When does Art in Film go too far?

Rating: 1/10 (23 November 2003)

Okay - I get it - Mullholland Drive is a cinematic masterpiece and David Lynch goes where no man has gone before. The same can be said for Goya as an artist and Bret Easton Ellis as an author, but nobody said you have to like them and I certainly dont. Before I go on I will mention in all fairness that I am biased, I hated Dune and I hated Eraserhead also much for the same reasons that I loathe Mulholland Drive. In my opinion much of the film is unecessary rubbish. It certainly starts off well - I was enthralled by the mystery created at the beginning - I was dying to know the significance of the scary bum (and boy was I dissapointed when I figured that out!). Only Lynch could take a great mystery and turn it into weird, cold, depressing nonsense. Everything was fine until that cinema show - I mean really?! I could go on for hours about how ridiculous and pointless all those so-called representations of evil are. This is the kind of film that intellectuals adore because there are so many odd, strange pointless references that they can pore over for hours and find hidden meaning in - and I believe that there is no real meaning - these scenes (the bum with the blue box, the cinema show, the grandparents)are written with intellectuals in mind - Lynch doesn't need to really write the script coherently, all he has to do is throw in some weird nonsense and let everyone who sees the film pretend they are intelligent by stroking their chin and finding freudian references in it. This is precisely how I felt about Eraserhead. Unreality within Reality within Unreality. I dont even think Lynch really knows what he's talking about, he just hopes that the film comes across as so incoherent and nonsensical that it becomes "an art film" and therefore "a masterpiece". This is the kind of film that when asked "How was Mulholland Drive?" the answer is "It was fantastic! Im not really sure what it was about - but it was great!". I would like to compare this film to "Donnie Darko" which certainly leaves alot for discussion also. These films are very similar in style and mood - however, why I enjoyed Donnie Darko so much was that even though it was weird, strange and non-sensical in parts - the writer did give you some food for thought in the concept of time travel - exploring the possibilities of time travel certainly does answer most questions that come to mind about the film. Mulholland Drive just throws it all at you and leaves you to guess. Time Travel is a much more logical concept to deal with than the alternative reality psychosis of an individual. (Sorry, I really needed to get all that out!!!) anyway, after my huge whinge, I would like to say that the acting in Mulholland Drive is phenomenal, Watt's character is annoying and insipid at the beginning and you wonder how she landed the role at all - then when we find out that the character she is playing is an act itself we see that she is in fact a VERY good actress indeed, her alter-ego is a wishy washy insipid twit and what comes across as a falsity in personality is indeed an astute observation as we see that her real personality is bitter, nervous, depressive and passionate and that is what is trying to break through throughout the first half of the film, the character comes off false because it is false. Very well done. Other than that I hereby declare that I am obviously in a minority but I hated this film.