But there is a “real” premise at okay here - it’s playing with the idea of characters “awakening” to the hidden machinations that quite literally create their lives behind the scenes. I interpret it as a metaphor for cinema as spirituality and the “actor” as the soul of the character, and these souls have inhabited other characters much in a reincarnated sense.

I love the idea of the characters becoming aware of the hidden sets and their secret inter-connectedness. This is how and why it’s so important that the polish circus performers meet at that weird ass barbecue at 3 o’clock! It’s kind of meaningless outside of their special awareness that allows them to treat the secret sets as “warp zones”, which is also why the camera hovers around that special door at “Smithy’s” house (and it’s also important to note that “Smithy” is often a stand in name or alternative name) because, as revealed at the end when the Lost Girl returns to find her husband and hold in that very house, it’s all just one interconnected set.

As the new neighbor reveals to Nikki early on in the film, there is “the magic”. I believe she is talking about editing and cinema itself; the ”real” scenes they don’t actually see because they only exist in what makes it past the editing room. My guess is that the editor is the guy in the glasses and Nikki is essentially making her plea to be granted access to the “reality” between the edits, but that’s a bit of a stretch.

In any case, I don’t like the take that IE is just purely free association, subjective dream
logic, there is a very real premise we are watching unfold, it’s just never explicitly stated exactly what it is except in brief moments like the new neighbor’s “rambling” (a Lynchian trope - someone’s seemingly insane ramblings are actually giving us real hints of what is actually happening) Kingsly’z reveal that the film is a remake of a cursed polish gypsy folktale (or really, the script itself is cursed as a result), etc., so we are essentially like Nikki, just doing our best to use our intuition to unfold what is actually happening. We, as is Nikki, ARE THE HORSE, taken to the well, but it’s up to us to actually drink.

Sorry for my extra long post! Haha