The greatest film of the year...

Rating: Null/10 (2 September 2002)

Love him or hate him - nobody can deny the influence David Lynch has had on modern film and televison. Personally, I´ve been addicted to the man ever since the pilote of "Twin Peaks" aired back in 1991 (in Sweden, that is). I´ve discovered the highlights ("Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet"), as well as the low points ("Dune"). And it was with great anticipation that I sat down in the theatre to see his latest, much talked about, effort on the big screen.
"Mulholland Drive" is like... no, I won´t even go there. It is simply unlike anything I have ever seen, heard, read or smoked. It leaves you confused, happy, frightened - thinking. It WILL not leave your head for days. And even though I am a long time Lynch devotee, I am yet again amazed at his talent and unique visionary style. The very opening of the film is awe-inspiring: we witness what appears to be a jitter-bugg contest, all pastell colours against a blue background. But a closer look reveals a typical Lynchian twist; there are in fact no more than two or three couples dancing, but these appear to be cloned, as they are accompanied on the dancefloor by their "doppelgangers", randomly disappearing into the shadows only to emerge again. The perfect illustration of Lynch´s most common motif; that of duality, and paralell identities.
I suppose the basic plot is widely known by now; a beautiful woman, "Rita", loses her memory following a car crash. She meets the young actress Betty, and the two women set off to discover her true identity. Clear enough, right? Right... This storyline is accompanied by several subplots, including a director who is forced by the mob to cast an unknown actress in his new film, a hitman searching for a particular black book, and a man having true dreams about a horrifying man (?) living in an alley behind a coffee shop. But somewhere around two hours into the film, things REALLY takes a major turn. This is due to a strange blue box, which works kind of like the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland; it suddenly throws us deep down into a dark twisted reality, where nothing is what it appears to be (comparisons to the severed ear in "Blue Velvet" inevitably arises).
One could try and work out endless theories about "Mulholland Drive" (trust me, I have several), but really, just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Not only the best film of the year, but quite possibly David Lynch´s best work to date.