Thoughts on the meaning of the blue box: dont read if you havent seen the film yet as I think it is a crucial plot element!

Rating: 9/10 (18 April 2003)

A main theme of the film is the fakery and lack of substance or meaning behind the pompous glamour of hollywood: Betty, on arriving at Hollywood is evidently seduced by the Hollywood dream, and dazzled by its grandeur when she first arrives. However, she soon discovers that inside this pretty packaging there are sinister secrets and ugly truths, as shown by the suicides and the attempted murder. The filthy bum too is especially representative of this internal rottenness. It is also made clear that in Hollywood, nothing is as it seems. This is illustrated at the club, Silencio, where what is thought to be live music and singing turns out to be a series recordings, and the actors seem to be hollographic projections. The falseness is also illustrated by the Hollywood agents, actors and general cronies at the auditions and on the sets: they are very shallow, superficial and incompetent. The blue box is a metaphor for this since it is intriguing and rouses anticipation as to what riches it could contain. However, it is found to be empty and dark inside, just like Hollywood inside the seductive packaging.
Further, the box echoes the structure of the film, full of "red herring" plot lines that appear to lead nowhere, such as the scene where the hitman shoots some people who appear to have no significance to the plot as a whole is never followed up by a concrete explanation, and the scene in which the director's wife is found in bed with another man: this likewise appears to lead us knowhere. Similarly, the box, mysterious and tantalising, contains nothing, contrary to our expectations. In this way too, it undermines our expectations of the film: we think everything will eventually be made clear, but instead we are left to make our own conclusions. Nothing is made too obvious.
There is also the pandora's box metaphor: the key, given to Diane by the hitman, indicates the havoc created by her request to him. Hoewever, the fact that it is Rita/Camilla who opens the box shows that it was infact Camilla who began the chain of events that leads to all the tragedy in the stroy: indeed, as soon as she opens it we are shown the key scene at the dinner where she rouses Diane's anger and hatred. In this way the box indirectly does contain/reveal something: the fact that Rita, previously thought to be more or less innocent, infact instigated these sinister events.