****

Rating: Null/10 (15 May 2002)

Before you watch Mullholland Dr, stop and think that David Lynch was 57 years old when he made this, his best film, an age where most film-makers best films are far behind them. While film-makers of similar ages like Spielberg and Scorsese become more and more inconsequential with each new film they produce, Lynch keeps getting stronger. Every great director needs a self-reflexive film, a film that depicts the art and artistry of the cinema itself. Fellini made 8 1/2, Truffaut, Day For Night, and Altman, the Player. Now David Lynch has made a great film about Hollywood and also a poignant love story. Mulholland Dr. does what lesser films like Bound could not. It realistically depicts a sensitive relationship between two women, avoiding some frat-boy fantasy. The film is forerun two quite influential films, Ingmar Bergman's Persona, in which a pair of women's personalities merge, and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, in its depiction of a mysterious blonde woman who may not be who she seems to be. In fact, two shots from the film are exact duplicates from these earlier films. Early in the film, the two women's faces merge into one shot. Similarly, a shot lifted directly from Vertigo has the Blonde protagonist (?) looking down over a balcony. You never feel at ease when you are watching Mulholland Dr. The pacing, and cutting do not match, the lines of the story come and go seemingly at a whim. The electronic score, as composed by Angelo Bandalamenti, adds to this unease. It wavers and shimmies. That shiver down your spine is no illusion. This film is truly scary, but in a good way. You feel like, `what's going on here? But you like it.'
David Lynch is Alfred Hitchcock unbound. If nothing else, Mulholland Dr. teaches us that Hitch was probably born in the wrong era. Creating most of his great films in the 50's and the 60's, an undercurrent of violence and sexuality always ran under Hitch's films, seen most directly in Psycho. Many have said that hinting at violence and sexuality rather than showing it onscreen made Hitch's films more suspenseful. But one could only imagine what would happen, had Hitch been given the freedom an R rating to work with. But, alas, the public was probably not ready for him yet. His first and only R-rated film, Frenzy, exhibited some of his repressed sexuality, depicting scenes of violence and rape. But by then, it was too late. Hitchcock was in his early 80's and it was clear his time had passed.
Enter Neo-Hitchcockian David Lynch, who in Mulholland Dr. charges a modern day love story with uninhibited sexuality. Lynch has the precision and sensibility of Hitchcock, but in a more enlightened age, he is allowed free reign to pursue his unique vision.