Reminds Me of Summer Camp

Rating: 8/10 (22 May 2005)

A summer camp staple during my youth was a story our counselors used to tell at night around the campfire. It involved a guest at a country estate who was woken each night by a disturbance in the courtyard. He rushed to his window just in time to see a spectral presence running from the property and down the road. It took 20-30 minutes to tell the story as the counselor would meticulously detail all six times this occurred even though the particular events were identical. After six nights the guest devised a trap and caught the specter who turned out to be the owner of the estate. Just before dying the owner agreed to explain the how and why of his bizarre activity on the condition that the guest promise to never reveal the secret. The story ended with the explanation that the guest kept his promise and never told anybody the secret. This caused a lot of groaning around the campfire by the first year campers and laughter from those who had heard the story the year before. We felt cheated by the story but had to admire the brazen manner in which we had just been conned.
David Lynch took our old campfire story idea and made it into a feature film called "Mulholland Drive". For the first 80% of the film he constructs an elaborate and intriguing storyline which has the audience trying to guess the ending, wondering how what he can possibly tie all these disparate elements together into a coherent conclusion. One thing leads to another--but nothing leads anywhere.
In the end he cheats and the movie is incomplete because it was not intended to be complete. But like the campfire story we do not really feel cheated because Lynch is absolutely brazen about his cheating, he does not back away from it. Screen writing is a whole lot easier when closure is not a goal.
So don't watch this if you require a director who plays fair. But if you like a surreal dream in a highly stylized Hollywood film noir package you should enjoy this thing. I gave it a seven because of the cheating and because of the masterpiece it could have been if Lynch had been able to pull it together in the final 20 minutes. But I bumped it up to an eight because he is so unapologetic about taking the easy way out.
If nothing else the first 80% shows that Lynch could make a straight film as good as "L.A. Confidential" if he wanted. And it's worth watching just for the audition scene where the singer performs "Sixteen Reasons". The scene begins with a tight shot, then backs out to a POV from inside the control booth, then backs out further and reveals the booth is a prop on a sound stage. So we have a live stage performance, that morphs into a recording session, and then morphs into a movie audition. And the movie itself is inside a movie. Are you confused yet? But this fits with the film because Lynch is telling the same story (trying to make it in Hollywood) with two different protagonists. The bubbly, optimistic Betty, with a support network and a good heart. And within Betty is the beat-up, worn-out Diane, who has abandoned all hope of success and become paranoid and vengeful.
Perhaps more entertaining than the film itself are those posted comments that claim to have it all figured out. For example: "once I got the basic meaning of the two segments, it all made sense. ALL OF IT. Every character, every scene, every prop had its purpose and it all made sense as a cohesive whole". Who is dumber-the person who is totally clueless about the film or the person who wrote that comment?
By the way Naomi Watts is so good in this thing that it is scary.