Going Down Mulholland Drive and Holding onto the Fabric of Reality

The film that left thousands both bewildered and enchanted remains the ultimate challenge for film writers fifteen years after its initial release. That film is Mulholland Drive by David Lynch, who is a man that as we all know is no stranger to the abstract and surreal. Any expectations that you may have will be broken as nothing can prepare you for this film. I was a latecomer to Mulholland Drive. Initially the film offered me nothing to spark an interest, from a glance I just thought it was another drama. Upon viewing the film I was stunned that I hadn’t seen it earlier but that is the kind of film that it is. It doesn’t try to suck you in, it lets you move towards it. In terms of writing, acting and film techniques there is almost no accessible entry point. There are scenes that may seem inviting and accessible but as the film progresses the conventional sweetness of these scenes is shattered. For example Betty appears as the stereotypical good-girl at the beginning on to reveal a far more sinister side to herself later on. It is this kind of approach that has established David Lynch as the cinematic rebel/purist that he is today. He likes to both indulge in Hollywood and completely reject its conventions. Mulholland Drive started off as a TV pilot and ended up as one the most original and thought provoking films to so far come out of the 21^st century.

Prior to Mulholland Drive I had only seen two other David Lynch films, Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. Both of those films are considered to be classic in their own right. I respected what David Lynch had done for cinema but it wasn’t until I saw Mulholland Drive that I became a David Lynch fan. It is a film with so much to discuss but so much of that could lead nowhere. Part of the reason that it is so difficult to write about is the fact that the plotline and themes are subjectively open to interpretation. This is the way that David Lynch intends it to be and he is adamant on keeping it that way. Many a journalist has tried and failed to get him to explain even the slightest factor clearly. David Lynch persists that we simply take the film as if it were music. This may provide satisfaction for some but the rest become involved in the dark world of online Mulholland Drive interpretations. Fans of the film are committed to finding an explanation and some of the theories that have risen are highly interesting. This culture that has developed around the film has added another fascinating component to the mythos that is Mulholland Drive. The mystery becomes all the more exciting. This aside, Mulholland Drive is a film of artistic innovation and the medium is explored in a way that is profound. I am going to be exploring several qualities that left this lasting impression on me.

The scene that introduces us to the protagonist Diane felt particularly strange early on. As Diane waves goodbye to her overly enthusiastic parents to start her new life in Hollywood, I felt my first internal dilemma. The scene is such a cliché, it is so bright and sunny and the dialogue and acting feel so forced and exaggerated. To an untrained viewer this might just look like a cheesy Hollywood film. The scene ends with the parents getting into the back of a taxi where they sit in silence and smile maniacally at each other for an extended period of time. It transitions from the light and comical to the somewhat demented and disturbing. The film has only just begun yet there are already so many questions. It wasn’t until later on when the parents make their return that this scene began to make some sense to me and I could see it for the delusion that it truly was.

David Lynch is a master of contrast. Something that is truly surreal appears even more so over a plain background. It is in this way that he can hit you when you least expect it. The tone shifts from being a campy soap opera style drama to the dark and deranged. This happens constantly throughout Mulholland Drive but not once was I ever able to expect or predict it. The time that this shift in tone was most notable for me was in an early scene. This scene remains as one of the most odd in the entire film as the characters introduced are never shown again. The whole scene just feels out of place but it clearly holds a significant truth to the narrative. There is two men talking in a diner and one of them tells the other that he had a dream where he saw a horrible face out in the parking lot. In order to confront this fear the two men head over to the parking lot. I imagined that this face was a metaphor or something of that nature so it was all the more shocking when the dark scary face filled the entire screen. My expectations of what to expect in this film were completely shattered. The contrast of this almost inhuman looking tramp with the casual nature of the diner was astounding. Later on the appearance of the more symbolic characters such as The Cowboy and The King of Hollywood are noticeably darker, ominous and more mysterious. The scenes when these characters appear really threw me off guard as it was like watching a different film. My sense of logic and reality were crumbling and I became ever so much more lost (in a good way) in the narrative. David Lynch works to maintain this feeling of misconception with a number of tactics, one of the most prominent being Diane as an actress. In numerous scenes the distinction between reality and acting is blurred along with the distinction of reality and fantasy. An example could be the scene when Diane is behaving upset before it becomes apparent that she is simply practicing her role.

As the film goes on, the loose ends only increase. When Diane opens the mysterious box it feels as though the answers are given to us but it is done with such ambiguity. From that point onwards the film descends into the nightmare that is reality. My feeling that everything up until that point was stuck in delusion felt reaffirmed. There is still so much that I am unsure of in Mulholland Drive but the film has caused me to think in a way that no other film ever has. David Lynch has created a film that has remained on my mind long after the viewing and he proved what power creative filmmaking and a narrative with substance can have. Now I just feel the need to watch it ten more times.