There was a time when David Lynch made coherent, challenging motion pictures.
Love it or hate it, there's no doubt that Blue Velvet was one of the most
talked-about motion pictures of the 1980s. Some consider it to be a masterpiece,
while others view it as exploitative trash. Nevertheless, at least the narrative
makes sense. The script requires the viewer to pay attention, but everything
ties together in a sensible manner. Something similar could be said about
Lynch's next outing, Wild at Heart. It's a little more out there, but
still not totally outrageous. Next came "Twin Peaks", the television series that
started out as one of the most compelling hour-long dramas ever to air on a
network before devolving into silliness. Lost
Highway followed on the heels of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,
with neither picture telling a linear or comprehensible story. The
Straight Story seemed to put Lynch on a different course, but, with
Mulholland Drive, the filmmaker is back to his old tricks.
Mulholland Drive started life as a pilot for a TV series. When ABC
rejected it outright, Lynch elected to shoot a series of new, lurid scenes to
provide an ending of sorts. Watching the final project, it's easy to determine
where this "break" occurs. The first 105 minutes of this movie are engrossing,
and, for the most part, intelligible. There's no content that would be deemed
unsuitable for television. Then, just as things go off the deep end, slipping
into the realm of the incoherent, the two lead female characters remove their
clothing and spend most of the final 40 minutes topless. As a TV series,
Mulholland Drive might have been compelling stuff; as a movie, in large
part because of Lynch's excuse for an "ending", it's a mess.
The film is structured as a mystery set in Hollywood, although, in typical
Lynchian fashion, this version of Tineseltown is decidedly dark and skewed. The
plot weaves together several strands: a young, fresh-looking Canadian girl who
has come to La-la land in search of stardom; an established actress who avoids
being murdered by an act of dumb luck, and loses her memory as a result; and a
director who is being forced by ominous powers to cast a particular woman in his
movie. It's all intriguing stuff. The cast is made up largely of unknowns:
Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring. Robert Forster and Dan Hedaya
have what amount to cameos (despite prominent billing - one assumes that had
this become a weekly series, they would have been more evident).
The film is drenched in atmosphere. That shouldn't be a surprise. Credit the
cinematography of Peter Deming and the score by Angelo Badalamenti.
Mulholland Drive is filled with its share of "Twin Peaks"-ish moments.
But, after a promising start and an engaging midsection, there's the third act
to deal with. And it's not a pretty sight. Lynch cheats his audience, pulling
the rug out from under us. He throws everything into the mix with the lone goal
of confusing us. Nothing makes any sense because it's not supposed to make any
sense. There's no purpose or logic to events. Lynch is playing a big practical
joke on us. He takes characters we have come to care about and obscures their
fates in gibberish. Some people will undoubtedly decide this is all very deep
and will find hidden meanings in everything, but they're giving Lynch too much
credit. This is not good filmmaking; it's immature and wasteful.
I suppose on some level I still want to recommend Mulholland Drive -
it's a wonderfully stylish film, the score is incomparable, and the first
two-thirds border on brilliant. But I despise with a white-hot passion what
Lynch did with the ending. I was simmering with fury when I came out of the
screening. And I wanted to throttle one critic who began chirping about the
wonderfully existential manner in which things are "wrapped up". This is one
route best taken by die-hard Lynch fans only. The rest of us can stick to the
freeway.
From movie-reviews.colossus.net
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