Completes a trilogy of Lynch "mind" films

Rating: Null/10 (21 August 2002)

I see Mulholland Dr. as being Lynch's third film in the last decade to explore purely mental states, thrown up expressionistically on celluloid. We're trained to see the elements in movies literally, where Lynch often shows mental metaphors in addition to more literal elements. It can be confusing to decipher, but it's not impossible.
The first in the series of "mind movies" was "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me." Considered dark and depressing by Twin Peaks fans on its release, the central theme is incest/sexual abuse, and how a victim of this can "split off" into different personalities, be in denial about the true nature of their abuse and their abuser, and repress their emotions. Much of what seems "supernatural" or other-worldly in this film is in fact an expressionist representation of Laura Palmer's repressed emotions and thought processes. The "mind" element in this movie is the subconcscious.
The second in the series is "Lost Highway," about a man who cannot deal with the guilt of murdering his wife except to go into a state of mental imbalance known as a psychogenic fugue, where he believes he is a completely different person in a different environment. The "mind" element here is insanity.
This brings us to Mulholland, the third in the series. I won't reiterate the "dream/reality" analysis of the plotline, which has already been done brilliantly in some of these user reviews as well as on the Salon Web site, but I will point out that, clearly, the "mind" element in this film is the dream state.
The subconscious, insanity, and dreaming. Who else but David Lynch could create such poetry about the wrinkles of the mind? Thank goodness we have him.