MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001)
Watching a David Lynch film is like brain surgery; it can be done, but it is very difficult to do. Lynch is one of those directors that you either love, or hate. Audiences generally do not enjoy his abstract and surrealist style; the most prominent example of audience disdain for Lynch being Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. A Lynch film is an intricately created piece of work; approaching a Lynch movie is not the same as watching a movie by any other director. Patience is required, but it is rewarded.
2001's Mulholland Drive is one of Lynch's finest moments; one of his most layered and complex works, but interestingly enough; one of his more accessible. Movies like Eraserhead and Lost Highway are pure undiluted Lynch; five minutes in you'll probably think what the hell is going on. This is the same with Mulholland Drive, thought it is more approachable and much less "Lynchian" than his other works. That is not to say it isn't Lynchian at all, there are still bizarre scenes, moments of stomach churning tension and that remarkable Lynch trick of focusing on doors that illicit this effect. There are scenes that have nothing to do with the rest of the film, but that is what makes Mulholland Drive such a well-crafted jigsaw puzzle. Watching Lynch movies you have to be switched on, but Mulholland Drive is easy enough follow that you won't get too lost, even if it is your first foray into Lynch.
Named for the eponymous Hollywood street, Mulholland Drive begins with a scene of jitterbugging; in classic Lynchian fashion. Obscure, random, and visually striking. It is through this bizarre introduction we meet our "main character", Betty (Naomi Watts); an aspiring actress who has moved to Las Angeles to kickstart her acting career in Hollywood. Betty is one of many characters that the film "focuses" on, along with amnesiac Rita (Laura Harring) who becomes embroiled with Betty, and Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), a Hollywood director looking to get back onto the road of success.
2001's Mulholland Drive is one of Lynch's finest moments; one of his most layered and complex works, but interestingly enough; one of his more accessible. Movies like Eraserhead and Lost Highway are pure undiluted Lynch; five minutes in you'll probably think what the hell is going on. This is the same with Mulholland Drive, thought it is more approachable and much less "Lynchian" than his other works. That is not to say it isn't Lynchian at all, there are still bizarre scenes, moments of stomach churning tension and that remarkable Lynch trick of focusing on doors that illicit this effect. There are scenes that have nothing to do with the rest of the film, but that is what makes Mulholland Drive such a well-crafted jigsaw puzzle. Watching Lynch movies you have to be switched on, but Mulholland Drive is easy enough follow that you won't get too lost, even if it is your first foray into Lynch.
Named for the eponymous Hollywood street, Mulholland Drive begins with a scene of jitterbugging; in classic Lynchian fashion. Obscure, random, and visually striking. It is through this bizarre introduction we meet our "main character", Betty (Naomi Watts); an aspiring actress who has moved to Las Angeles to kickstart her acting career in Hollywood. Betty is one of many characters that the film "focuses" on, along with amnesiac Rita (Laura Harring) who becomes embroiled with Betty, and Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), a Hollywood director looking to get back onto the road of success.
The film does not particularly follow a single story, and we do not get much of explanation as to what is going on. The storylines of Betty, Rita and Adam (all eventually intertwining) are intercut with typically strange Lynchian vignettes: The Cowboy meeting Adam in an abandoned rodeo ring, the Castigliani Brothers trying to convince him to cast a certain actress in his new film, an unrelated hitman stealing a book of phone numbers. These moments sound perfectly normal on paper, but in David Lynch's hands they are some of the film's most unsettling and visually striking scenes.
Mulholland Drive and its world exist in almost a dream-like equilibrium; the reality is juxtaposed with such absurd and bizarre unreality that this familiar locale and seemingly, story, seem all the more unreal. That is what watching Mulholland Drive feels like, for the 147 minutes we are in Lynch's world we. the audience, are sealed in this world, like a dream. The whole narrative plays out like a dream, with strange footnotes that don't really make sense but surround the main idea and path of the film. Experiencing Mulholland Drive is a dream-like experience, when it is over it seems faint, surreal; as if what happened to the characters is as disconnected as you feel from a dream. We don't have time to form connections with Rita, or Betty, or Adam. The latter is a highly unlike-able character who is on a destructive path to make his movie his way and unwittingly earning the anger of unseen powers. Rita is vague and enigmatic, we do not discover her true identity until later in the film, and much of this mystique also surrounds Betty, naive and optimistic; traits we see slowly wither throughout the course of the film.
Mulholland Drive and its world exist in almost a dream-like equilibrium; the reality is juxtaposed with such absurd and bizarre unreality that this familiar locale and seemingly, story, seem all the more unreal. That is what watching Mulholland Drive feels like, for the 147 minutes we are in Lynch's world we. the audience, are sealed in this world, like a dream. The whole narrative plays out like a dream, with strange footnotes that don't really make sense but surround the main idea and path of the film. Experiencing Mulholland Drive is a dream-like experience, when it is over it seems faint, surreal; as if what happened to the characters is as disconnected as you feel from a dream. We don't have time to form connections with Rita, or Betty, or Adam. The latter is a highly unlike-able character who is on a destructive path to make his movie his way and unwittingly earning the anger of unseen powers. Rita is vague and enigmatic, we do not discover her true identity until later in the film, and much of this mystique also surrounds Betty, naive and optimistic; traits we see slowly wither throughout the course of the film.
Mulholland Drive is one of David Lynch's best movies, it earned him the critical plaudits that had eluded him on more untamed productions like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Lost Highway; which are movies that only fans of Lynch can admire and enjoy. Mulholland Drive is David Lynch restraining himself; the vignettes of bizarreness are far less frequent than Eraserhead or Lost Highway, but they remain to remind us we are watching a David Lynch movie. The strangeness is there, the commentary is there, almost beneath a layer of artificiality that is prevalent throughout the film; but it is Lynch trying t make the movie as accessible as possible while still retaining enough of himself to make it a David Lynch movie.
It was, in 2001, and still is now, one of the greatest films about Hollywood ever made; arguably the greatest film about Hollywood made outside of Hollywood. With Mulholland Drive Lynch achieves the balance between making the film accessible and still making it is own. It was in many ways a repeat of Blue Velvet, a Lynch film that was not too obscure or too abstract for a larger audience. And indeed it has a lot in common with Blue Velvet. David Lynch managed to leave what makes him such a great director untarnished while still creating a coherent and deeply layered film that is, in a nutshell, about Hollywood, but simultaneous is about so much more.
The Verdict: Mulholland Drive is a jigsaw puzzle of a film; it is very difficult to approach, but with patience and attention it turns into something truly impressive and thought-provoking.
It was, in 2001, and still is now, one of the greatest films about Hollywood ever made; arguably the greatest film about Hollywood made outside of Hollywood. With Mulholland Drive Lynch achieves the balance between making the film accessible and still making it is own. It was in many ways a repeat of Blue Velvet, a Lynch film that was not too obscure or too abstract for a larger audience. And indeed it has a lot in common with Blue Velvet. David Lynch managed to leave what makes him such a great director untarnished while still creating a coherent and deeply layered film that is, in a nutshell, about Hollywood, but simultaneous is about so much more.
The Verdict: Mulholland Drive is a jigsaw puzzle of a film; it is very difficult to approach, but with patience and attention it turns into something truly impressive and thought-provoking.
★★★★★
5/5
5/5