Mulholland Drive [DVD] [2002]

 

 

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Bit of a public service announcement here. Great movie, obviously, and if you don't already have it, this is certainly the edition to buy. BUT, if you have the previous DVD and you're thinking of upgrading to the new edition, I really wouldn't bother. The main selling point to me was chapter selections, which were notoriously absent previously, but notice that the new chapter divisions are "David Lynch approved"... There are now six chapters, four of which are in the last half hour (of a two and a half hour movie). They're only accessible from the menu (so you still can't skip ahead when the film is running, as you couldn't before), and the menu itself gives you absolutely no clue as to what the chapters actually are. So the main disc is really no more user-friendly than before. I think that's quite funny, but I wish I hadn't paid 14 quid to find out. As for the second disc of extras, the "making of" is not a documentary but just a lot of raw footage from the shoot and not very interesting, and the Cannes press conference isn't very illuminating either - not that I was expecting answers or explanations, but Lynch just looks bored and uncomfortable, and the rest of the cast just gush about how wonderful he is. Plus, the questions from the audience have been edited out, so the panel are replying to questions you haven't heard. The rest of the extras were already on the original release.

You DO get a booklet of the Mulholland Drive chapter from Lynch on Lynch, but that book is so good I'm guessing most Lynch fans - like me - have it already. For those who don't, but who do have Mulholland Drive from the previous release, spend your tenner on that book instead.

My first introduction to Mulholland Drive came when my family went to see it. Upon their return I asked them what the film was about. Their response? 'You can't describe it'. So I went with a friend to the cinema to see for myself. The film was trully stunning and one of the greatest cinematic experiences of my life. But I could not understand what the Hell had just happened! We spent the next two hours walking through town, eventually sitting down by a basketball court with a couple of cokes trying to work out just what is supposed to have happened.

The film is incredible on so many levels; its unusual structure to the plot allows for many, otherswise impossible occurances like the creepy meeting in the coral with the 'Cowboy', the strange, crippled mobster and the eccentric, espresso loving gangsters, the 'monster' behind Winkies and many others. The best scenes in the film are the terrifying discovery in Diane Selwyn's house, the audtion for the singers (with the dream Camilla singing a cheesey 50s style lover song that makes me shiver now), the scene in the bedroom (hey, I'm only a man) and the shudderingly powerful part in Club Silencio.

The directing is unique and very innovative, the acting is outstanding, especially Naomi Watts (not since Al Pacino had an actor changed so subtely, so much in one film) and the plot (both before you understand it but even more so after) is amazing. Without doubt, the best film so far this millenium, I believe, that like Citizen Kane, Shawshank Redemption and others overlooked at the time, it will be remembered as a trully great film. Watch it, then watch it again, and again until you get it, trust me , it's worth it!

Although the film is structured by way of dream/fantasy as opposed to being plot or character driven, it is entirely coherent although non-linear of course. As I recall, this is a film about Diane Selwyn who was possessed by two obsessions centred around a fixation. The first obsession was her dream of Hollywood and "making it". Her second obsession was with her lesbian lover, the dark haired woman suffering amnesia (her name is Camilla Rhodes) and the jealousy she felt when she fell out of the woman's affections. As is related at the end, Camilla Rhodes was the central point of fixation about which Diane Selwyn's life revolved when she came to LA, looking as so many have for love and a star-studded film career. But she was disappointingly let down. Her dreams of Hollywood, riding on the introductions of Camilla had come to naught; her affair with the woman, long over.

Actually, the seminal sequence at the end where she (Diane) is riding in the limo along Mulholland Drive is one of the few sequences that could be called "real life" in the film because of course this is Diane Selwyn's experience, not her fantasy, Betty, the dream personae whose name she took from the waitress in Winky's restaurant. We see her going into the director's house where all is revealed i.e. her shattered dreams of becoming a successful Hollywood actress and the betrayal she feels culminating in the announcement that her lesbian ex-lover is to marry the film director.

