TheBlueBox


Blue Box

Threads:
Hey! I Know What The Blue Box Means!!! - (sphygmo)
Little blue box - (DrGonzo)
Pandora's Box, our worst nightmares, et. al - (Margie24)
blue box - (la vermine)

Blue Box - (LynchMyDreamMan)
Blue Cube Lock is a Clock - (ctyankee) Pics!

Related Threads:
The Blue Van - (CorkyS626)
The Color Blue: A Symbol? - (checkmate)
The jewelry box theory. - (destinosa)

Related Topic:
Club Silencio = Blue Box | Pandora's box | Blue Key 


Possible meanings

In answer to what the 'real' blue key opens the hitman starts to laugh. This is bugging Diane - so in her dream she finds herself an answer by creating the blue vessel.

  • The blue box signifies the trauma of discovery and consciousness. Diane's dream is broken when Rita opens it and sets the truth free.

  • Pandora's Box - a gateway to evil and the truthful but terrible things Diane has done. The bum unleashes the elderly couple who, representing innocence, are chasing a woman who has committed a vile act. Her innocence has been lost, violently discharged within the evil dream. - (A. Kusich)

  • One its most basic level, the blue box represents the repressed memories and awareness of reality that Diane must seal away in order to construct her fantasy world. Inscribed with Camilla's death, it's called into being when Diane orders the hit, a self-generated answer to her own question, "what does the key open?" (TheModernWord)


Blue box at SilencioI believe that just before the Magician disappears at Club Silencio, he causes the blue box to appear in Betty's purse, although we don't see it until Rebekah sings. Perhaps the evil Magician represents the person behind Winkie's (Lynch uses the same type of lighting in both scenes) who is slowly forcing Betty/Diane to face the reality of what she has done (also what she has become), as represented by what's inside the blue box. - (humanist)


Notice how once the blue box appeared in Betty's purse and her shaking, Rita stopped holding her hands at Club Silencio. The self-delusional dream was already unraveling to reality. That's why Betty disappeared. Because Betty does not really exist; she is an idealized or former shinier/optimistic Diane in her real hopes and dreams, unfulfilled/unrealized (even in the dream). Rita is Camilla/Diane together as one, representing Diane's wishes/confusion. I don't think Rita being sucked into the box is saying that Diane desires to kill her again. It's symbolic of Rita finding out the truth by turning the key in the box, like metaphorically saying Betty/Diane is found out by Rita/Camilla of the truth... that Diane indeed killed Camilla in reality. - (Misslinda77)


The blue box is a detail which comes straight out of the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, a major influence for Lynch. Lacan describes this exactly: "Suppose you're dreaming about yourself disguised as your desired self/other and you open a box with a key to find only darkness, your dream will collapse, and you'll wake up to find your real self. That's the situation as it occurs in dreams. But when you're not dreaming, and you open that same box, your psychosis has just killed you." - (shonagon53-1)


"Rita has been remade to look like Betty, to become Betty, so there is no reason in the dream for Betty to remain. She disappears just before Rita uses the key to unlock the box - another representation, interestingly, unification, of two part becoming one, and in the process completing one quest and opening up another deeper one.
What Diane is left with, when her dreams and fantasies have lost their power, is anger bitterness and despair. Diane has tried to escape into another reality, but in the end she is forced to accept who she is. When the blue box is opened, it's empty except for a black void that engulfs the screen just as the void in Diane's soul has engulfed her." 

Wrapped in Plastic #57


Blue box on bedThe Betty persona cannot face the moment that the key and the box are finally present together. Together they represent the knowledge of the horrible act that has condemned Diane to a guilt-ridden existence. Betty, who represents Diane's innocence, cannot survive this truth. Certainly opening the box which represents this truth would have destroyed her. But the innocence of Betty was destroyed even before the moment the box was opened. This is because when she brought the blue box into the bedroom she immediately put it onto the bed. This connection to the bed forces Betty to confront the other awful truth that was exposed in Club Silencio. The electrifying scene of her going through spasms as she is being raped as a child is what destroyed Diane's innocence long ago.
However, the Rita persona did not represent innocence, so Rita does not disappear initially like Betty. But Rita does represent Camilla, the person that Diane paid a hit man to have killed. Rita has only enemies left in the world of Diane's fantasy. To her, there is no real alternative to opening up the blue box, because there is no other place to go, and her only hope is that the blue box will show her something that might save her.
However, the blue key was the secret token that would be left for Diane to find, probably behind the Winkie's, when the deed was done. This means that the secret inside the blue box that is opened by the blue key, involves the realization that Camilla is no more. So, when Rita opens up the box and sees nothingness, she seems to be sucked into it. Then when the box falls to the ground, we see that it is still empty. Thus, Rita follows Camilla's fate as she is finally eliminated. The box has taken her out of the picture of the fantasy world in Diane's open mind. - (Alan Shaw)


The most interesting example of this unbreakable cycle of dreams - the idea that reality is as empty as dreams - is embodied by the blue box. The mysterious blue box in Mulholland Drive seems to represent the answers to the film's puzzles. Rita finds the key in her purse while looking for her identity; she believes the box it opens will contain the answer. However as the camera travels inside the box we see it contains nothing. At the end of the film, the monster behind Winkie's is seen contemplating the box before he throws it down with the rest of his garbage; it seems to mean nothing. The problem of the small, square blue box is compounded by the existence of a second blue box in Mulholland Drive. Betty decides to hide Rita's purse, money and blue key, representing the mystery of identity, within a tall, cylindrical hat box: yet another blue box. After the scene at Club Silencio, Rita retrieves the key from the blue hat box and uses it to open the square blue box. Lynch is demonstrating that the box cannot hold all the answers, it merely poses more questions. - (John DeCarli)


  • Nightstand containing blue box?At the end of the movie when Diane reaches into her nightstand drawer to grab the gun there appears to be a blue box in the drawer alongside the gun. Does Diane have some kind of mundane blue box of her own, perhaps a jewelry box, music box, or a stash box; something that she just incorporated into her fantasy like the address book and blue key? Perhaps it contains mementos of her affair with Camilla?
    Thread: The BLUE BIBLE! - (the_kid_with_the_helmet)

  • "Opening and Closing Pandora's Box" is the name of a training program teaching medical professionals concrete skills to help them screen for and address sensitive family problems in their young patients, including child abuse and adolescent substance abuse.

  • In the opening scene right before the camera zooms in on the pillow it seems to focus on the area of the floor where the blue box later disappears at Havenhurst.

  • Note: Rita's purse contained the blue key. Betty's purse contained the blue box.

  • The jitterbuggers dance before a blue screen, while Betty comes forward flanked by the old couple. The old couple later crawl out of the blue box to collect Diane. Does it mean the jitterbug plays out inside the blue box? Is the blue box a gateway to the underworld? »more