Mulholland Drive
David Lynch

James Redick

I have to admit, I've been using other film reviews to try and piece through the last hour of action of Mulholland Drive and create some sense from it. The one thing I've noticed? Almost everyone glazes over that last hour. Surprise, surprise.

You could argue there are two reasons: one, there is no definitive answer. Each viewer is left to determine some satisfying solution and reaction to the events that take place on the screen. Or, secondly, no one can figure out what the hell happened. I'm a bit partial to the second answer, despite the clues director David Lynch has been dropping in the papers.

There is no definitive solution to the movie; the plot builds to a stunning crescendo, suddenly dies and shifts into something completely different (yet similar) while picking up and dropping fragments and pieces of other stories. Best of all, the film refuses to tie up anything in the end. A blue haired woman sitting in the balcony of a theatre utters the recurring theme 'silencio' in the film's last scene.

The film starts with an attempted murder in the hills of Los Angeles going awry when a car of drag-racing teenagers smash into the limo parked alongside the road. 'Rita' emerges and takes refuge in an empty apartment. Betty, a fresh faced Hollywood hopeful from Canada shows up in the apartment (owned by her aunt) the next day to find Rita showering, and assumes that Rita is a friend of her aunt's. Through a series of weirdly awkward and surrealistic conversations, Betty finds that Rita lost her memory as a result of the car accident and the two set out to determine who Rita is. They have two clues: a strange blue key and a name Rita recalls - Diane Selwyn. Seemingly straightforward, right?

This storyline, however, is intermingled with other plot fragments: a scene in a diner where a man tells his psychiatrist about a recurring dream that turns out to be truth, a young filmmaker who the studio forces to recast his lead as Camella Rhodes and a character named the Cowboy who emerges out of the dark to tell the filmmaker that he better change his attitude and accept the studio's decision or face the consequences. What's further maddening is that a blue box emerges mysteriously out of Betty's purse that matches the key Rita found in her purse after the accident. Betty suddenly disappears while Rita opens the box and dives into darkness.

And this is where the story gets really complicated. During their sleuthing, Rita and Betty found the body of Diane Selwyn. Now, Naomi Watts who was playing Betty is now Diane. Further confusing is that Laura Elena Harring, who was Rita, is now Camella Rhodes. Yet, there are enough similarities that it seems the two have simply taken different identities. Is your head spinning yet?

So, needless to say, this film could have been unendurable and truly awful. Yet, Lynch somehow pulls it off. The awkwardness of the dialogue and the character interactions creates a sense of eerie-ness and foreboding that allow the plot great liberty with facts. Even though neither Betty nor Rita know why they should be afraid, nor does the audience, the film creates a sense that there is something to fear. And though the plot threads remain loose and often incoherent, half the fun of the show is trying to piece together the action.

Another feature of the movie that Lynch uses wonderfully is the sparseness of sound. The music intercedes every so often, but the absence of sound is as effective as its presence. It all contributes to the film's eerie-ness and creates an aural tension that flows throughout the movie. It adds and enhances the dreamy quality and links much of the incoherent scenes and actions.

In the end, I personally think Lynch has created a film filled with loose ends, irrelevant plot elements and confusing progression. It's just that it really is a wonder to watch and I found myself pondering the different questions and plot elements for days after seeing it. If you absolutely have to figure out where each and every element comes into play in the broader context of the movie, good luck. At this point I'm convinced that not only the clues within the film itself are misleading, but Lynch has released some purposefully misleading clues in the press.

At some point in the movie, though, you realise that not everything is relevant and it doesn't all work to form a firmly coherent plot. When you can simply give in to the tension on the screen and take the events as they come to you, the film is visually and aurally stunning. Then spend the next week trying to figure out what happened.