Beautiful confusion (Mulholland Drive (DVD))

Member Name: mo79

Product:	Mulholland Drive (DVD)
Date:	29/12/05 (191 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant main feature, a true Lynch classic

Disadvantages: Limited special features, no chapter selection

David Lynch works are both enchanting and confusing. I'm not sure if you're meant to understand them fully, or even if you can, but you have to respect him for the detail of his craft alone whether or not you enjoy his film and television.
Mulholland Drive is certainly no change in the formula. There's no real beginning, middle or end. It'll make your brain itch but won't resolve to scratch it.

Originally starting off as a pilot for a series but failing to please producers somehow, Studio Canal injected the budget that would seal this off into a movie. And how thankful I am that this didn't get lost in a Lynchian abyss.

Naomi Watts (who features in the succesful 2005 King Kong remake) stars here in one of her first truly pivotal roles – or two roles – firstly as happy-go-lucky Betty Elms. A young aspiring actress from Canada hoping to make her mark in Hollywood. Or so it appears.
Opposite the blue eyed blonde is the equally stunning brunette Laura Elena Harring who we're not sure of apart from the name 'Rita' taken from a Rita Hayworth poster. The two worlds meet after a accident on Mulholland Drive (a dark overlooking portion on Hollywood) brings Rita into the flat of Betty.

In true Lynch fashion, the story is not linear. Other dimensions come in forms of other characters stories, some that intertwine, some that don't...
The third 'main' character is that of troubled director Adam Kesher who also ties into the focus of 'Betty' and 'Rita'. There's a good reason why I've enclosed Betty in quotations – but I'm not going further with probable spoilers.

The other sides of the cube show a man confronting a reoccurring dream about a figure behind a Winkie's cafe, a hitman caught in a hilarious predicament, Kesher's cheating wife, The Cowboy, and a blue haired woman...

The film is beautifully shot, as is expected. But little things like precision of editing and camera blurs add a kind of artiness which is complimentary rather than over the top.

Angelo Badalamenti's ghostly scoring (5.1 audio) complements the film well, and being Lynch's permanently loyal cohort you'd not expect him to be second choice. He even appears in the movie as one of two very scary Italians. His disdain for a served cup of Espresso is extreme.

By the latter half of the film don't even expect a remote nearing of a conclusion. Everything gets welcomely thrown in disarray. The only kind of clue, if I'm qualified to offer one, is that the film somewhat loops.

One feature of the DVD is that there's no chapter selection. This may seem to be an oversight but personally I find it as something that complements the film. You couldn't really say this film has 'chapters'; where does something really begin? Manual backward and forward search is what you'll have to do but I find once I stick the film on I see it through to the end anyway, although 2 hours, 20mins is quite intense.

Special features are otherwise scant. A trailer is no more a special feature than an advert for other films (which thankfully don't appear here), and the rest of the bonus features are interviews with Lynch, Watts, Harring and Justin Theroux who plays Adam Kesher, as well as actor profiles. This barely approximates 10-20mins viewing time. But with the quality of the main feature who needs much else?

With the film approaching 5yrs old, Mulholland Drive can be purchased for under £10 at Amazon and other shops.

A perfect brain workout for the clouded Christmas brain, and a good primer for a Lynch virgin. Lynch devotees undoubtedly will undoubtedly lap it up.

Summary: The perfect goad for brain cell suicide