Dir. David Lynch US 2001
David Lynch is back on track with Mulholland Drive, originally created
as a television series but dumped because of it's dark themes and confusing plot
(it wouldn't be a Lynch project if it wasn't steeped in controversy). Having in
the past cast his distinctive eye on suburbia, this time he turns his gaze at
Hollywood through the looking-glass darkly. Quintessentially Lynch, characters
appear, morph into another, disappear completely, dream, wake and fall down the
rabbits' hole. Wide open for interpretation and in some cases impossible to resolve,
the plot begins as two unlikely women meet and interchange. Dark-haired "Rita"
(Laura Elena Harring) narrowly escapes being murdered and blonde Betty
(Naomi Watts) arrives in her version of the Emerald City to make it big in
pictures. As old as the ages, this story of what happens to an ingenue in Hollywood
is the B-side to Gloria Swanson's fading star, Norma Desmond. Mulholland Drive
is a Hollywood horror film, literalizing the city as a factory of dreams and nightmares. (146m)
