Really confusing but not bad

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2002)

I just saw SSZ1-1's analysis in the user comments. Since he knows just about everything about this movie (at least partly from reading David Lynch's hint document) I feel I have learned something at last about this very confusing film. The one thing I think he might have missed was that Camilla Rhodes's role in the second half of the film was to push Diane over the edge. When things were going pretty bad for Diane at the party, she gives her the "girl glance" aimed directly at finishing her bruising ego. Notice how she appears out of nowhere and exits quickly. The part she plays in the dream (first part) is "the one", the interloper who will replace whichever girl deserves the movie role.
I had originally seen the second half of the film (the reality) as an inversion of the first half (the dream), which it was, I just missed all the clues (that should have been so obvious) about why the dream was a dream. Now why did I miss all those clues? Am I really that dense? I think not. The problem is that I was guilty of not being a David Lynch fan already. I was watching the film under a pretence that David Lynch is a director who is crazy about making films that look like dream sequences, and I had better watch it and like it, even if half of everything did look like a dream. I was so proud of myself for coping so well, that I did not even notice the "reality" the woken-up sequence. So does D.L. do a good job of clarifying his intentions? I think not. Is it a bad movie? No, just a bit confusing, so confusing that it requires serious discussion, to try to put the pieces together with others that have seen it. Is it worth watching more that once? Probably. I gave it 7 stars on the plus side, for being a good movie, but 3 less than a perfect score for being confusing as hell. The cowboy reminded me of an existentialist guru who was lecturing the director on his attitude; thus he is my favorite character.
Am I a David Lynch fan now? Probably. Maybe the blue box only exists in someone's psychotic dream imagination, and not in reality. If so, it sure causes one to loose a lot of sleep unnecessarily!