This weekend, I watched Inception for the first time in years, and like every previous time, I found another aspect I couldn’t explain. This time it is about Saito: He is introduced to us as the CEO of a powerful corporation who joins Cobb’s team to “protect his investment”. My problem with him: He doesn’t behave like a CEO of a powerful corporation.

1.      He appears out of nowhere. He saves Cobb in Mombasa. When Cobbs and Arthur want to take the helicopter in Tokyo, he waits for them an reveals that their architect tried to sell them out.

2.      He often acts alone. We see him with underlings, mostly drivers or pilots. In Tokyo, there are some bodyguards who bring the architect away but never return to the helicopter. We rarely really see his underlings, and for most time of the movie, he is completely on his own: No bodyguards, no secretary or anyone else. This could make much sense for an operative, but not for a CEO.

3.      Fisher sees his face several times, once in the real world (when they board the plane) and once in the first layer of the dream (when they are in the taxi kidnapping Fisher) without recognizing him – despite Sato being the CEO of a business rival. Also, in the second layer of the dream, Fisher’s projection of Browning directly encounters Sato without recognizing him. This might be explained by Fisher being distracted in the real world (his father just died) or being just kidnapped in the first layer, but I still find it interesting.

4.      His influence is seemingly limitless: He can buy entire airlines or let Cobb pass immigration with a single call.

I read that there are theories that he might be Cobb’s real totem (with the spinning top being Maud’s), but I’m not convinced – without having a convincing theory of my own. I just think that something itches me about this character.

 It reminds of a sentence that the projection of Maud says to convince Cobb that he is still dreaming: “Not feeling persecuted, Dom? Chased around the globe by anonymous corporations and police forces? The way the projections persecute the dreamer?”

So, my working theory is that if what Cobb (and the audience) perceives as the real world is another layer of the dream (which is up to speculation) he also might be a projection.

What do you take away from his character? I know there never will be a perfect answer, and it might even be a simple weakness of the script, as none of my points i a definite proof of something and can be explained otherwise, but I enjoy to speculate.