A Masterpiece of Cinema, about Cinema

This is one of the hardest movies I’ve ever needed to write about. This is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

This blog post was originally written back in early January 2026 and I wanted to edit it because it was too “raw”, but I think the “rawness” of it fits the movie, so I just decided to release it almost as is, nearly untouched.

It’s a movie that is far more and far deeper than it appears. The fact that something like that was made in today’s Hollywood is a beautiful and amazing accomplishment.

It’s a movie that asks a lot of you, it asks you to have a non-surface-level knowledge about movies and art creation, but in the end, if you get it, it’s worth it.

The Story, the Metaphor and Hollywood

This is a movie that hooks you with a mystery and then turns into one of the most surreal and metaphorical things I’ve ever seen.

Please, for your own and art’s sake, watch this movie before reading what follows.

The reason it’s so hard to write about this movie is that, if you “crack” a metaphor, you open another one, that then links to another one… so to say something coherent (not that the following doesn’t sound insane), you have to explain (almost) all of them…

My Interpretation (which might be wrong)

I, weirdly enough, had the core metaphor really early on, starting from the scene in the conspiracy theorist’s house, if I remember correctly.

The movie gives you all the clues, from the focus on the girl’s disappearance and the overuse of clips from old movies, to the scenes happening on top of literal Hollywood celebrities graves.

Every single “mysterious” metaphorical element is explained, from the weird alphabet, which is literally a meaningless bait and switch (the movie literally tells you that) just to make you look for clues, to the dogs that get killed that are “us”, the “fans”.

  • The dolls of Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall, all 3 actresses appearing in the movie (“How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)”, a fitting title) that’s on the TV in the same scene. Looking exactly like the 3 women in the Rabbit car, going through life and struggling. Batty Grabble looking like the redhead one having a struggling career (and needing to prostitute herself to survive in Hollywood)
  • A near off-topic scene with the “sexy lingerie model” being miserable in her villa
  • The billionaire, effectively the “system” faking his death to go “away” in a bunker with some woman who wanted to be “there” (well, kinda wanted to, but not necessarily like that). Sacrificing everyone who cared about him, even his own daughter.

Even the movie name is a metaphor: “Under the Silver Lake”, the Silver Lake is a Hollywood neighborhood (named after a water reservoir), so it literally means “under Hollywood.”

Why “Silver Lake” then? Well, my theory is that “silver screen” is a synonym for movie theater… and under it… means the other side of the screen… so the side of movie creation.

Also, the funny thing is that at the end, you just get the parrot making the metaphor explicit by repeating “Hollywood!”

Conclusion

I am a skunk.

Reject dog, become skunk.

Thank you, David Robert Mitchell.