Another strange loop in the film is the shifting totems. . .since Cobb knew of Mal’s totem, he could manipulate her. Saito, the architect, also knows of Cobb’s Wife’s totem, but not of the ring. If Michael Caine is Cobb’s father-in-law, then he must have known his own daughter well (the sub-plot is parallel, a outside group trying to make the son “fischer” understand his father) . Has Caine lost her and is trying to keep his projections trapped? I found this on Wiki about totems and also some interesting concepts of totems being family histories, sometimes shameful, and non-linear:

“Vertical order of images is widely believed to be a significant representation of importance. This idea is so pervasive that it has entered into common parlance with the phrase “low man on the totem pole.” This phrase is indicative of the most common belief of ordering importance, that the higher figures on the pole are more important or prestigious. A counterargument frequently heard is that figures are arranged in a “reverse hierarchy” style, with the most important representations being on the bottom, and the least important being on top. Actually there have never been any restrictions on vertical order, many poles have significant figures on the top, others on the bottom, and some in the middle. Other poles have no vertical arrangement at all, consisting of a lone figure atop an undecorated column”.

With this idea in mind–Caine, the least of the characters, (but, “in reality” the most famous) is the most powerful in the film. The point about the film being a metaphor for film making–is good. I think it is interesting to look at Nolans’ film
“The Following” and “Memento” to come to the final theme: how hard it is for humankind to gain any concrete sense of control on anything given autobiographical stress, socialization, psychology, memory and it’s ever changing face. It is Victorian arrogance to think that with all the information we ingest, our perception of our experiences, that any thought or decision is our own, that we are the master’s of our fate. Would we really want to be the Master of our fate? I would really like someone to punch holes through this. . . any thoughts. . .as a final note, Dom Cobb and Mal grow old together for fifty years. . .without their kids, where are they in the dream, how is there unchanging youth accounted for except through memory. When Cobb calls his children on the phone and asks Caine to deliver a gift, who interrupts the phone call? the Grandmother or Mal, is Caine caught in a dream of his own, and why is Caine waiting at the airport on the side that Cobb so badly wants to return. . .when, in an earlier scene, they speaking face to face. What allows Caine to gain admittance to both “levels”. . .I think I know. One must read Flann O’Brien’s “The Third Policeman” and also Kafka’s Parables “The Law” and ” An Imperial Message”–What is truly ‘Inceptive” about the film is that after you watch it and begin to go over scene by scene with family and friends, because of the sameness of all of the main characters, after a day or two, how people recall the film is adjusted to the argument they are trying to make and causes the viewer to want to return to the theater (in this case “reality” to figure it out. . . (copyrighted by Christopher Daniggelis, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM&

Usually they get into talking about stuff like this blog post. They read a lot of viewer e-mails concerning theories about films and discuss them. Unfortunately in this last episode they spend so much time talking with Armond White about film in general they don’t have much time to explore any of the theories about Inception. They gloss over a lot of stuff because they were running long. Hopefully in next week’s show they will get back to a little discussion of Inception because they didn’t really do it justice.

Long story short, I would highly recommend checking out the podcast if you like movies. You can check it out on iTunes.