Mulholland Drive

⭐ 6.5/10

(Originally written by Tim)

I watched this because I loved Twin Peaks, and the only other David Lynch movie I had seen was his take on Dune, which is a terrible movie with some cool interpretations of the book.

Like Twin Peaks, this movie was very unsettling, and I kept having to distract myself for fear of jump scares. I haven't seen a ton of Lynch, but his style is pretty consistent. Some shaky first-person camera work, disturbing music that always makes it feel like something is around the corner, cars driving on twisty dark roads with limited visibility, hard cuts to freak-ily edited images, flickering lights and electrical noises. In general he kind of captures what it feels like being stuck in a bad dream. But where Twin Peaks has loveable characters and humour, this was just 100% dread.

When I finished the movie I had no idea what I just watched, some sort of fever dream about the powers that run Hollywood, or something? Honestly I don't know. This is clearly an art film that was made with a very specific vision, but I can't unravel that. There were some scenes where I was glued to the screen, and others where I would look away. So I will give this some points for artistic vision and style. I will do some reading and probably come to realize some of the genius people claim is in this movie, but I am writing this minutes after finishing it and I just don't see it.

In Twin Peaks I could appreciate the confusion, and over a longer story the threads are a bit easier to grasp. Here the confusion led me nowhere, and I am fairly certain it was all just a dream? If anything there is some of Vertigo here, but that's as far as I got. If you ever hear someone say they like this movie they are a grade A certified movie snob.