One dream and a flashback

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2002)

***Spoilers***
Some people suggest it is meant to be confusing and there simply is no rational explanation; whereas others favour a dream explanation. All things considered I will go with the dream - the dream being the first three quarters of the film. The next problem is where does the dream happen. I have come across four theories i) everything happens in order and she wakes when her real neighbour comes to collect her belongings ii) the dream is really her masturbatory fantasy iii) the dream is just before she shoots herself at the end of the film iv) the dream is from her point of view after she has killed herself. I'm not sure it matters too much whether it is i) or iii) but I am inclined to the latter because this makae more sense of Club Silencio. Some insist it has to be iii) because the characters in the dream are taken from the reality sequence i.e the directors party. Unfortunately, it cannot be as simple as this. For when the neighbour is collecting her property, Diane already has the blue key on her coffee table. This means Camilla is already dead. Consequently, the director's party has to be a flashback. My summary of events would then be this. Young aspiring actress arrives in hollywood and has a lesbian affair. Her lover then leaves her and seduces a director in order to get the leading role in a film. As a result she then has a breakdown losing her grip on reality. None of the above is actually shown in the film. At some undisclosed time she has swapped apartments with another friend / neighbour possibly to avoid being caught by the police. We discover later that when that friend / neighbour comes round to collect some of her belongings Diane has already had her ex-lover killed (n.b. the blue key). Diane thinks she sees Camilla believing that she has come back to her. This is clear evidence that she has lost her grip on reality. Masturbating, she tries to relive the pleasure she had with Camilla but fails and is frustrated constantly being reminded of Camilla with the director. The party is seen from her point of view and may be a distorted version of reality. Camilla may not have been planning to marry the director and may not have actually had the long lingering kiss with the other woman at the party. Nevertheless, following the party she decides to hire a hitman to kill her ex-lover and meets the hitman in a diner. This may be a straightforward flashback for the audiences benefit or may still be part of her remembering what has happened thus far. Anyway, she lies down and has a dream. A dream which is constructed out of real people she has seen either at the party or in the diner. In the dream everything starts out the way she wants things to be. Everything is wonderful, the hitman fails, her ex-lover really does love her, she is an excellent actress, the director gets his comeuppance, etc. However, reality keeps breaking into the dream, particularly with the finding of the dead body. Eventually, in the dream, she goes to the Club Silencio where it becomes apparent that she can no longer tell the difference between reality and non-reality. She realises that the only solution is complete silence, i.e. death. So when she wakes she kills herself. In the film the only real time is in Diane's apartment from the time the neighbour arrives to, presumably later that evening, when Diane kills herself. Everything else is either dream or flashback.