A mind-boggling masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 2001)

"Mulholland Drive" is quintessential David Lynch, a one-movie summarization of his style in all its glory and bizarre quirks. Its story seems to be mostly a dream, and nobody portrays dreams in cinema more effectively than Lynch. The surrealism of dreams is not depicted in a wildly over-the-top way (except for occasional flourishes). It's more subtle. Everything is pushed just a little too far or withheld a bit too much to be perceived as "reality". Characters are either slightly too real or slightly not enough. Situations are either ratcheted one or two notches up or down on the believability meter. The resulting effect is one of subtle disorientation, where everything ultimately seems slightly off-kilter. This is not to mention, of course, the identity switching, non-sequiturs, role reversals and just-flat-out-weird occasional visual elements. In anyone else's hands this would have been an incomprehensible mess. In David Lynch's hands it is still incomprehensible, but anything but messy. This might just be -- and time perhaps will tell -- a masterpiece.