Surrealism taken too far

Rating: 6/10 (5 November 2018)

David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" is in many ways a hypnotic, well-directed and well-acted piece of surrealistic film. I'm still somewhat unsure of whether it is artistic genius or pretentious schlock, but right now I fall somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. I acknowledge the ambition and artistic integrity that went into making a movie such as this, and just how dinstinctly David Lynch and wildly different from any other movie it is. It's a very visceral movie experience, relying mainly on ambient music and visuals. At the same time I am also highly aware and annoyed of the fact that this is a movie that deliberately barely makes any sense without some sort of pre-conceived notion of what is going on.
On first viewing (which is what I'm basing this review on, as I only just watched it for the first time), it's nigh impossible to understand what is happening. Only after reading up on the plot of the movie does some of the events fall into place. Some might see that as a plus, that it has many additional layers that get unravelled on repeat viewings. I would agree with that, if there were any initial layers to process. Instead, from a story perspective I got absolutely nothing out of it without looking it up, and that is a storytelling sin in my book.
A large part of my frustration with the movie comes from the fact that the fantasy/surrealistic part of the movie goes on waaaaay too long in comparison to the 'reality' part. There are also no real hints that this is a fantasy/dream other than of course the fact that some bizarre stuff happens. This bizarre stuff happens equally in the 'real' section of the movie though, so that's not really very enlightening.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all up for weird psychological tales with surrealistic elements, but if those surrealistic elements take up three-quarters (2 hours!) of the movie before coming to anything resembling any sort of sense, you have overdone your surrealism in my opinion. It made the end of the movie feel really rushed, as there was not enough time to properly connect the fantasy to the reality. If it was a more even 50-50 split, or if there were a few more specks of 'reality' interspersed into the fantasy part, I think it would have strongly improved my appreciation for the movie.
As it is, I dig the whole hypnotic and surrealistic vibe of the movie on a visceral level, as well as the performances (especially Naomi Watts'), but the deliberate lack of any sort of coherent story just rubs me the wrong way. Which is a shame, because the underlying story beats that get presented at the end are actually really moving and deeply human.