Don't Know What the Hell to Think

Rating: Null/10 (25 December 2001)

I don't know what the hell to think. There seem to be two possibilities: 1) If Lynch, indeed, had sufficient control over the film, intending it to turn out in the manner it did, then perhaps it is a masterwork; 2) If, however, Lynch at any point in the making of the film indulged his own predilections over those of the audience, then Mulholland Drive *cannot* be called 'brilliant.' Unfortunately, we will never know, as these answers lie only with the director himself. The result is a film that, at best, mesmerizes; at worst, puzzles, confounds, and frustrates; and one can only react to it much in the same way one can react to any modern (postmodern, post-postmodern, whatever you'd like to call it) work of art -- that is, respond on a purely idiosyncratic, emotional level. In this way, Mullholland Drive is similar to a painting by Rauschenberg, let's say, or a novel by Thomas Pynchon. Either you like it or you don't, but, in any case -- you cannot precisely articulate why.