mind-blowingly awesome

Rating: 10/10 (7 August 2006)

The first time I saw "Mullholland Dr" I was definitely a tad confused. I was looking for meaning that really wasn't there, while I was missing the point entirely without knowing it. The second time, I was maybe two-thirds through when all of a sudden it hit me, like a light bulb just went on inside my head. At that moment, the entire film made complete and total sense. I realized I had just seen the most incredibly astounding depiction of the human mind in its dream state that had ever been filmed.
The movie begins just as the main character is beginning to dream. The first two-thirds of this movie is all a dream sequence. When the lead character, Diane, wakes up, the remainder of the film is set in "reality", and a grim reality it truly is. Diane's dreams were simply an idealized version of her Hollywood experience, full of wishful notions, mystery, intrigue and love. Her subconscious, however, creeps into her dreams and reminds her of the terrible reality she will soon awaken to live once more. This reality is one of loneliness, failure, frustration, revenge and guilt, far removed from the Hollywood of her dreams. In that perspective, the entire movie not only makes perfect sense, but captures the weirdness and darkness of dreams more perfectly and with more detail than I can possibly describe here.