take a deep breath

Rating: Null/10 (5 January 2003)

I think dismissing this because it is a salvaged TV pilot is the first sign of a non- creative person. Anyone who works in any creative field has at one or another tried to rework an old unused story or drawing or song. It is a common part of the creative process. Sometimes you are able to revitalize an abandoned work, sometimes not. Using this process to judge Mulholland Dr is silly. By that
thinking,Twain's Puddinhead Wilson is invalid and suspect because it is a
salvage job of Those Extraordinary Twins.
The fact is Mulholland Dr doesn't tell us any greater truths - Lynch isn't and never has been Bergman or Tarkovsky. Or even Wilder, for that matter. Much of Lynch's work tells us about David Lynch. I don't find that necessarily a reason to dismiss the movie either. This seems to be an issue we take with movies that attempt to achieve something higher than a way to pass 2 hours.

As it stands, I think this is a fine way to pass 2 and a half hours. It's really little more than a cinematic brainteaser and I don't see anything wrong with that.
Sometimes, when a movie does not give you all the answers, that is the point of the movie. As Lynch points out, it's all prerecorded. It is an illusion. And either you enter into the spirit of the illusion and partake in some spirited brain work, or you just aren't interested enough to spend the time. No big deal. Why people have to be so angry about this stuff is beyond me. It's only a movie.
And I don't see why movies should always give you all the answers. Life so
seldom does. Well, there, I suppose I have answered my own concern. We are
so insistant that movies give us the answers for the same reason the ancients created their mythologies to answer all their questions. What in the world good is a pantheon that provides no direct guidance?