Full of rewards for those who dare

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2004)

(Spoilers) This and probably most other reviews here contain spoilers; but in fact the best way to enjoy this movie is to watch it without learning anything about it beforehand, to have the pleasure to fit the pieces of the puzzle by yourself. This is the kind of movie you shouldn't try to make sense of while you are watching it, but after the movie ends, you can actually see all the pieces falling together; it's quite beautiful. It stays with you long after it's over.
As most people who got it have already said, the movie has two parts: a convoluted dream/fantasy part during the first two thirds, and what really happened in a last part that is in fact quite linear and straightforward. Diane does not want to face her real self and she cannot deal with the real story, so in the dream sequence she rearranges facts recasting herself and others in ways more pleasing to herself. The sordid affair becomes a beautiful movie-like adventure complete with damsel in distress and ugly Mafia henchmen. In her dreams her lover is pliant and defenseless, depending mostly on Diane, quite the opposite of the real thing. She puts the director she hates in every sort of ridiculous situations, and in her fantasy he doesn't choose Camilla because he loves or desires her, but because she has been imposed on him. Most importantly, Diane reinvents herself as dashing and resourceful, taking everything on stride, a bright young thing loved by everyone who meets her. She is no longer sullen, unloved and disappointed, she hasn't a failed acting career kept alive mostly because her former lover finds roles for her: she is full of hope, with her entire future ahead of her. Reality intrudes in the dream when Diane sees her real end, mangled and decomposing in her own bed, and the eerie Club Silencio, in which there is no band and no musicians, indicates that what we are seeing is smoke and mirrors, all illusion.