excellent film on many levels

Rating: 8/10 (29 April 2016)

After "Lost Highway", a crime/romantic betrayal story punctuated by pretentious meta-narrative and probably very nearly containing Rob Zombie tunes at one point, Lynch came back a few years later with this picture, easily his most absorbing, memorable and emotionally satisfying reworking of the crime/romance theme since he established his presence with "Blue Velvet" decades ago.
Mulholland Drive features Betty, a wholesome, suburban wannabe actress vacationing in Hollywood at her wealthy aunts apartment, who's working out of town on a movie. A voluptuous, olive skinned woman appears to be cowering in the apartment, dazed with concussion. The rest of the film is in essence a series of vignettes and spiralling, increasingly angst-ridden scenes showing Betty's manipulation and betrayal by Rita, who appears to be either a Hollywood socialite or possibly a sex worker with dangerous criminal connections.
Laura Harring plays Rita's character perfectly, a previous national beauty pageant winner, Harring was also hit in the skull in a traumatizing bullet wound incident as a child. The films dramatic core is about the shifting character dynamic from naive friendship to lesbian manipulation and romantic failure.
The second element to Mulholland Drives success is the age-old theme of "seedy show-business"; a class of wealthy, corrupt film producers are shown in cahoots with organized crime, who in turn are in cahoots with common street criminals. While the concept is nothing new due to Hollywoods historic ties with the Mafia during its golden age, Lynch's typical combination of mystery, melodrama and fascinatingly strange symbolism make this film one of the best pictures of its decade.