Note to self: invent time machine so I can warn myself never to see this

Rating: 2/10 (6 October 2005)

I'm not too familiar with David Lynch's films, but I saw Eraserhead a few months ago ( voted 8/10 by the way, very good movie ) so resources told me that Mulholland Drive is often considered his best work. After viewing it, my recent energy has been diverted into inventing a time machine so I can go back into to warn myself not to ever consider doing so.
Now why would I make such a blanket statement? Several reasons.
The movie has no redeemable artistic value. Now while I understand the value of cinema as a form of beauty and artistic expression and that some films can be great films simply because they are absolutely beautiful ( 2001 A Space Odyssey, Underground, most Tim Burton movies, even The Cell ). This movie is clearly an exception. The cinematography is merely above average. Scenes such as the one in which the film director is seen behind the glass ominously masked in shadow has absolutely no relevance to the background of his character nor to anything really at all. This could also be said for the weird guy behind the coffee shop. Much of the writing follows this same pattern.
There is only one scene that I could truly say is beautiful and that would be the Club Silencio scene. However, the filmmaker's complete lack of development of this ideal leads ultimately to its failure as a scene, which absolutely angers me because it could've had so much more significance if put in basically any other situation.
This movie feels like David Lynch wrote three scripts, shot five movies, two of which were completely improvised, then put the clips into a non-linear editor and clicked a button labeled "Create Movie." It lacks any sort of control, explanation, or human sentiment for any of the characters. In fact, one of my favorite characters in the movie ( Cowboy ) was butchered by complete and total negligence to his character after his initial appearance.
Let me say that in all honesty, I DO have, in some small amounts, respect for the quality of craftsmanship put into the production of this film and the obviously thorough work that was done in writing and filming it. But I hate this film primarily due to the amount of frustration and aggravation it has put me through and the number of times I told myself "Don't stop watching it, something's bound to make sense soon enough" or "I can't back out now." If David Lynch's intention was to frustrate me to that extent, I congratulate him on succeeding beyond a shadow of a doubt. But until signs tell me so, I will continue to loathe this film. I generally try to avoid saying that a movie "tried to hard," considering I believe that everyone should always try their very best when making movies ( because no one actually goes "I'm going to go make something... mediocre. Just ordinary. I'll let the critics do the rest." ) but this tried and failed. FAILED. FAAAAAAAILED.
How is it possible that David Lynch, a man who, according to the development of this movie, has the attention span of a fish when it comes to his writing, can at the same time create a movie so unbelievably boring and inane that not even a classroom of super-intelligent lab dolphins on Ritalin would be able to focus or learn anything from it? There have been plenty of people who have dissembled this movie and dissected bits and pieces, determining which parts are "real," which parts are just the characters' various "dreams," who's switching identities with who, etc. Why bother? What could possibly be gained by over-analyzing this movie? So many scenes are completely unnecessary, so many plot lines irrelevant, and so much time wasted, that any pieces of chicken in Lynch's broth have sunk to the bottom and are not worth fishing out.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Do not bother wasting your time with this movie, especially if you are like me and were so frustrated that you wanted to stab yourself in the armpits with forks repeatedly until you passed out from blood loss.
2/10