Mulholland Drive - David Lynch

I’ve had a complex relationship with David Lynch ever since I first encountered his 2001 masterpiece Mulholland Drive. I’ve seen it about half a dozen times now, and I’ve sought out other of his films that I’ve loved (The Elephant Man), hated (Eraserhead), or couldn’t decipher one way or another (Blue Velvet, Inland Empire). The only emotion Lynch has never elicited is indifference.

But always I return to Mulholland Drive, which belongs on any list of the best films of this decade. After eight years and multiple viewings it retains the same primal terror, the same hypnotic pull, the same wonder. It’s meticulously crafted and sustained — a perfect film. It defies logic but captivates something deeper inside the brain; its sounds and images access unvisited realms of my emotions.

Lynch conceived the project as a TV pilot for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The network rejected the finished product, though if you’ve seen the film it’s surprising anyone said yes to it in the first place. Upon losing the network deal, Lynch went back to the drawing board, revised the script, and shot new footage, which includes a dark, transformative final act. That such a film was cobbled together in this manner is remarkable; Lynch’s improvisation is better than the work of most filmmakers with complete creative control.

The story begins with a traffic accident on the titular road. A car stops. The driver pulls a gun on a female passenger (Laura Elena Harring), who is saved by a sudden collision with a group of teenagers driving recklessly in the opposite direction. She emerges from the car, afflicted with amnesia. Elsewhere, ingenue Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) disembarks a plane in Los Angeles in pursuit of stardom as an actress. In the apartment she borrows from her Aunt Ruth, she encounters the accident victim, now calling herself Rita.

Oh but that is just the beginning of a story that may turn out to be another story altogether! Rita is somehow connected to a film being directed by bespectacled artiste Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), who is being strong-armed by forces unknown into casting a young actress in the lead role. The actress is Camilla Rhodes. Remember her name; who she is will prove vitally important.

But from this point forward I will cease discussing the plot, because summarizing it would be (1) impossible, and (2) beside the point. What matters is how Lynch deconstructs his story elements and puts them back together in a way that distills them, resulting in a film that succeeds as breathless romance, acid Hollywood satire, tantalizing noir mystery — and, perhaps, supernatural thriller? He generates suspense by operating outside the conventions of storytelling; his mise-en-scène contains limitless surprise, and we await with delight, or sometimes horror, what will come next into the frame.

Consider also how deliberately he paces scenes. The slow cadences of his dialogue are unlike any you’ve heard and produce a dreamlike effect. One such scene takes place between Kesher and a man known as the Cowboy (Lafayette Montgomery), who threatens Kesher in a secluded ranch in the dead of night. The Cowboy could be played for comedy, but achieves a subtle menace when he says with a stone face, “You will see me one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad.”

The director’s camera stalks just as patiently. Few memories of moviegoing are as vivid as when I first experienced the prolonged visit to the diner called Winkies. Dan (Patrick Fischler) and Herb (Michael Cooke), characters who seem otherwise unrelated to the story, discuss Dan’s recurring nightmare about a man behind the diner and then make their way outside to see for themselves. Slowly, slowly, slowly, largely using a first-person perspective that assumes Dan’s fearful point of view, Lynch guides us towards a concealed alley, until ... but see for yourself. This scene should be an object lesson to horror directors who still try to generate fear by leaping cats into the frame.

And then comes the turn. Roughly ninety minutes in, Lynch introduces a strange after-hours theater called Club Silencio in an astonishing surrealist crescendo that overturns story, character, theme, and tone, yet flows so naturally out of what came before. Love curdles. Hopes are dashed. The “dream place” that Betty arrived in has been disfigured into cynicism and obsession. A commentary on naive Hollywood aspirations? Perhaps. But neither the dream place nor the nightmare seems real. They are manifestations of a character’s psyche, once sanguine, now tar-black with rage. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and the dark soul is envisioning a kind of redemption or rebirth. I cannot say for sure.

David Lynch has refused to explain his film — a wise decision. I have encountered in-depth analyses and have avoided reading them, not because I would like to solve the puzzle on my own, but rather because to deduce an “answer” to such a mythic question would, I think, break its spell for good. I could not bear that.

I would rather bask in its indecipherable wonders: how the score by Angelo Badalamenti evokes grand feelings of love and loss, how close-ups and swift push-ins on characters’ faces suggest a recognition deeper than memory, how my eyes and ears find new details every time I watch it, how it stretches open my imagination to new limits. No, I can’t explain Mulholland Drive, but I think I understand it, in a way. And it moves me so greatly I don’t even need to explain it to myself.

Watch a trailer of the movie here: