Yes indeed, the best of 2001!!

Rating: 10/10 (6 December 2002)

I watched Mulholland Drive twice only. The first time around I was able to deduce what part was dream and what part was reality, but otherwise was still left confused about apparently disconnected scenes and obscure symbols that appear throughout the movie. The second time the pieces fell together (also after some research on the web). I wasn't a big David Lynch fan before, but I always enjoyed the quirky characters and especially the mood and atmosphere that he achieves in his movies. But, by far, this movie was the one that struck me as having the best plot of them all! Of all the movies I saw in 2001, Mulholland Drive comes up on top.
The beauty of it is that, not only does he create the atmosphere of mystery and tension (remember the "monster" behind the alley?) and brings us another array of strange and funny people, but most of it does make sense and can be explained - and the real story justifies the melancholy that flows through the movie.
If you figured out that the bulky first part of it is a dream, and she wakes up after the blue key opens the mysterious blue box (and the cowboy says "wake up, pretty girl") - then you will probably also have noticed how everybody in the "dream" part have their names and roles switched from the "real" part, and that the "dream" part of the movie operates pretty much in "dream logic" (that is, the protagonist gets her way, Hollywood is an idealized place, her lover is at her mercy and the way she wants her to be - a blank sheet of paper). The "Silencio" club and the blue box are provided as symbols - for "what" there are plenty of theories out there. Another symbol is the (disjointed) cafeteria scene in which one character discusses his dreams and then has to confront it - this looks like the same cafeteria where she ordered her lover killed, so it makes sense to think of the "monster" as her guilt in real life surfacing on her dream. Many of these elements where reality tries to pierce into the dream are quite spellbinding (the other one is when she sees her own body).
But what holds the whole movie together is a sense of sadness - after all the "reality" is that our heroine lives a terrible life of guilt for having ordered her lover killed and is about to commit suicide, and that is the time and context in which she has her dream. And right away, in her dream, her lover is miraculously saved from murder... This is also a nice twist, bending the two storylines together.
Naomi Watts does such a beautiful job, reinforcing the dreamlike and unreal qualities of her character in her dream - and then forcing us to confront the reality.
I am looking forward to watching this movie again and again... It's a great experience.