That's the reason it seems to me to be coming from Nikki; Nikki would not be able to dream the whole conversation in Polish, though Piotrek said that she understands more than she lets on. So Nikki may know a few words, enough to dream the couple of short greetings at the beginning, but after that her dream of Polish characters would have to continue in English."
On the other hand, though, I don't see why she would have to be subject to rules of reality in a dream. You or I could have a dream where someone was speaking Polish and we would completely understand that it was Polish as well as what those words meant, because in dream logic, you can convince yourself of the order of anything. The person probably wouldn't actually be speaking Polish, but we would believe it as such and if were so inclined, we could understand it. I've heard that you can't truly read anything in a dream but I've seen pages before and known what they said, even if perhaps technically they weren't really words. I know that this paragraph is probably beginning to seem Polish with its abject reasoning, but the condensed version is that anything could happen in a dream and I wouldn't expect someone to be limited by language barriers that would stop them in real life. There's definitely more to be mined from Piotrek's remark about Nikki's grasp of Polish, though, undoubtedly.
But it is somehow logical that the same thing would have happened in the old Polish film (if that is true and not a lie by Kingsley). So, we have the scene of Maj. beating Gruszka and in that scene there is a scratching sound, as if it is a clip from the old unfinished movie. And it looks filmed in an older style, and the decor of the room is older. But then, we return to this couple a few more times and there is not the old movie scratching sound. Well, again, this is explainable as a dream and Nikki would be the important character who heard the story of this older film. I don't know where this connects though.
I forgot about the scratching sound so I don't remember quite how that played out. If it's like you say, that could be an indication of an actual scene from 47. I wonder about the significance of all the various media involved in the film"”AxxonN being the longest running radio show, the spinning record (it seems like the show plays on the record, but why do we end up seeing what happens?), OHIBT as a movie. And Smithy joins the circus. The Rabbits scenes play out as a sitcom with the loud canned laughter and applause. All of these modes of entertainment suggest another era, as even OHIBT doesn't seem very modern (the title itself is rather quaint).
That's what is implied. Another point I don't know what to make of is how these scenes relate to the black and white segment of LG telling the Dern character how to use the watch and the silk. I had been thinking that it was only through the movie Nikki is making that LG could try to talk to her, by talking to her character, Sue. Because it is that character who tries to burn the hole in the silk. But if I ask myself which personality Dern is portraying in the black white scene, it seems more like Nikki than Sue. So, summing this up, there are three scenes of contact between a character who seems to be Nikki and Lost Girl: The MTTH scene, the black and white scene, and the view after the death scene. Just to keep track of them for now.
That's difficult to say, re: Nikki or Sue in the black/white scene. That's the point when Dern plunges off the identity cliff. The first couple times I saw it, I assumed she was actually aware of the identity slide when she first walked through the AxxonN door and saw herself rehearsing, until I realized she was calling Devon "Billy"when he appeared at the window. That implies she is Sue and I wonder if there's a permanence of that character once she goes through AxxonN that isn't challenged until another AxxonN door is entered much later. Although not specifically seen, she is clearly watching herself as a prostitute across the street right before she is stabbed. Maybe, like before, that shifts her from Sue back to Nikki to die in front of the camera and take what she has learned/experienced up to room 47 to confront the Phantom.
I've seen it suggested that the death scene is from the life of a real person who after she dies sees her life as having been a movie of the life of Sue Blue performed by Nikki. What seems to contradict that strongly is the scene just before that with the snapping fingers. Nikki seems to be becoming conscious of who she really is within Sue and so Sue is no longer afraid of death because she can control what happens because it is a movie. So she deliberately hands the screwdriver to the Ormand character.
Did she hand it to her deliberately? I thought it seemed like it just got snatched from her but it does the raise the question about why Ormand as the would-be assassin who knows she is supposed to kill with a screwdriver doesn't actually carry one with herwhat's the significance when she's telling the policeman about the Phantom and she pulls up her shirt to show she has a screwdriver plunged into her side? There would seem to be a way to use one scene to explain the other. It is interesting that when she is stabbed, Penderecki's "Jacob's Dream"is playing on the soundtrack. Maybe because it's such a horrifying piece of music, but maybe there's further significance to the choice (besides Kubrick's use of it in The Shining).
Also interesting that she says something like, "Watch this move" when she starts snapping. Watch this/you have to be wearing the watch.
But then, getting back to the first point, after Sue dies, Nikki herself also seems to be dead and able to control what happens. (E.g. during the finger snapping scene, the LB, which was upside down from her point of view when talking to Mr. K., is now right up so she can read it, then after the death scene, when she hugs Kingsley, the LB is gone ... then when she reaches into the drawer, there it is back again. Only someone dreaming in some way can control what happens like this. It's as if she wakes from a dream within a dream (or hypnotic trance) for the finger snapping, but ultimately is still dreaming. What both of those have in common is that it is Nikki who becomes conscious.
I only really started paying attention to the LB thing on the last viewing. I noticed it wasn't there after her death scene and that it appeared when she reached for the gun, but not that the letters ever changed direction. What's the LB supposed to mean? Some say "Light Bulb"since Crimp has one in his mouth when he emerges from the neighbor's house and Sue grabs the screwdriver. I like that as a metaphor that he is swallowing the light, although it was a random prop selection to hear Lynch tell it. (But conversely, someone COULD have said, "If you put this in your mouth, it will be significant.") So is the LB readable now as a signal to her that she has to kill the man she saw earlier with the Light Bulb, because she won't remember to otherwise?
Only that the record seems to be the first level on which the story is told here (then on the record is is a radio show, then that is a black and white movie, etc.). So it seems that the two are contacting directly soul to soul in the deepest level of the story. How that relates to the rest I don't know.
That crossing over of mediums mentioned aboveradio/record/black and white film/TV/film in color. It seems to suggest stories within stories that are ultimately all connected, since the radio show is AxxonN"”the longest running radio show in the Baltic region--and AxxonN is the gateway for the identity fracture where the story will now play through another medium"”this time, seemingly a different character as Nikki becomes Sue. A show that is still running today and not just in the Baltic, I guess.
Yes, that's what I was hoping to find. But someone I talked to quite a bit about MD eventually trailed off and stopped talking about IE, apparently for this very reason.
MD is more neatly packaged by comparison. Still plenty of abstractions but you can piece together an arc to explain most of it with a little thought. With IE, you need a lot of thought just for an initial arc that can't even begin to explain everything, and subsequent observations constantly undermine your original groundwork. But I think if you're willing to put in the time, you can construct a good part of the puzzle. Years ago I didn't think Fire Walk with Me could really be explained and I've read some good ideas for that. But it's nice that as soon as you're somewhat satisfied with analyzing one work, here's another to challenge you all over again. Like I said before, I can't even begin to imagine what the next one will be like. I can't wait, though of course I don't have a choice. The agony will begin all over againI'll hear that he's definitely doing something, it'll take awhile to finish, then I'll have to figure out where I might be able to actually see it, then I'll see it and the wait will immediately begin for the DVDI'm amazed at how much progress people made on the IE board after one viewing. The movie seemed 5 hours long to me the first time (not in a bad wayso much insanity happened that "the telling of time"was impossible).