Hey, pretty girl... time to wake up.

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2008)

Mulholland Drive is, to date, David Lynch's most perfectly executed film. It is the most effective demonstration of alternative universes he's yet accomplished.
The first two times I viewed Mulholland Drive I was trying to figure something out. I put it away for a long time. Several years later, now, I have re-watched it, after a marathon viewing of the entire Twin Peaks series. This inundation of Lynch-World helped me to relax into Mulholland Drive and let it flow over me. I simply watched without thinking and, though nothing was made clear, it did make some sort of profound sense.
It is about dreams, about who we think we are, who we actually might be, who we want to be and who we really are NOT. Numerology, magic, astrology and Eastern mysticism have always played a part in Lynch's work. In Mulholland Drive those elements fuse and result in a perfect whole, perfect within the context of its own existence.
There is no mystery beyond what the viewers create in their own minds out their own pre- dispositions and prejudices.
To have chosen Hollywood, especially Mulholland Drive, as the focus for this vision was particularly stunning for someone, like me, who worked and lived there for several years, experiencing the complete delusion of the place, the profound sadness of most of its inhabitants and the vaingloriousness of its masters. Hollywood is heaven and hell, mostly the latter, for people like 'Betty/Diane' (Naomi Watts).
Nothing more can be said about the plot.
The bits and pieces of it are beautiful, evocative. Scenes like that at the Silenzio Club with Rebecca del Rio singing that haunting acapella song. The moment when the girls open the blue box and 'Betty' vanishes, changing time and space in a moment. All that has gone before has been a dream leading to another dream. It's lovely to behold and is deeply satisfying, once you have let go of trying to figure out what, if anything, is going on, plot- wise.
There are some splendid performances to enjoy. Naomi Watts is astonishing, a range like no other actress I can think of off-hand. Laura Harring is not only fabulously beautiful but also as great an actress as Watts, well almost. And it is SO wonderful that Lynch brought in Ann Miller for her last stand on film.
The best way to approach this film is to watch it like Disney's 'Fantasia' and forget all pre- conceived notions of what a movie is supposed to be, based on all the mediocre, fatuous and vanity-driven crap coming at us out of Hollywood all the time.
When the sad day comes when we will sum up David Lynch's work 'Mulholland Drive' will, I predict, be assessed as his greatest masterpiece.
My favorite bit, of many, is when Angelo Badalamenti (playing, Luigi Catigliani) spits out his espresso into a handkerchief. An immortal Lynch moment.