Has this ever happened? What is the boundary between reality and illusion, existence and consciousness? The director may be reminding us to ask ourselves, "Is the world we live in real? How can we verify its authenticity? What is truth? What is rationality? What is madness? To what extent does beauty and ugliness affect us? "
Another question raised by the film is, "Do the desires and horrors in our hearts affect our understanding of reality, so that we can't tell reality from dreams?" For an attractive man like Cesar, the most feared thing is to lose his face; For Cesar who lost his beauty, what he wants to do most is to get back at Nuriyah; ; Doctors can't repair Cesar's appearance. What he hopes most is that the future technology will make him beautiful and charming again. He hopes that he can live to that day.
The beginning and end of the film remind us to open our eyes from illusion.
At the end of the film, there is no fixed explanation. There are countless possibilities.
The movie begins with a nightmare and ends with a complete awakening. Moreover, there is a dream in the dream, which is replaced by a nightmare. There is a dream interpretation in the dream, and the scene of dream interpretation becomes another material for dream interpretation. All this is like a doll, with a layer inside and a cover inside.
An obvious structural element of the whole dream is a deep female voice calling, "Open your eyes." It appeared twice in the opening, once at the most important dramatic turning point of the film, and then at the end, becoming the first and last sentence of the film. When this sentence first appeared, David was taken into a nightmare. He was awakened by this sentence and got up and drove out as usual. However, in this city full of huge billboards, there is no sign of people. All the streets were empty, and David was in an infinite panic. He abandoned the car and fled, running in the streets of the famous Times Square, shouting in despair. This is probably the most prosperous 42nd Avenue and Times Square in new york in the world. The crew blocked the shooting scene for two hours and spent a lot of money. The effect of this kind of live shooting is really shocking. In such a crowded place, I face all the old modern civilizations alone. No matter how I run and roar, I can't vent my inner fears.
At this time, the second phone appeared. This call brought David out of the nightmare and into real life, but it was actually the beginning of a tragic nightmare in life. When he woke up, there was a blonde lying beside him, but when David didn't invite her to his birthday party and fell in love with another brunette, she brought David into a nightmare forever in the form of double suicide. A voice appeared in this picture, that is, there will be a psychoanalyst to interpret dreams in the future, which is a dream interpretation.
The third call appeared on a sunny morning. After David was forced to double suicide, resulting in disfigurement and disability, David, who was abandoned in the street sewage and drunk as mud, had his damn faceless mask on his left. At this moment, a gentle and charming voice is calling. This is David's true love, the Spanish beauty Penelope with brown hair. The return of Sofia, played by Cruz, is the salvation of the man who lost the world because of true love. However, later we will know that this is a dream, a daydream, a perfect dream created by high technology, but the deepest nightmare element lurks from the beginning of this dream. This dream was chosen by David himself, and it was perfect, completely in line with his love. However, when he had sex with her, Sophia under him suddenly became Julie. This time Julie's return is the highest point of panic in the whole film. David saw Julie, and he frantically searched for Sophia until he blindfolded Julie/Sophia and saw a mole under the deceased's breast, which was a symbol of Sophia. At this point, the dream ended in a nightmare way.
Until the end of the film, when David chooses between the perfect dream and the real life, the call appears again. After David chose real life, he jumped from a tall building that looked like thousands of feet in his dream. At this time, his life shook before his eyes. However, at this moment, perfection is not sure whether it is a dream or a reality. It was not until the credits began to roll that we knew it was all over, and reality won the final victory and return with its cruelty.