Road subject to fog

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2013)

"Mulholland Dr." is a journey into David Lynch territory, and the tour does not come with maps. I did not approach this film as a Lynch fan. I'm still not sure if I am one. Fans of his work feel that they are armed with the passport, or at least the code that allows them to interpret his films. However, two and half-hours pass quickly – it's compelling, but frustrating.
I gained a better understanding of the story from the Internet. Some critics charge Lynch with cheating his audience and some feel Lynch has opened a new, non-linear approach to cinematic story telling.
Another group of reviewers claim that the character and identity exchanges that make the last part of the movie so confusing, are totally accessible to devotees of Lynch's work. However, for the uninitiated or those unable to solve Rubik's Cube in fifteen seconds, "Mulholland Dr." is a road shrouded in fog.
After an automobile accident, a mysterious woman (Laura Harring) finds refuge in the apartment of a young actress, Betty Elms (Naomi Watts). Calling herself Rita – from a poster of Rita Hayworth on the wall – the woman cannot remember her real name or how she came to be there. The relentlessly upbeat and perky Betty befriends Rita, and sets out to help her find her true identity.
Other episodes intersect with the central story: A man in a Winkies' diner tells another about a disturbing dream he has had that took place in the diner. A hit-man is forced to eliminate more and more people while attempting to recover a book of names. Movie director Adam Kesher's life spirals out of control when he resists pressure by Hollywood power brokers to cast a particular actress in his latest movie.
Betty and Rita become lovers. Following this unexpected union is a twist that gives new meaning to the word – Betty is revealed as Diana Selwyn, and Rita as her lover Camilla Rhodes.
These characters had appeared in other sequences played by different actresses; Diana was the waitress at the Winkies diner, played by Melissa Crider, and Melissa George played Carmilla in another manifestation of Rita's character – surely even Lynch must have been confused. The film attempts an almost impossible task of identity swapping. The discovery of Diana's body by Betty and Rita triggers the change of characters. Betty and Rita are figments of Diane Selwyn's imagination as though viewed in a troubled dream. Diane is suffering a mental breakdown caused by her obsessive, unrequited love for Carmilla who callously discards lovers as she moves on to new ones.
There really is no eureka moment when the audience realises that there has been a major shift in focus. It is difficult during a first viewing to work out exactly what happened. Is the audience cheated? Not exactly, but by avoiding anything as conventional as a transition scene, Lynch could be guilty of a certain cynicism towards the audience.
Lynch asked much of Naomi Watts and she gave it. So does Laura Harring as Rita / Carmilla. A full-frontal nude scene she performs underwent an interesting change for the DVD. Lynch digitally removed her pubic area from the sequence to stop exploitation on the Internet and in response to her sensitivity about the scene. Does this reveal a controlling side of the man? If he was that concerned, a nightie from the get-go would have been an option.
There is much to admire about the film. The way characters are reinterpreted and distorted in Diane's dream to create a new reality is bold cinema – it's the execution that is the problem.
At one point in the film, Adam Kesher meets a character called The Cowboy. The Cowboy warns Adam that he will see him one more time if he does good, or he will see him two more times if he does bad.
"Mulholland Dr." is such a bewildering experience that I'm still not sure how many times David Lynch should see The Cowboy.