Review of Mulholland Drive (2001) by Screamager — 14 Feb 2018

David Lynch brings all his surreal qualities together for, what else, an unintelligibly brilliant masterpiece.

David Lynch is a madman, and he has been for the last 40 years or so. We were first introduced to his "style" with 1977's Eraserhead - a film that remains shocking to this day and quickly cemented Lynch as one of the 20th century's prominent surrealists. This was followed by the more accessible The Elephant Man, although still fairly surreal, and a number of movies that ranged from absolute **** (Dune) to absolute classics (Blue Velvet). Of all of his films, however, there is none quite like Mulholland Drive.

To describe the film is an arduous task that would ruin the experience, and to summarise it would be an injustice. To put it as simply as possible, Mulholland Drive is a film about the search for meaning. A theme that is quite meta, since we as the audience also try to find the true meaning behind the film; scenes that lead to nowhere, absurdly comic moments that have no relevance, a list of questions that Lynch insists are important to "unlocking the secret" - or is this just misdirection on his part?

Mulholland Drive initially started out as a pilot for an unproduced TV show, which may account for some of the random plot points that are ignored later in the film. But despite all that the surreal qualities actually work, and the more we try to investigate the truth the less interested we are. It's a film where we want to find the answers, but at the same we want them to remain hidden. There are countless interpretations to the movie and that just makes it so much better than Lynch's previous film Lost Highway (1997) - a film which influences the narrative structure of this film, but one which employed it less effectively.

So what can I really say about Mulholland Drive? It's difficult to review a film like this because of how unique and surreal it is. My recommendation is that you watch it, because it is an incredible experience - artistic, comedic, dark, surreal, mysterious, it's a puzzle that can never truly be solved. Although I believe Blue Velvet to be Lynch's finest film (it was my introduction to his work), Mulholland Drive is worthy of a 10 simply because of how compelling it is - it's the mystery of Twin Peaks, but it's one that even Cooper can't solve. I don't think he'd want to either.