What Lynch did in the film was unique because Betty, the central character, is just a construct of Diane Selwyn's. She is not real. Rather it is Diane Selwyn who is real who in the opening credits is revealed as the star-struck girl from some no-name town in Canada who happened to have won an insignificant, local jitterbug contest. With her head full of unrealistic dreams, she'd travelled to LA, the city of dreams. But those dreams eventually collapsed. In response, she adopted a fantasy life of sorts - I see it as a projection - in which she created the personae, perhaps split off from herself, of the fresh, talented, rather naive, but business-like Betty.

Characteristically, it is Betty at first instance, Diane's projected personae, who meets Camilla Rhodes in the film. And naturally, this is the woman who spurned Diane in real life and for whom Diane would like to turn back the clock. What was required was that Camilla, her ex-lover, would have no memory of Diane and how their tryst went awry, hence the accident and the subsequent amnesia. Better still, Diane seeks to extinguish from memory her entire past. In this way, and it is of course Diane Selwyn's fantasy, she is provided a second go-round, a way out so to speak from the disappointment of her reality. Here within the wish-fulfilling fantasy she can reinvent herself. Here she can show how splendid an actress she is. She is discovered. Her gifts as a person can be recognised. And she can seduce and recapture her life with her lover again but without Camilla (or Diane) having any memory of the defeating past.

Most interestingly, this is what the film is - a psychological response to shattering loss. And whereas there is portrayed Diane Selwyn's wish fulfilment fantasy (which collapses when reality intrudes and more memory is recovered) there is also the nastier, more fearful undercurrent fuelled by Diane's guilt because of course she has in her mad jealousy hired a contract killer to murder Camilla. For this she will burn in hell as she reveals (in the person of Betty) to Camilla when Diane's suicide (she'd shot herself in the mouth) is discovered in the bedroom of Diane's house.

At first I thought the primitive emotion that underpins her murderous jealousy was personified by the fearful thing (it's actually a homeless tramp) at the back of Winky's restaurant, i.e. at the back of her mind, which the fellow, who relates his dream to a friend in Winky's, sees. But of course this, interestingly enough, is also the fear of most people in the West; namely, that they will one day end up penniless, without a home or a friend, discarded by loved ones and the society around them. And of course this is what happens to the blue box, the box which is the core of Diane's Selwyn's being, whose key is of course found in Camilla's handbag - and which, symbolically, is used obviously to unlock Diane's being/heart. We see in a later scene the blue box being placed in a brown paper bag by the tramp which he then discards among the rest of the rubbish. It is also pertinent that when Camilla looks into the box in an earlier scene - the camera telescopes through the box - that it is empty and falls to the floor. This signifies that Diane's (empty) dream (and empty soul too) is over and with it, the dream personae, Betty (as we see, Betty has disappeared from the room and the house).

Now there are some interesting details to be gone through here. Instead of the hired killer being successful (hence he's characterised as a ridiculous bungler), Diane fantasizes that the car crashes and Camilla escapes, without her memory of course. Diane's wish to see her lover dead is not realised. Most properly, the fantasy is a form of defence mechanism that serves to relieve Diane of some of her guilt. And true to form, the fantasy has been constructed as one does in dream - to formulate in some fantastic way, a way out of a reality that appears doomed. Because of course Diane's dream of a life has completely collapsed. Hollywood is heartless. Behind the scene lurks a sinister enforcer, the cowboy. The power brokers are much removed, the scene artificial, corrupt and fake. As in the theatre sequence, the performance is phoney and ends with the singer collapsing. As in the fantasy, so this proved a moment of crisis for Diane Selwyn. The dream had been defiled and seen to be false, yet the ferocity of the fantasy remained and could not be kept out. Hence, the scene at the end, when the little gremlin-like Hollywood-infatuated oldies try to get at her from under the door. Unsuccessfully, she tries to flee her own fantasy but cannot. They squeeze in under the door and come at her. With no way out - and she feels doubly boxed in by both her Hollywood dreams and her guilt (afterall she has hired a contract killer to murder Camilla and is being sought after for questioning by detectives), she takes the only avenue available to her, suicide.

