POTT required for Understanding???!

Rating: Null/10 (5 January 2003)

Has anyone of you able to unsderstand this film (correctly) without consulting the net, heard the commentary and READ the Philosophy of time travel?!
I'm getting the impression the POTT is needed to understand what happened and if that's the case, then I think it's a major flaw. A film should be self contained, not in installments. Were you given the POTT pamphlet when you bought your tickets in the movie house?
Why am I the only one troubled by this? :)
I really liked the movie but I have to admit, I was stupified. I loved mulholland drive too and I got it almost immediately (though I had multiple theories).
we can explain what happened in Mulholland drive in 1 or 2 sentences.... not a friggin' pamphlet.
So there....

and PLEASE try to explain this to me:

What's God's (divine intervention) intention for creating this tangent universe for Donnie? To show him what could've been if he lived or what effects he had on other people's lives?
How can this be the case when everyone in his world is freakin' manipulated living? they are not fully themselves the whole time they are in the tangent universe. Heck, I doubt if Gretchen would even give Darko a minute of her time if she weren't manipulated living/or dead.