some comments

Rating: 10/10 (16 November 2001)

Reality is not linear. Our reality is just a sum of hopelessly unreliable recollections of our perceived past, our hopes and fears of the future  all colored through the kaleidoscope of our subjective point of view  and all mixed together in a timeless and dimensionless sphere of our mind. Fragments of our experiences (already subjective as such) appear throughout this reality, but they shift and change with time.
David Lynch attempts to capture this reality on film.
Linearity is un-reality. It is an attempt of our logical mind to take and order fragments of our thoughts and memories into a sequence that satisfies its own needs for simplicity, order and sense. It picks and chooses, forms and transforms, censors, embellishes, exagerates these as it sees fit.
Traditional american movies attempt to capture this un-reality on film. They are meant to make us escape reality, to satisfy our logical mind, our craving for simplicity and order.
It is the process of dreaming that lets the mind untie these previously formed linear constructs, and re-order them, re-shuffle them, try different combinations, try fitting pieces together in different ways to make them fit our "current" reality more closely. This can be driven by hopes or by fears, both making prominent appearances in Lynch's movies.
In movies like Mulholland Drive or Lost Highway, Lynch tries to break down the linearity of our mind by showing us how the same pieces can be put together to form very different but still self-sustained logical linear worlds - which is very close to the process taking place during a dream. I think this is why many people explain these as being dreams.
----
In many respects, Mulholland Drive is a big-budget version of Eraserhead (one of my favorite movies of all time) Many of the same themes are repeated, as well as visual and plot elements.
----
I also think, that in some forms of art, one has to learn the language of the artist to be able to experience it (or at least more of it). This is obviously true in literature (poetry for example) - and also to great extent in music (there are different musical "languages" - rules of forming rhythms and melodies, that at first might sound strange and alien, but once we get familiar with them, we often discover the real genius in the piece.)
I think this is true for movies as well - seeing a David Lynch movie for the first time for someone used to conventional american cinema is like hearing jazz for the first time for someone trained in classical music, or hearing the alien beats and soundscapes of Richard James for the first time.
Many of the elements that repeat in Lynch's movies are just elements of his artistic language. While these in themselves are pleasing to look at (much like a foreign language poem might be pleasing for its rhythm and flow), it is what is being expressed using them that really completes the picture. It is not about getting the plot  it's about learning the language, to hear what is being said. And this is also not so much a question of intellect, but more of effort and open mind.
People who complain about the movie having no plot and not being interested in the characters are like people who see a movie in French and complain that the dialogues made no sense.