Mulholland Drive (2001)

Where does anyone start with David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr.? This amalgamation of a story, set in stone, captures the idea of weird and wonderful. Within the film, there are three main stories, the girl in the car crash, the aspiring actress, and the film director. All these stories interlink in their own weird way creating the mystery drama of Hollywood with a thrilling twist. The negative side to the narrative is its complexity. Near everyone at one point in the film will get lost in Mulholland Dr’s winding story. However the narrative causes you to create your own solution to the insanity, it creates multiple theories through each individual's experience of what they have just witnessed. Focusing on different aspects, putting together different pieces and overall emerging with totally contrasting understandings.

Personally, i thought the cinematography by Peter Deming was marvelous. To me, it really showed the dark side to the film and captures the perspective of Hollywood that we don't see in perfect fashion.

A major aspect of the film is the editing. An editing technique in the film is the expression of light and dark. As have mentioned the film can get confusing and the editing helps guide the audience's understanding. As Naomi Watts plays the role of two protagonists, one in each story, Betty and Diane Selwyn, causing us ask which is fact and which is fiction. However, the many ideologies behind the two characters are the contrast between them. This contrast is shown through the editing. Most of the scenes of Betty are shown in the theme of light, the scenes are very bright and clean to symbolize “Betty’s” life as happy. In contrast, we have Diane, her scenes are dirty and dingy, her apartment is small, dark and grimy. All of this sets the mood, the setting, and appearance. The transformation is shown clearly to the audience of Betty to Diane and moreover, explains a decline in quality of life for Diane.

The Art Direction in the film is superb throughout, the sense of this underlying darkness stays within the film. Also again the character's image is shown through the work of the art department. What I admired the most about the film were the back settings made such as Diane’s home and the Silencio Club. they were made to look a certain way for a purpose, this purpose is to further develop the audience's understanding. However a lot of the set around the characters do not make sense to us, this creates the mystery that the story withholds.

The sound and music in the film is very well done and amplifies the darkness, thrill, and mystery in certain parts. During the scene in the Silencio club, the appearance of sound is played with. The symbolic meaning here is that everything is not what it seems, which really sums up the entire film.

The performance of Naomi Watts and Laura Harring is exceptional. We really see and feel their forever changing relationship as the story winds on. They express their love and their rivalry through their emotion showing clearly to the audience what their thoughts and feelings are towards one another.

Overall I would recommend this film to anyone, but not for how much I liked the film, but to go through the experiences I did while watching this masterpiece. Mulholland Dr. will forever keep you asking questions and that is what I like about it my experience and the overall view will continue to change I will look at certain parts in a different light and or continue to see them in the same light more clearly. Every scene is a talking point of ‘What just happened?’ and there are not many films that can do that while keeping its audiences concentration.