WARNING- CONTAINS SPOILERS AND COMMENTS THAT MAKE YOU THINK

Rating: 10/10 (7 March 2003)

WARNING- CONTAINS SPOILERS AND COMMENTS THAT MAKE YOU THINK
What a great website! This is my first post and the movie that led me to this website and this message board was Mulholland Drive. After viewing the film three times and then reading the posts on this message board i thought it would be good discussion to mention a few things that i observed about the film: It can not be said that the entire first 2/3 of the film is a dream, nor can it be said that the last 1/3 of the film is " reality ". The entire film is a mix of both.There are definite visual clues in every scene to let the viewer know in which state of "reality" we are in. It is helpful to note that most things ( i.e. characters, objects, names. etc. ) appear at least twice in the film- at least once in " reality " and once in " non-reality". I use " non-reality" to refer to dreams, hallucinations, flashbacks, etc.Using these guidelines it is possible to divide the film into two categories and then to try and piece them together chronologically. The first thing that came to mind in trying to explain these two conflicting stories was that possibly Diane is mentally ill- i.e. schizophrenia/ multiple personality. There is proof that she "sees" people who are not actually there- the dinner party scene, the making coffee scene in diane's apt. after her neighbor wakes her up. The apt. scene is a very convincing in that you see a shot of Camilla standing, profiled against the window, looking at Diane and then Diane has an " episode" , followed by a shot of Diane standing in exactly the same place/position against the window. Many of these "non-reality scenes" seem to be entireley fictional- created from the mind of Diane. They reek of paranoia and imagination. One great example of this is the mob influence scenes. They are so far fetched and " everyone's out to get me" that you can't help but think Diane is fabricating it all herself. The odd man in winkies who tells about his dream of the man out back. " he's the one who's doing it" he says- as if there is some indescribably evil man behind it all. So, putting all of this together, you can draw the conclusion that Diane is a sick puppy who is creating a fictional world of paranoid delusional fantasies about people and events from her real life. Things that were only coincidental or benign become plots against her and she drives herself to madness and possibly suicide. I am not certain that she actually does kill herself. Why- because the suicide scene is to dreamlike in nature- the lighting, the excessive smoke, etc. Also when she fires the shot there is no bullet, blood, etc. Watch the scene again- see what you think. I would like to hear other peoples ideas on why Dianes ex-roommate ( i dont think its her ex-lover, more on that some other time) says "Where have you been? It's been three weeks." This is a truly great film. Anyone can argue that they didn't like it but that's not really the point. The point is, it got us all talking about it and it got us to THINK. That is, in my humble opinion, the mark of ANYTHING great- DID IT MAKE YOU THINK!? Besides, when was the last time you watched a movie 3 times in three days?