Review of Mulholland Drive (2001) by Z D — 14 Apr 2017

How do you even begin to describe Mulholland Drive? It is a totally absorbing and beguiling dreamscape drama where nothing can be trusted. Each time I watch it, I think I glimpse what is actually going on but never quite get there.

Nor should I. As a piece of cinema, I think there are few movies that are so genuinely creepy. Director David Lynch is the king of "What-The-Fuckery" and has the ability to make even the most normal, nondescript apartment complex look like some twisted, menacing version of the candy house from Hansel and Gretel.

Just the opening of a handbag can make the viewer sweaty-palmed with tension at what will be revealed inside. Naomi Watts is superb as Betty in all her incarnations. The film has definite chapters with much of the initial plot surrounding Betty's arrival in Hollywood where she is staying in an apartment owned by her aunt.

When she gets there, she finds a mysterious woman, Rita, in hiding. Rita claims to have been involved in an accident and has lost her memory so the pair begin to investigate what has happened. As clues are uncovered, the plot folds back on itself and things morph into something far darker and more surreal.

The tense, unreal atmosphere is helped by a wonderfully sparse and effective score from Angelo Badalamenti that seems to pulse with the heartbeat as you watch. You get a real sense of Hollywood as a union of glamour and filth, a place that chews people up and spits them out without a care.

Don't watch this movie and expect not to feel something. It will annoy, frustrate, entice and entrance. Just let it wash over you like an hallucinatory nightmare and go with it. "Silencio".