i saw this movie when it premiered in new york last fri, and it was awesome. however, those expecting anything resembling a linear plot (and i have no idea why you would with david lynch) should stay away. it's weird and random and confusing. and cool!this won't make sense to anyone until after you've seen the movie, but the funniest lines in the film are:
"have you ever done this before?"
"i don't know!"
and yeah, the sex scene is pretty well done.
oh, and here's what premiere has to say about the film. i think it's an interesting review:
Release Date: October 12 (Universal Focus)
"This is the girl." Like "Now it's dark" in Blue Velvet or "Fire walk with
me" in the film version of Twin Peaks, "This is the girl" forms a sort of
mantra in Mulholland Drive, writer-director David Lynch's latest film.
Uttered first by a dyspeptic mobster who's very particular about his
espresso, later by a menacingly polite cowboy who looks as if he just
stepped out of an establishing shot from a Republic Pictures B western, and
finally by an obdurate hotshot film director who's eventually persuaded that
only by saying those words can he get back the life that has been abruptly
taken from him, it's an initially neutral-sounding phrase that gains more
currency every time it comes up. What it really "means"-what this whole,
wholly astonishing film really "means"-will no doubt be a source of
unending, fascinated speculation among Lynch cultists, as well as a
provocation of genuine, foam-at-the-mouth frustration among those who got
suckered into buying their tickets after hearing that the film contains a
couple of really hot lesbian love scenes.
Not that it doesn't, mind you-and it's also worth noting that those scenes
are rarities in the Lynch oeuvre, in that they don't represent the act of
physical love with complete revulsion. Indeed, the affair between amnesiac
vamp Rita (Laura Elena Harring)-who, not remembering who she is, has cribbed
her name from a poster of the movie Gilda-and perky Hollywood newbie Betty
(Naomi Watts) is possibly the healthiest, most positive amorous relationship
ever depicted in a Lynch movie-that is, for the duration of its healthy
stage, which lasts about two minutes. The movie, which began as a pilot for
a proposed television series and was reworked by Lynch into a stand-alone
film after French producers stepped in with financing for new scenes, is a
typically Lynchian sprawl (well over two hours), packed with bizarre
characters, twisting plot lines, and unforgettable set pieces, with Rita and
Betty's story serving as its linchpin, so to speak. Although set in
present-day L.A., the movie has the same unstuck-in-time feel that gave the
great Blue Velvet much of its uncanny atmosphere.
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 (composer Angelo
Badalamenti, a longtime Lynch collaborator, is ineffable as the
espresso-rejecting mobster) to nostalgic reverie (a candy-colored doll with
a beehive hairdo lip-synchs Connie Stevens's "Sixteen Reasons" in a
delightfully improbable movie-audition scene) to utter desolation (abandoned
by a lover, a distraught woman seeks solace in masturbation; in a
point-of-view shot, we see the brickwork above her fireplace snap in and out
of focus) to sheer terror (embodied, finally, by two extremely creepy senior
citizens). The only problem-and I need to lay my cards on the table and say
that it wasn't much of a problem for me, although for others it might be a
big one-is exactly what the hell happens in this movie.
It's pretty clear where Drive takes off from its TV pilot version; the
lesbian scenes are a tip-off, plus the use of space within the frame opens
up considerably. But Lynch did not use the big screen to tie up the loose
ends of his various plot lines in a neat, or you might even say coherent,
way. While the film's emotional conclusion is quite definitive and
remarkably devastating, the fact is that this is a mystery film where a lot
of the riddles remain unanswered. It occurred to me, shortly after trying to
shake off the emotional power of the film (it's the kind of movie that makes
the real world seem even weirder than usual when you step out of the
theater), that Mulholland Drive is, in an oblique way, really a remake of
Lynch's first film, Eraserhead, and that left to his own devices, Lynch
will, in some form or another, just make the same film over and over again.
Roberto Rossellini once remarked of Chaplin's A King in New York, "It is the
film of a free man." Mulholland Drive is the film of a slave-a slave to his
own, undying obsessions. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
