Mulholland Dr. (2001)

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Mulholland Dr. (2001)

A Pleasure to Get Lost In

Warning: I'm not sure this review qualifies as a "spoiler" since even knowing the entire plot doesn't necessarily give anything away, but it does toe the line. I'm not even sure this review even qualifies as a review at all--see links below for more trusted and reliable analyses.

I have this daydream where David Lynch dies and leaves behind a book titled "What the Fuck My Movies Really Meant." Until such a day becomes reality (and according to the brunt of Lynch's films, reality itself is a questionable status), we're stuck with Lynch's multiple interpretations, staccato imagery, peripheral characters and an overall feeling that we've just been drugged somehow. Blue Velvet delivers this kind of sensation, but Mulholland Drive fairly clubs you over the head with its innuendo, and for anyone who claims to derive satisfaction from a story where "the loose ends are tied up," this film won't just confuse you, but will actively piss you off.

But that's the good part. Rarely does the average moviegoing public open themselves up to the challenge of interpretation and analysis. Witness reactions to the infamous briefcase in Pulp Fiction: awe, interest and, ultimately, irritation. Witness Memento's skyrocketing box office sales contrasted with initial public reactions. Witness the average viewer's initial reaction to Mulholland Drive (myself included): "What the hell was that?" Lynch undoubtedly knows he's pulling the thumbscrews, but in the tradition of Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart, he's giving us the pieces, contrary to initial bemusment. It's up to us to put them together.

Okay, so here's my pathetic attempt, born from two back-to-back viewings, a short discussion, and some Internet perusal. The film opens with a crazy dance contest contrasted with a neutral background, and at its conclusion we see a smiling blonde face flanked by two older people. Then our vision blurs in and out, focusing finally on a blanket and pillow, where we fade to black once more. Yes, this is important, children, but we'll come back to it later.

Cut to a limo making its way up the infamous Mulholland Drive where, in the back, a lovely brunette (Laura Herring) is just about to get murdered by her drivers. Before they can pull the trigger, a couple cars full of joyriding teens smash into the parked car, killing everyone but the brunette. She makes her way down the hill into Hollywood, eventually hiding in a recently-vacated apartment. Meanwhile, a starstruck Betty (Naomi Watts) has just stepped off a plane from Ontario, escorted by the same older couple from the dance contest. They wish her luck in her quest for fame and fortune as an actress, but on their ride away, they share devilish grins, looking mightily pleased with themselves. (This flash gave me nightmares, kids. Watch it with the lights on.)

Betty makes it to her aunt's apartment, escorted by landlady Coco (former superstar Ann Miller), where she finds the strange brunette (calling herself "Rita" after a Rita Hayworth poster on the wall) in the shower. At first she believes her to be a friend of her aunt's, but she soon learns the truth: the brunette can't remember who she is or what she was doing. She also has no idea what the $50,000 and mysterious blue key in her purse is for, and Betty, drawn into the mystery and intrigue of Rita's past, offers to help solve the mystery.

Meanwhile, we're being introduced left and right to various and sundry characters. Robert Forster makes a thirty-second appearance as a cop investigating the accident (presumably this would have been fleshed out more in the TV series the film was originally intended to be); a couple of thirty-something men in a diner discuss a dream in which a monster out back is lurking only to discover that the monster is a bum who, apparently, gives one of the men a heart attack. A stoner hit man (Mark Pellegrino) kills what I take to be a talent agent in order to grab "the infamous black book" which contains information linking to the attempted murder of Rita. But more immediately central to the story is movie director Adam Kesher's (Justin Theroux) problem with the mob. They want him to cast young blonde Camilla (Melissa George) in his film, and when he refuses, they shut his production down and send him to The Cowboy (Layfayette Montgomery), who, in an eerily evil persona, tells him to cast Camilla. "You do good, you'll see me one more time," he tells the slowly-getting-it Kesher. "You do bad, you'll see me two more times." What is it about Lynch that he can take such dorky-looking characters and make them so damned unsettling?

In order to make any sense of the entire movie (which includes complicated flashback sequences worthy of Death of a Salesman, lesbian scenes and hellish bums and old people), the opening minute or two needs to be written down on a notebook pad or something. The entire film seems to be Betty's fevered attempt to reconstruct her failed and miserable life in her imagination. Going even further, Betty seems to be a reconstructed Diane, whose failed and miserable life is revealed in the final twenty minutes of the film. Diane and rita (whose real name turns out to be Camilla) were lovers, but Diane was thrown over for director Kesher. Humiliated and rejected after Kesher and Camilla announce their engagement, Diane arranges for the stoner hitman to kill Camilla, and when it is all over, she apparently cannot stand the weight of her grief and guilt (personified by the sinster elderly couple at the film's beginning), and shoots herself.

This "dream sequence argument" is the standard line of the film's critics, and it makes a lot of the movie's details more sensible. The seductress Camilla who spurned Diane turns into the helpless Rita, dependent on Betty; Betty's audition for a film is nothing short of breathtaking, and Hollywood (itself an object of derison for Lynch) is opening its arms wide to embrace her inspiration and talent, whereas Diane only got her foot in the door through Camilla. This also allows us to exhibit all the lesbian love scenes as functional (witness the turn of events when Betty and Rita get it on) rather than cheap, voyeuristic thrills (just make sure the rewind button on your remote works, kids).

The evil-looking bum in the back alley, the shadowy mob bosses (played to perfection by Dan Hedaya and musical score composer Angelo Badalamenti), and the sinister elderly couple all show power masquerading in numerous guises of powerlessness, helplessness or outright corruption. From here, there are any number of possible ways to reconstruct the truth behind the celluloid, but it all adds up to one woman's dream--not in the cliched "it was all just a dream" sense, but in a "we can only escape so many of our inner demons through self-delusion" fashion.

Any further analysis I can provide is unquestionably dwarfed by the existing criticism circulating on the Internet--Salon Magazine has a comprehensive analysis, and both Roger Ebert and Peter Travers have hit the nail on the head repeatedly, especially concerning the effects of getting "lost" in, or "surrendering to" the movie. Confusing though the film may be, it is no less intriguing for its loose ends and head-scratchers, and when you've got the entertainment industry's most prominent critics scratching their heads and coming up empty, you know Lynch has done his job: given us something to chew over for years to come. An unquestionable triumph.

-Long