David Lynch's masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (2 December 2003)

(Possible spoilers)
Dreams, like the movies are in many instances an illusion for the mind. It offers us an escape from our mundane, boring and even dreaded realities. In the case for Diane Selwyn, it is her escape into a nice alternate reality. A reality where her wasted character becomes a goody two shoes, with talent and opportunities. Where else but Hollywood, LA, the dream factory that is the best embodiment of such a reality. Lynch himself describes the film as `A Love story in the city of dreams'. A most ambiguous and also most apt description.
I can understand why the detractors of the film feel so strongly against it. They fail to reconcile the last act of the movie with the rest of it, and fail to see Mulholland Drive as a coherent whole. They also fail to recognize the bits and pieces of individual scenes, such as the bizarre scene of the two men conversation in the Winkles restaurant about a dream, or the good old diabolical smiling couple, who seems to be smiling for no reason, or are they? These are all pieces that contribute to a very well organized piece of cinematic jigsaw puzzle, orchestrated by a modern maestro, known as David Lynch.
There are many more examples that can better 'explain' the subtleties in the first two acts winking at the reader.
Given the detailed explanation, the general viewer may be able to appreciate Mulholland Drive better as a coherent whole, and not a mess of disjointed scenes that many detractors have claimed it to be.
Mulholland Drive is without a doubt one of the more accessible of Lynch's work, and the most properly structured. As Lynch once said, even though his films are about dreams, they are based on ideas, tangible ideas. Ideas to him are the no.1 thing, and all he does is to translate his ideas to a different medium, the medium of film. Lynch has said that he likes it when other people analyses his films, for it is a subjective thing and all interpretations are fine. The ideas in Mulholland Drive without a doubt warranted deep scrutiny and discourse. However, one cannot deny the strong emotional resonance from many of the scenes, and its top notch crafting. Of note is Lynch's sound design, which retains the style evident in many of his previous work but comes out here even more strongly than ever, further complementing the mood and experience of the film. Mulholland Drive is both an experience to be taken in as well as intelligible rhetoric to be dissected. It is an angry indictment as well as a beautiful tearjerker. The duality and irony coupled with the uncompromising stance of Lynch makes it a great work of art.
The film represents the journey of an artist into maturity, one who moves from the subversion in Eraserhead to Lost Highway and finally arriving at Mulholland Drive. Let's just hope that this is not the final destination for a highly original contemporary filmmaker.