Mulholland Drive (2001)

Reviewed by Danny the Demented
Updated Aug 06 2012

Do you know why we do not have topless women walking about at all times, awesome though it may be? Because that would be logically incomprehensible. Logic is our friend, it keeps the world from falling apart (It and George Clooney). In Mulholland Drive, logic was ran over, backed up and ran over again, and then finally abandoned by the side of the road and what was left for the audience is one of the most irritating film I've ever seen. Which of course explains why on the right hand side of this retro reel review you don't see the usual picture of a DVD because, gladly, I don't own this piece of... work. 

How can I possibly do a plot overview for this time waster? No one can, not even if you bring me everyone (Yeah I know that joke doesn't work but I love Oldman! the actor, not actual old man...this joke does work incidentally). Nothing makes sense in this movie. Every plot line, every subplot lines, every relationships, every actions, every reactions, every smile, every stare, every set and every one involved ultimately do not matter because nothing is connected to anything. What is perhaps the most frustrating thing about this film is that it actually managed to disguise its "nonsense"ness well enough for about 2/3 of the whole movie. Only at the end does the film reveals its true nature: a pile of scenes and dialogues that served no purpose, none whatsoever. When the end credit start rolling, you the audience will immediately realize that everything you've just seen made absolutely no sense at all. What director David Lynch did was that he made hints along the way implying that the audience will have an explanation in the end. In fact the entire film is constructed in this fashion: using Naomi Watts and Laura Harring to play two roles each so you'd think the characters are connected to each other in some mysterious and fascinating manner because they are played by the same person, cutting scenes in a way that you'd see the same person from a previous plot showing up in a later story so the two parts seemed to relate to each other, and placing an irreverent but consistent character in different settings to string the many different bits together so they seem to be in the same storyline. It is a solid buildup, only the prophet turned out to be false and the buildup was to a vast galaxy of nothingness where sense goes to die.

Let's imagine a friend of yours ask you to do 3 things for him, and all three are out of the ordinary: first he asks you to give him all your savings, then he asks you to sign over your house to him, and lastly he asks you to let him kick you in the balls. Now naturally you'd refuse, being a sane person and all. But this friend promises you that after you've done all these, he will give you the reason to why he asked this much of you. You see the sincerity in his eyes, and you feel the emotion in his words. You are reluctant but you agreed. You transferred every single dime you own to his account, you sign over your house to him despite protest from your wife, and closing your eyes, you let him kick you in the balls. While you are rolling on the ground in excruciating pain, you ask him why. He turns to you and smiled "Because I am David Freaking Lynch", kicks a pile of dust into your face, and then stroll away. That is exactly what it felt like after watching this movie, I sh*t you not. 

Now some may argue that this film doesn't make sense but it is still beautiful to look at. Sure it is a pretty sight, but so what? It is well made but is it as pretty as any Tarsem Singh movies? No. And though I am not a fan of Singh either, at least his movies make sense. Some may argue that the movie DOES make sense, you just need to go look up what David Lynch's intentions were when he made the film, listen to the director's interviews explaining the movie, or go to forums to see discussion of the film to get "it". Well why should I? Every filmmaker has a 2-3 hours window to tell a story in each movie he/she makes, and if you can't get your point across in that window, you failed. Your audience should not be required to go do further research after the movie to get the complete experience. I know some critics gave extremely high praises for this movie. But I challenge anyone to give me an explanation of why he/she liked this movie that is comprehensible. This is what I now call the "Tree of Life" syndrome. Some film critics or movie goers pretend to like certain movies they don't understand because they are afraid to be called ignorant. "Ohhhh you don't get that movie? Well you are just not intellectually deep enough", "Wooo you didn't like that film? I guess you just haven't seen enough movies to appreciate the artistic values shown in that piece of brilliance", "Hahahaha, your fart stinks, mine doesn't". They are so afraid to hear these remarks that they'd go to great length to praise a film just to avoid looking silly, which is ironically the very reason they'd appear to be silly. If you don't get something, it's probably not because it is awesome, it's more likely because it sucks. If a movie doesn't make sense, then it is a failure, pure and simple. It is much harder to construct a comprehensible story than to just put irrelevant scenes together that expresses nothing. "It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense", David Lynch, you just got "Twained", ohhhhh yeah I went there. 

Other than the infamous Naomi Watts/Laura Harring scene, Mulholland Drive was a gigantic, dinosauric waste of time. I wouldn't go as far as to call this movie a travesty (I save that for the Tree of Life BOO YA), but it is pretty close to it. Do I even have to tell you this one is Gruesome? My name is Danny and I endorse this message.