People have asked me why the blonde-haired girl, whose picture is shown by the Hollywood mafia guys to the director (the "This is the girl" woman), is also named Camilla Rhodes (that's the name at the bottom of the picture). As you may recall, this is the woman who appears in "real life" at the end of the film at the director's house who kisses Camilla Rhodes on the lips. She is one of Camilla's lovers and is of course a real rival of Diane's for Camilla's affections. It is one thing for Diane to be betrayed by a man (the film director) - and as portrayed, the proposed marriage seems insubstantial, almost farcical - but it's something altogether different that Camilla should feel attracted/lustful towards another woman. But ultimately, in terms of Hollywood, Camilla (her dark-haired lover) is her actual rival. Camilla lands the big Hollywood parts and of course the part in the director's film. But she cannot give herself over in her fantasy to hating Camilla so she replaces her with her rival, the blond woman, hence this woman is given the name Camilla Rhodes.

The story of Diane Selwyn is a tragic one. Afterall, this is the tale of a woman who ends up committing suicide. It is also the story of how this impressionable woman's failed dreams led to her demise and how she tried in desperation to resurrect that dream in the fantasy guise of Betty. This was bound to fail as more and more of her ex-lover's memory was recovered, and concomitantly, as more of Diane's reality intruded. Sadly, Diane Selwyn must be viewed as one of the many lost souls who having fed into the American dream was cast down and discarded - along that murky road down Mulholland Drive - when the fantasy life that provided hope and sustenance collapsed around her.

David Chapkin

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5.0 out of 5 stars This is the film
I've watched a lot of films so far. I haven't watch all the quality European cinema or all of those rare quality American films. Read more

Published 8 days ago by Kaan ensoy

2.0 out of 5 stars I think I must have missed sometning.
Having seen the other reviews of this film I was tempted to get it.
However I must have missed something as I did not understand what went on. I found it very confusing. Read more

Published 8 days ago by thewatcher

4.0 out of 5 stars Good service
Good service, the DVD arrived promptly and was exactly as described. I have watched the DVD and although it was used, it was like new. Thanks.

Published 1 month ago by Pitchell2006

5.0 out of 5 stars Lynch's Masterpiece- dark, haunting and poisonous
As far as I am concerned, this and Twin Peaks are the high points of Lynch's carrer. The hits (Blue Velvet, Eraserhead), the misses (Dune), the overlooked gems (Lost Highway, Fire... Read more

Published 2 months ago by J. Murphy

5.0 out of 5 stars Something bit me BAD!
I saw this in the cinema when it came out, and recently watched it again.

My first impression was that it was stunning to look at, enjoyable, with multiple strands,... Read more

Published 2 months ago by tallmanbaby

5.0 out of 5 stars Diane vs Camilla. Maybe it's a film about Prince Charles?!

Yes for the all internet and worldwide labyrinth of complex theories about the plot and meaning of this film, i have not heard anyone else talk of it in terms of the... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Lionface

5.0 out of 5 stars Does anyone really know what this film is about?
Well, where can a review start about a film that is totally wierd and different, well I will keep it brief. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Mr. Mark Stubbs

2.0 out of 5 stars Möbius strip
I once wrote a short story in primary school about medieval knights but I didn't know how to end it so I decided to make it all be a dream so I wouldn't have to explain anything... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Mr. James Dickson

5.0 out of 5 stars In Dreams
I have always been a huge fan of David Lynch's films since the days as a child i would glaze over viewings of some of his work like Dune and Blue Velvet courtesy of my uncle, not... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Mr. A. J. Richards

5.0 out of 5 stars At his best
Alongside The Lost Highway Mulholland Drive is Lynch at his best for me. I am a bit perplexed to read all these reviews about people who really failed to understand what's going... Read more

Published 9 months ago by A. IVANCHEV

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