The scene which shows two men in the Winkie’s restaurant in the first part of the movie first appears without any interest, when actually, it is absolutely necessary to understand the whole movie.

We can see two men sitting at a table next to the window, face to face. One in his early forties, obviously dominant, sometimes even showing his irritation as if he was wasting his time, the other much younger, very submissive, in a pleading attitude. They seem to be a couple, or at least former partners in life. The younger,  with his back to the door, is telling about the nightmare that haunts him every night. In his dream, which takes place in the same restaurant, his friend sitting opposite him is the main character. And there is a creature standing in the small yard at the back of the restaurant, hiding behind a wall. Obsessed with his incredible dream, the young man asks his friend to come along with him down to the yard to check if his vision is real or not.

The two men go behind the restaurant and when they come close to the wall, a strange, ugly creature does appear. In a shock, the younger man falls unconscious, perhaps dead.

In the second part of the movie, we can see the two main characters, Rita-Camilla and Betty-Diane, sitting in this restaurant, at the same table where the two men had been before. The blond girl, Diane, is sitting exactly where the “dreamer” was. And the brunette, Camilla, is exactly where his friend was. What is the interest of this coincidence? Actually it reveals what role the two women embody during the first part of the movie. The blond girl is the dreamer: she imagines all the “pink part” of the movie because she can’t bear the reality. And like the dreamer, she is the weaker of the pair, while the brunette is the dominant one in the real world, as is revealed later.

The reality is symbolised by the creature: horrible, scary and hidden in the first part of the movie. The brunette is the main character of the blond girl’s dream. When the young man dies because of seeing the creature, it anticipates the end of the movie: Diane, represented by the dreamer, dies at the very end because she cannot accept the reality, represented by the creature. What we can finally notice is that the “dreamer” and his partner seem to be gay, like Diane is a lesbian, and has an affair with Camilla, just another clue which helps us to find the links between the two scenes.

This part can be understood only at the end of the movie. It is one of the numerous pieces which enable us to build the final puzzle. Lynch, imagining this situation, cleverly establishes all the logic of the movie.

Between dream and reality, he makes us explore Diane’s mind, her wishes, her fears and her love for Camilla.

Also, the waitress’ name at the Winkie's is a connection between the pink world and the reality world. First of all, Diane can’t accept that Camilla put an end to their love relationship. Diane is crazy about Camilla. In the dream world, Betty-Diane and Rita-Camilla try to discover Rita’s lost identity, having a coffee at the Winkie's. When the waitress arrives, her nametag reads “Diane”. Then we figure out that Diane wants Camilla to pay attention to her in her imaginary pleasant world. Indeed, Diane is desperately in love with the brunette. She would like her to feel the same. The only pronunciation of  the name “Diane” enables Rita to recover her memory. Moreover, this name is so striking in Rita’s mind that she wonders if it is her own name. All her past life begins to make sense thanks to the evocation of this name.

When you love someone passionately, you live for this person and nothing makes sense without his or her presence. When Camilla dies, Diane is upset and loses her reason to live, and commits suicide. She would like to have the same importance in Camilla’s eyes as in Rita’s –the character she invented from the real Camilla.

The name “Diane” is a clue. Therefore, they follow this clue in quest for Diane. The Winkie's seems to be a place where revelations are made. The Winkie's sequences prefigure horrible discoveries which connect dream and reality. The Winkie's is also a reference to the hidden side of the pleasant world. Reality pervades the pink world. When they find the address in the telephone directory, they come into Diane’s flat. They discover a cadaver which is probably Diane’s. It isn’t strange to imagine that the decomposed body is Diane’s cadaver because people who decide to commit suicide anticipate their own death. They see themselves dying and they see themselves dead. The vision of Diane’s cadaver is the link between the pink world and the difficult reality she has to face. Finally, the dream world created by Diane and her projection in the future when she is dead are related. To be created, both projections must be connected, inspired from real life. Then these two projections materialize Diane’s existence. We understand the reason why Diane creates her dream world: she wants to escape from reality.

Diane-Betty comes twice to the Winkie's. The first time –with Rita– the name of the waitress is Diane. The second time –with the killer– her name is Betty. Diane assumes the waitress's name to represent herself in the dreamworld. Therefore, by giving her real name to the waitress in the dreamworld, she acknowledges that she'is dreaming. The Winkie's restaurant is chosen for the deal with the killer in the reality world. Then because she needs to escape from reality Diane conceals the fact that she has paid a killer to slay Camilla. Indeed the mysterious blue key and money found in the brunette’s bag are evidence of that deal. The killer gave her the key and she had to pay him for the murder. But we are in the pleasant world and to escape from reality it must be hidden, so the mysterious key and money go into a box, and the box into a closet.

The intrusion of reality into the pink world represents her guilt emerging into the dream, despite her efforts to repress it.

 This page was contributed by Cécile Lagrange & Doriane Mouret, January 2005,
proofread by BM.