Hey folks, Harry here with a rather nicely written look at David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DRIVE, it premiered at Cannes, and now is beginning to make the rounds a bit... somehow Film Student 415 managed to snag a looksee and seems to have wound up a tad disappointed by what he saw... There are some spoilers, but I couldn't help myself... I read it all... perhaps... so will you...
I recently received a fuzzy VHS copy of Lynch's newest film via an unmarked snail mail package. I don't know where it came from, but around these parts, strange things are known to occur.
When the average person hears someone talk about David Lynch, the name hardly rings a bell. Beginning his career back in 1967 with a mixed media presentation entitled SIX MEN GETTING SICK, Lynch has been a devil's advocate - a voice of the weird and the bizarre - in modern American cinema. From elephant men and white picket fences to snakeskin jackets and prom queens wrapped in plastic, no matter what Lynch put his hands and mind on, these strange anomolies of reality became something more real...closer to home. Anyone who's seen BLUE VELVET will agree because Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" still makes the hair on the backs of their necks stand on end. This was Lynch's trademark - the lurking sentiment of evil under a thin veil of innocence and self-induced complacency.
Lynch's STRAIGHT STORY notwithstanding, Lynch has been known to throw even his most loyal fans for a loop. His latest effort, "Mulholland Drive" is no exception. Lynch's vision of a present day Los Angeles is purely his own. Hollywood production meetings are conducted with all the joyless affection of a funeral procession, and the LAPD shuffle around in loose collars and blank stares like small town yokels in the big city. Things one might come to expect from a Lynch movie are here: sexuality, strange and quirky characters, pillow-lipped lounge divas. What there is not is that thin veil previously mentioned. Perhaps it is LA itself that immediately brings out the bitterness of everyone and everything involved (there IS one exception, but I'll get to that later).
Those who have been following the events surrounding MULHOLLAND DRIVE know the story. For those who haven't, the capsule is this -
A young, wide-eyed aspiring actress arrives in Los Angeles with dreams of stardom. She enters her aunt's home to find a strange, naked woman named Rita hiding in the shower. Rita has amnesia, a purse full of dough (ten thousand dollars or some such number), and a funny looking key. At the same time, a young hotshot filmmaker (who likes to carry around golf clubs like canes) is being forced into casting some unknown ("Six of the top actresses want this part!") in his new film by two Italian mafia-type producers. Add a creepy dwarf, a rotting corpse, and a landlady named "Coco", and you've got a recipe for one dead as doornails television series. A few years later, MULHOLLAND DRIVE finds its way to Cannes, where Lynch takes home a Best Director award.
What confuses this viewer is how it ever made it that far. Aesthetically, MULHOLLAND DRIVE is about as entertaining as an episode of FRIENDS. Granted, the original outlet for the project was television, but that doesn't stop the SOPRANOS or even THE CHRIS ISAAK SHOW from forfeiting their stylistic integrity. The cinematography is poorly shot, cutting from one actor to the next, with no respect to the bearing or context of the scene. Furthermore it is here that none of Lynch's style - so purely evident in BLUE VELVET and LOST HIGHWAY - reveals itself, even if only to salve the pains of having to endure the horrendous acting (most notably that of Naomi Watts (TANK GIRL, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY), the exception of the film in that she bounces from one scene to the next, bubbling over with excitement, but lacking a well-defined persona (like Lula from WILD AT HEART). Admittedly, Watts gets the bulk of the bad dialogue ("You can't sleep now. You've got a head injury!") which may contribute to her ininspiring performance. Laura Harring (LITTLE NICKY) and Justin Theroux (AMERICAN PSYCHO, SEX AND THE CITY) make underwhelming appearances, but fare far better than the rest of the cast, given the material. Despite cowboys, crooners and cadavers the most entertaining moment of the film comes when a bumbling hitman artfully botches a relatively easy assignment. Unfortunately, everything about this movie is uninspiring, from the source material (why do we even CARE about who's cast in this man's film?) to the direction. Lynch seems to be so ingrained in his own style that he forgoes any form of narrative altogether.
I'm reminded of what cartoon artist Bill Watterson said about the art of the narrative, "...the best [stories] are personal, idiosyncratic works that reflect a unique and honest sensibility." In a way, yes, it's good that Lynch has the freedom to express his unique and idiosyncratic sensibility to a wide audience - especially in an industry such as Hollywood - but for the sake of the fans of his preceding works, perhaps next time he should paint a picture and hang it on his bedroom wall instead. We'd all be much less disappointed.
--filmstudent415
