is through her eyes, and she has no qualms about prying, as Cobb finds to his unease, when she walks uninvited into his dream. From what she gleans of the relationship, she too, like many of us, seems to think it a tragedy. What if I were to suggest though that their relationship is a longer, more fulfilling togetherness than the ‘most happiest’ couples manage in reality? I’m thinking, of course, of the many decades they spent in “the shores of their subconscious”. We learn that both Cobb and Mal were consumed by their dream experiments, and egged by Cobb, we are told that the couple sunk deeper and deeper into dream levels — finally wading into the very depths of their subconscious, and spending as many as 50 years in a magnificent — or so it seemed to me — dream state called Limbo. Pause to take in the reality of spending 50 years of wakefulness with another person. That’s 18,250 days of conscious companionship.
Contrast this with ‘real’ couples, who even if they were fortunate to spend a whopping 50 years of union, will have been technically together for barely 20 percent of the time, thanks to pesky earthly routines like work and child-rearing and sleep. Cobb and Mal spend half a century with each other, savouring the sights and sounds of a land that is truly their own, as they slowly, painstakingly transform this seeming dystopian land into their utopia — thereby eking out a purposeful existence too.
Visualise the possibilities in limbo. Picture Cobb and Mal recreating places from their memory, taking each other through half-remembered incidents from their childhood. Walking Ariadne through limbo that is punctuated with striking structures he had created with Mal, Cobb looks at an almost dilapidated building and notes, “That’s where Mal grew up in.” Picture many years ago — well many hundreds and thousands of years ago in limbo timeline — Mal taking Cobb, the love of her life, through the intricate experiences of her childhood in this home, the sort of memories our reality often allow only verbal versions of. Think of spending decades with your partner in a paradise unrestricted by the laws of physics, unrestrained by financial handicap.
Think of being able to walk hand-in-hand in all the homes of your dreams. As Cobb tells Ariadne while stepping into a skyscraper he created with Mal, “We both wanted to live in a house, but we loved this type of building. In the real world, we would have to choose, but not here.” As Cobb tells her this, replaying in his head all those times he spent with Mal in this dreamland, isn’t it only fitting that what you hear in the background are strains of a Hans Zimmer track called Time? It is the lack of this realisation — that he, Cobb, had lived a long, happy life with his wife, Mal — that fills him with as much sorrow. It’s only at the end that he wakes up to the idea that his relationship with Mal needn’t be perceived as a tragedy.
As he tells his projection of Mal: “We had our time together.” It’s possible that you, the reader, are perhaps shaking your head in disapproval at this dreamy take on what, on the surface, seems like a tragic relationship. You are perhaps firm in the same conviction that Cobb became increasingly besotted with, during the latter stages of his time in limbo with Mal: Life in limbo isn’t real. So, you ask, why does it matter if they spent half a century in a place that’s not real? In response, I’d cite a scene that takes place about 40 minutes into the film. Cobb meets a chemist called Yusuf, who gives him a tour of a facility where old people are seen dreaming away their lives. An old caretaker there, perhaps upon spotting disapproval in Cobb’s eyes, responds: “Their dream has become their reality.” He pauses, and asks: “Who are you to say otherwise, sir?”
SUDHIR SRINIVASAN
@sudhirsrinivasn The writer is the Entertainment Editor of the organisation