Sensual film

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2015)

It's been called an extra-sensory film, the 2001 enigma "Mulholand Dr." is classically regarded cinema of the highest order, made in retro-grade, incorporating the nihilistic techno-dread of the new millennium. Stoners and users of the drug "blotters" have been quick to try and assimilate a plot thread to this assault on the senses, much like the victims of a "blotter" fear will attempt to correlate images in their head with scriptures from New Age books. But it's not there, this is a nonsense film, stripping sense down to it's purest form without context.
What "Mulholland Dr." communicates it communicates through symbolism, no matter where the plot takes these characters or what random actor has been assigned to the temporary role (all actors play various characters, with no logic or continuity). There is the blue box, which is a symbol for Naomi Watt's colon. There is the homeless man behind the diner, who is a symbol for lust. There is the cross-eyed man, who is a symbol for greed, and trying to get the black book. There is the color blue, which is a symbol for the mysteries.
"Mulholland Dr." has some of the finest acting yet. Naomi Watts is indelible. Linda Cardellini is sensatious. Justin Theroux, in his breakout performance, is trace acceptable, as the actor-boyfriend who may be leading a double life. The stand-out performance is Anne Miller as the landlord Lulu, who is secretly hiding a kangaroo in one of the garages. Small players are forced to do big things: Billy Ray Cyrus gives the comic turn of a life-time as a pool cleaner who is a little too keen in the peen, if you know what I mean. Michael J. Anderson is back as a ruthless sex-trader, and Dan Hedaya makes an appearance alongside Angelo Badalamenti, Lynch's faithful composer, as twin mafioso looking for a new lease on life. Nothing short of terrestrial here, folks.
And of all the talk about the film, what would it be without the best direction? This is Lynch's finest hour, before he went crazy with the digital camera and started filming his whole life like Steve-O, Lynch had one last outing with the classic film, and this is one of the finest examples of pretty movie that there ever has seen. Colors: blue, red, green. Pretty actors, sets that look like a fancy Hollywood movie. Space technology, some gritty realism. There is so much style and variety in this film that if you took any random five minutes of the movie, you wouldn't be able to tell where it came from.
I saw this film at Festival, I saw it on run, I have it on DVD and Blu-ray and I go see it whenever it's screening at the local theater. It's one of my favorite films, if I just want to escape into a world that has no meaning, random visuals and colors and space dwarfs and serial-killer madness, alien conspiracies, mish-mash of Hollywood themes. 10/10