The most terrifying movie ever made

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2010)

David Lynch's films are like abstract paintings. They may look simple on the surface, but the more you look, the more they seem to have eerie meanings behind them, told in alien tongues and perhaps wholly unsolvable. Mulholland drives begins with two women, an actress played by Naomi Watts, and a woman who loses her memory in a car crash and winds up needing the other's help, played by Laura Harring. Together they try to piece together who she is, and things start to get stranger as the characters try to unravel a mystery beyond comprehension. Justin Theroux shows up as a young director whose life begins to fall apart after he makes a casting decision against the wills of some very strange men who drink expensive coffee. His sections of the film give some comic relief, even though he is trapped in the same inexplicable nightmare as the women. The plot itself isn't really important to follow, and since it is quite confusing and fragmented, you can simply let the experience of the film wash over you without worrying about understanding it as you would a normal story.
Despite it's surreal overtones and disjointed structure, this movie has some great insights into the (un)realities of Hollywood. It is both a homage to film noir and a cautionary tale of fame and jealousy. Betty (Watts) is a young up and coming actress who seems to have her whole life ahead of her, and a golden glow around her head. Lynch uses an interesting technique when she is first introduced, by dubbing all the lines in ADR. This has the effect of making the acting seem horrible, but there's a purpose. The scene is unreal in it's bright happiness, and the two people she is with continue to smile unnaturally when they leave. Without giving too much away, Betty's persona evolves over the course of the film, and really lets Naomi Watts show a great range of emotions, from purposefully naive to broken and haggard. When Betty goes to an audition, and acts brilliantly, the difference between her acting and her real persona is staggering, and shows you how good of a performance it really is by Watts. The audition scene also shows how fantasy becomes her reality, and this has parallels across the entire film. Nothing is truly what it seems, and the seemingly innocent relationship between the two women starts to drift into darker territory as reality steadily seeps through. When the truth is finally revealed, you will realize that Mulholland Drive has taken you from naive bliss straight to the horrors of Hell.
Lynch is a master of subtle film-making. Instead of using music in some scenes, he uses low-pitched background noises. He used these in Eraserhead as well, and they are a great way of making an atmosphere of anxious tension. However the musical score by Angelo Badalamenti is spellbinding. The cinematography is brilliant as well, using blur effects, first-person perspectives and strange close-ups to draw you right into the movie. One scene in particular draws the viewer's attention because at first it seems to be completely removed from the main storyline, and it is. But since Lynch does nothing by accident, this means it is the most important scene in the movie. (In an interview he refers to this type of scene as the "duck's eye".) A man tells his friend that he had a dream about this restaurant, and that there's a man waiting behind it, a creature of sheer horror. So they go outside to see if the man is there. Just like there may be a man behind the diner, there is a presence, an ineffable malevolent force lurking behind every frame, word and scene of this movie. I know of no other film able to create such a profound uneasiness, as if some otherworldly revelation were near at hand.
The film is also visually stunning, with the colour blue mysteriously permeating many scenes, and the set designs and dialogue containing little clues throughout the film. The mystery is as compelling as it is chilling. Even though there may be no answer to what's really going on in the movie, you will want to watch it more than once to figure out all the different layers, and they are mostly cohesive if you look at it right. Some say it is just a dream and reality juxtaposed, but it's so much more than that. There is another whole layer of inexplicable, subconscious terror permeating the film, and just when you think you have it all figured out, the last scene explodes like a final question in an impossible riddle.
Mulholland Drive is a fully realized world of harrowing suspense and dreamlike unreality. There are moments in this film that are so psychologically affecting that they will never leave your mind, and it's final images will leave you shellshocked. Overall it is a roller-coaster of emotions and an endlessly intriguing puzzle. Lynch's storied career may well have hit it's peak with this, an absolute masterpiece.