For about an hour and a half, a review slowly formed and a clear analogy was drawn — it was like waiting in line for tickets to you favorite band for three hours, only to hear “Sorry, sold out” when you get to the booth. “Same old David Lynch, all talk, no explanation,” one cannot help but think.
There is so much beauty in “Mulholland Drive” that it quite frequently leaves you gasping for breath, even when it seems like uninterpretable gibberish. But payoff is inevitably absent.
Then . . . WHAM. There is no better way to describe it. Picture those campy action balloons in the old television “Batman” series — the ones that said: “Wham,” “Blam,” or “Kazow.” That?s the best way to describe the finale. There is a stretch of nearly half an hour that alternately drags and kicks into overdrive, overloading one?s mind with twists and mind-altering redirections. If you aren?t careful, you may even leave this film doubting who you are.
Hands down, “Mulholland Drive” is simultaneously the most complicated and interesting film we have seen since last December. If ever a film has benefited from the lack of quality competitors, it is now. Not because “Mulholland Drive” will thrive in the box office with no real competition. In fact, it will likely fail in our attention-deficient film market. Instead, because it is a gasp of fresh air — an orgasmic explosion of pent-up film cravings.
Praising “Mulholland Drive” is one thing. Understanding it is another. Keep in mind, one need not fully understand this movie to enjoy it. In fact, it is best experienced without a full head of investigative steam. Try to take in scenes and moments, leaving logic and explanations for afterwards.
A gorgeous but slightly used-up diva lip-synchs Roy Orbison?s “Crying” and passes out as her voice carries on. A man explains a spine-tingling dream, and then it plays out before him. What do they mean? Who cares? That is the only attitude with which to fully experience and enjoy what David Lynch, a master of the unexplainable, has put together.
From the very second we meet the naíve and bright-eyed Betty (Naomi Watts, “Dangerous Beauty”), there are more than a few subtle clues that something is up. Picture “Valley of the Dolls”? Anne Welles — ingenuous and simple. Betty is everything we think Norma Jean was before she became Marilyn. But Betty has a Marilyn to her as well — a demon inside. Only, we?re not sure which is really Betty and which is . . . a dream maybe?
As Betty arrives in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood — where she plans to find fame, happiness and a new beginning — another damsel closes in on her own end. A leggy brunette is about to meet her demise at gunpoint in a parked limo when a car of joyriding teens collides with them. Only the girl survives — her head swollen, and her name forgotten.
Rita (Laura Harring, “Little Nicky”), as she names herself, stumbles into a vacant Valley home, lies down, and when she awakens, meets Betty.
No more can be divulged about “Mulholland Drive” without spoiling a potentially wondrous experience. Not for the sake of withholding crucial details, for Lynch gives us very few.
On some levels, there is no more story to it — simply experiences that one might put together to form some semblance of a narrative too complex to understand even with the aid of maps, diagrams and sock puppets. As a writer, David Lynch has never stuck out as someone who could write more than five consecutive pages and have them tie together. But as an artist, he can make those five pages of script into the most beautiful, breathtaking scenario ever, albeit a pointless one. If you can find some connection — a real story that binds scenes — all the better. Now more than ever, Lynch seems to have pulled that off.
Keeping in faith with Lynch?s style, this review should have revealed very little about the content of “Mulholland Drive.” David Lynch doesn?t make movies for people who want the abridged version, people who want to know “Why?” or people who want it laid out for them in so many words. For those people, we have “Memento” — which actually withheld little or nothing — and “The Usual Suspects.” Movies that we can call “thinking” films for the sake of making ourselves feel smarter. Lynch makes movies for himself and anyone who can keep up with him. Try.
For those who just cannot wait and those who have already tried, there are issues to be discussed, but not enough room in any newspaper for all speculations, interpretations and ruminations to be printed. But one can still try.
At heart, this is anti-Hollywood propaganda. However you see it, this much is clear — but little else. Such as, what is the blue box? Its key? The monster behind the restaurant? The black book? Billy Ray Cyrus? Imagine being stuck on a crossword puzzle with only one clue left. “12 Across: Hang. Five letters.” Can you walk away from that? Not even in your sleep.
GRADE: A
