Treat it like a dream...

Rating: 9/10 (6 March 2002)

The first, and biggest, mistake to make while watching Mulholland Drive is undoubtedly the one that most viewers will make: To try and understand it. We've been force-fed linear, narrative, films with simple cause-and-effect plots so much that we find it almost inconceivable that a film could be made any other way. So when we see one that isn't, we think that the film-maker is confused, pretentious, or slack.
Most films are made predominantly for the intellect (this doesn't mean, of course, that most films are intelligent): to appreciate these films you have to use your mind. We are so used to mentally understanding films that many of us forget that there are other ways to understand things. For example, through intuition. Mulholland drive is a film that should be received with intuition. Treat it something like you would a dream.
Imagine that you've just had a strange, wondrous (or scary) dream that was full of bizarre things. There were some people in it that you know, but they weren't quite the same as they are in real life. Perhaps they were the same, but they looked like someone else. Other things in the dream were just plain unexplainable. One second you're in one place, then, without any reason, the next you're somewhere else. I won't go on, I'm sure you can remember many weird dreams you've had that were somewhat similar to this, and that left a deep impression on you. Well, when you wake up from one of these dreams, you don't say "My God, what a stupid dream that was! It didn't make any bloody sense! Man, am I an idiot for having these dumb unrealistic dreams - why can't my dreams by like my everyday life, and not weird, illogical rubbish like that!!" I doubt many people say that after a truly strange and affecting, dream. I'm assuming that most people have a similar reaction to mine: they contemplate it in silence for a while, because it affected them. They can still FEEL the imprint of the dream in them. They can still remember, or even still feel, the various emotions that they were feeling. They go over it in their head and try and better comprehend it - but it belongs more in a sort of a netherworld than in the reality they are in when they wake up, so they'll never understand it fully. But they appreciate it nevertheless, glad that they had such a strange, interesting, and wondrous experience to start the day off with (if it was an unpleasant dream, then they're probably less glad, but not necessarily). And try explaining such a dream to someone else! You know it was such a fantastic dream, because you lived it, but anyone else just nods politely and says, "yeah, well that does sound weird". Because what you experienced wasn't just a bunch of ideas that you can simply put into words and tell someone else, it was more - you also experienced it through your emotions and your intuition.
Mulholland Drive, as Lost Highway was, is in many ways similar to a dream. The viewer who walks away saying that it was confused, pointless gibberish is the fool who has entirely missed the point - the fool who would wake up from a dream and complain that it was illogical.

Similarly, the viewer who ponders it endlessly desperately trying to figure out exactly what every part of the film meant, trying to neatly package everything in a rational, ordered manner, is like the child trying to force the square-shaped block into the star-shaped hole.

So, when you see this film, don't limit your experience by trying to understand it intellectually. Remember that there's more than one way to experience a film, and that some should be felt more than understood. By all means, think about the film and discuss it afterwards with friends, but don't listen to anyone that thinks they've got it all worked out, because they haven't (David Lynch himself says that he doesn't understand all of the mysteries in it  so how could anyone else?) . And if they spent so much time mentally battling with the film, trying to cognitively understand it, then they probably spent much less time feeling it and letting it simply overwhelm them. And their experience will be all the poorer for it. So don't you make that mistake, because you'll be passing up the opportunity of a pretty great, unique film experience. ;)