Mulholland Drive [DVD] [2002]

Mulholland drive is confusing from the start, offering fragments of stories for the characters with sinister undertones. Three quarters of the way through the story takes a dizzying shift, leaving the viewer totally confused and desperately trying to recall the former part of the film in an attempt to make sense of the final scenes. It is almost impossible to pass judgement or appreciate the film in its totality on a single viewing - one of the reasons why it is such a great film to buy is that you'll always be able to return to it and notice something different.

I've heard many people's views on what they believe the film may or may not represent, and that is the beauty of this masterpiece by Lynch, nothing is totally explained and it is up to you the viewer to form your own interpretation of the events. It isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea (you either love it or hate it) but it definitely gets you thinking,and with such amazing cinematography and a truly haunting soundtrack, if you do take to this film it is one you will return to time and time again. Stunning!

* The dream.
The dream occupies the first three-quarters of the film. It is Diane's wish-fulfilment fantasy, embodying the following desires:
1. The failure of the hitman to kill Camille.
2. The continuation of her sexual relationship with Camille.
3. Her own success as an actress.
4. Revenge on Adam, for having stolen Camille from her.

In the dream Diane sheds her identity and becomes Betty, fresh-faced, naïve, happy, and - crucially - a very talented actress, whose ability is acknowledged by everyone she meets. She only fails to get the starring part in Adam's film because the mafia have coerced him into giving the part to Camille. When Diane and Adam first clap eyes on each other it is obvious that he is thinking, "This is the girl." So Camille's success is not the result of any talent she may have. Moreover, Camille herself becomes transformed in Diane's dream into a nobody, an amnesiac who needs her help.

The developing relationship between the two women in this part of the film is classic, unimaginative wish-fulfilment stuff: two people thrown together by circumstances share a bed for the sake of practicality and end up as lovers.

In fact, the whole of the dream sequence reveals the paucity of Diane's imagination. So immersed is she in the unreality of Hollywood, her dream resembles a vacuous film, in which the characters speak as if reciting rehearsed lines. Diane herself, as Betty, is an unconvincing character, cartoonish and false. The audition scene is ludicrously cosy and mannered, and ironically the only hint of an emotional reality beneath the surface comes when Diane (playing Betty) performs her audition piece. Similarly, towards the end of the dream sequence, it is in the theatre, during a mimed performance, that genuine feeling is manifest, in the form of the swooning singer and the reactions of Diane and Camille in the audience.

The blue key turns up in the dream, no longer as a mundane object but as something strange, fantastic. The box perhaps represents the consequences of the action symbolised by the key. Thus, at the end of the dream sequence, Diane's fantasy gives way to the ineluctable reality of what she has done. The box opens and Camille (as "Rita") is destroyed, sucked into the void. There is also some silly Freudian symbolism in all this box-and-key imagery.

Why does the dream come first in the film, when chronologically it occurs between the hiring of the hitman and the accomplishment of the deed? Because one of the purposes of the film is the deconstruction of the discourse of Hollywood. The dream represents this discourse (based on sentimentality and unreality) and what follows in the film is its refutation and subversion.

Naturally, there are complications. If Diane as Betty seems unreal in the first half of the film (the dream), Camille is equally glacial and one-dimensional in the second half ("reality"), pouting and manipulating like an empty femme fatale. But maybe this is what her success in Hollywood has done to her; perhaps the price of celebrity is unreality.