Mulholland Drive

More than anything else, Mulholland Drive is an incredible cinematic experience. You laugh, you wince, you fall in love, you hold your breath, you cringe, you mutter “Oh my God.” The movie is a nonstop catalog of classic Lynchian moments, from extreme discomfort to nostalgic reverie to utter desolation to sheer terror.

While it’s tempting to think that Lynch has simply lost control of his vision yet again, the film is so densely layered and seductive that it’s hard to pull away completely, even when it stops making rational sense. Recognizing the futility of bringing material for an untold number of television episodes to a neat and satisfying conclusion, Lynch has done the next best thing, pushing the audience deeper and deeper into his subconscious tangles.

While Lynch’s films all have dream-like qualities, Mulholland Drive is his first since Eraserhead to employ “the logic of a dream – a nightmare” (how Welles described Kafka’s The Trial) from beginning to end. And like a nightmare, the film’s effect is twofold. It creates an extreme sense of unease, which provokes, in turn, an investigative impulse – as if by using one’s analytic skills to piece together its puzzling narrative, one could exert control over the anxiety the film generates.