(spoilers ahead)
First time I decided to watch this movie...it was 6 months before I actually saw the whole thing in one sitting. MD was on tv and after 15 minutes, when the bum behind the winkies appeared I was so utterly freaked out that I screamed "oh, fuck it!" and turned the tv off. I had vivid memory of the time I was watching Twin Peaks and the image of Bob crawling towards Laura Palmer's cousin was stuck in my head for few months.
But few weeks ago I finally managed to see entire MD, promptly fastforwarding through Wiinkies scene. The movie is amazing, but I don't like Lynch. I hate how, whilst the music, some of the cinematography, the plot, are artistic and magical something is disgustingly ordinary about his movies. I don't know if it's the incredibly unattractive supporting cast, the fact many shots are shown in broad daylight or some weird manner in which the movie is shot - in all his films I saw the most magical, surrealistic shots which are then strapped out of their glory because of their contrast with retro, ugly, normal scenes. Like with Betty and Coco, with the obscure room Dale Cooper was in and 80% of Twin Peaks, with Kyle Mcchlachlan's life in Blue Velvet or with terrible flashbacks of Lula's past in Wild at Heart. I could show prettier things in my room, shooting them with a mobile phone camera. I know movies aren't about beauty, but there is some sort of quality thing that fails here - it's like showing you flowers and then crap, flowers and then crap for 160 minutes of the movie. Maybe that's why the things Lynch shows in every movie are so creepy - he takes normal stuff and turns it into something so bizarre that it becomes creepy.
The story here is relatively simple, when you have the key, when you know how to watch this movie. Once you have that key the story is really fascinating, the hints Lynch left about the main heroine are great and the parallels between real world and dream world are so clever that I was astonished.
Dreams are elusive. We often forget what they were about, we have difficulties remembering even the tiniest details. For a filmaker to present the dream universe with sound, music and cinematography is enough of a chalange, but to do that with plot structure and the construction of entire story, to show the logic of a dream by using dialogues, objects and symbols - that's a true craft and the most beautiful of arts. I've only saw three movies in my life that achieved that - Cameron Crowe's „Vanilla Sky” and Ingmar Bergman's „Wild Strawberries”. Third one is MD.
I often read about the movie before I see it. Before watching MD I've read almost everything I could find about it – I knew that David Lynch's films require massive preparation before watching them. And „Mulholland Drive” is one of very few movies that loses absolutely nothing once you know the plot, the ending, all the twist and turns. Because seeing it unravel on a screen is such a unique, fascinating expierience that even though the movie was horribly disturbing, even scaring, I will come back to it many times.
Naomi Watts's performance is hands down the best performance given by an actress in a leading role I've seen in all my life. Never had I seen the performance that varies so much throughout the movie, yet still remains plausible and gripping – at the beginning of the movie Watts's plays innocent Betty – witty, joyful, naive, with her lovely smile and detective-like curiosity. Then, abruptly, when Diane wakes up Watts's performance switches severely – she presents broken woman, deeply depressed, destroyed by the reality of her life. That role, so brave at certain times in the movie, shines so bright that Academy must indeed be blind. Watts's performance in this film is worth all the awards in the world.
Laura Harring plays Camilla/Rita, she is incredibly beautiful and she does good job at playing, at first very lost and confused person and the reality-part of the movie, strong, very manipulative woman – I was very impressed that the actress managed to show the nature of Camilla/Diane relationship in just few scenes. The rest of the cast is quite good, but the centre of the movie is of course Betty/Diane.
Mulholland Drive is an exhausting, fascinating and inspiring work of art. It is more than just a movie – it is an experience. It is also a very beautiful, but incredibly tragic love story that takes place in the city where so many dreams died and so many innocent were lost.
I think's it's the best Lynch's movie, but I still don't like him. If I ever met the guy I'd run away as fast as I can.
