Sim1And now for a complete head f&*k
June 23rd 2009 08:28
Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to travel to LA for a few days. And despite of some of my friends (yes, believe it or not, I do have friends) telling me that the City of Angels isn’t all that, I completely fell in love with it.
So when Mulholland Dr. was on TV the other night, I just had to watch it. Simply for nostalgic reasons. I was hoping for some glimpses of the places I had visited in LA, including Mulholland Drive itself. Although really, I should have bloody known that a David Lynch movie wasn’t going to be a travel documentary.
A lot of people are of the opinion, that one must watch Mulholland Dr. a second and third time before even beginning to hope to understand it. But, my dear readers, all the movie reviews you have read here, have been written after seeing the film in question once and once only. And I’m not about to change my M.O.
So...Mulholland Dr. It’s a rollercoaster ride through bizarreness, extravagance, reality and fantasy. Through stories inter-woven, yet unrelated. Characters covered in pink paint. It’s a ride through one big world of randomness. The one thing provided for you to hold on to, so you don’t fall off the rollercoaster, is the one and only storyline that makes sense right from the beginning: a woman is involved in a car accident and subsequently suffers from amnesia. She finds refuge with a young actress (let’s call her Betty) who has just moved to Los Angeles to make it big in Hollywood.
Betty is very keen to help her new friend with amnesia to figure out who she is and what her story is. Miss Amnesia assumes the name ‘Rita’ because it would be pretty bloody stupid to call her ‘Miss Amnesia’ throughout the film. The women set out on a search for Rita’s memory and in the process become very close. So much so, that a lesbian sex scene becomes inevitable. It is just enough to make the viewer believe there is sex on the cards here, but it is tastefully shot and stops short of being pornographic.
So there you have it- a nice, neat storyline to stop you falling off the rollercoaster. Only of course, as you continue watching the movie, your neat little lifeline starts to unravel. And fast. Betty isn’t Betty, she’s Diane. And Rita isn’t Rita, she’s Camilla. But Camilla is someone else entirely. And so it continues.... There are a number of bizarre things going on in Mulholland Dr. The dude at Winkie’s restaurant talking to his therapist about a dream he keeps having during which he can see a scary man through a wall. Sure enough, 2 minutes later, the aforementioned scary guy shows up and our dream-dude collapses in a frightened heap. There is no more to this story or this character, apart from that he turns up later in the film. For no apparent reason and without apparent consequence. And then there’s the ominous character of ‘The Cowboy’ who bullies a film director into casting a certain actress called Camilla. That same film director is also seen at some stage covering his wife’s jewellery in pink paint (as you do) although it later becomes apparent that he is actually seeing Camilla, who is not the Camilla he cast in the movie but the woman you will have come to know as Rita at this stage....And the director’s mum is actually the manager of the apartment block that Betty inhabits, only she’s not Betty.....Aaaarrrgghhh.
The movie ends with a suicide, an unexplained one of course. On the one hand, I don’t want to give the ending away by telling you who commits suicide. But on the other hand, I couldn’t actually tell you who it is, because I don’t know anymore. The character is not who I thought they were.
After the ending credits, I thought ‘Hmm, I’m not sure what I have just seen here. I have no idea what that was about.’ But that’s not unusual for me, I struggle to follow Mission: Impossible and I have seen that movie half a million times.
I decided to do some research into what other people thought of David Lynch’s intricate and lunatic work. The man himself has always refused to comment or proffer an explanation. Good lad! I think that would ruin it, it would be like Freddie Mercury explaining what the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody are all about.
I think the problem lies with us, dear reader, you and me. We have this obsessive compulsion to make sense of things, to explain them. Everything needs to fit neatly into one of our little drawers of life experiences, ‘Ah yes, I understand, it’s like that time when abc happened and it means xyz. It all makes sense now.’
Would you be happy if I finished this review by saying Mulholland Dr., the fascinating movie, does not make any sense?
Ok, I can see some of you shifting uncomfortably, so here goes my interpretation...Remember when you first had a crush on someone? Maybe you were 12 or 13 years old and it was someone you saw everyday at school but your teenage awkwardness prevented you from ever talking to that person? (Hell, I still do it and I’m 29.) So you day dreamed about them. What it would be like to speak to them, what you would say, what they would say back. Where you would go on your first date and how they would kiss you for the first time. And every night you have that dream, the setting slightly changes, maybe your imagination evolves. And every now and then, your mind wanders....you are torn from your dream because the neighbour’s dog is barking or your mum’s shouting at you to get out of bed...your beautiful daydreaming is dispersed with sounds and sights from the real world, things that don’t really fit into your fantasy, but you incorporate them anyway to allow you to continue dreaming.
And that’s it, dear readers, it’s David Lynch’s days of teenage daydreaming, seen through the eyes of a character named Diane Selwyn, packaged into a brilliant movie called Mulholland Dr.
Oh and if you’re still not convinced- it’s got Billy Ray Cyrus in it!
So when Mulholland Dr. was on TV the other night, I just had to watch it. Simply for nostalgic reasons. I was hoping for some glimpses of the places I had visited in LA, including Mulholland Drive itself. Although really, I should have bloody known that a David Lynch movie wasn’t going to be a travel documentary.
A lot of people are of the opinion, that one must watch Mulholland Dr. a second and third time before even beginning to hope to understand it. But, my dear readers, all the movie reviews you have read here, have been written after seeing the film in question once and once only. And I’m not about to change my M.O.
Betty is very keen to help her new friend with amnesia to figure out who she is and what her story is. Miss Amnesia assumes the name ‘Rita’ because it would be pretty bloody stupid to call her ‘Miss Amnesia’ throughout the film. The women set out on a search for Rita’s memory and in the process become very close. So much so, that a lesbian sex scene becomes inevitable. It is just enough to make the viewer believe there is sex on the cards here, but it is tastefully shot and stops short of being pornographic.
The movie ends with a suicide, an unexplained one of course. On the one hand, I don’t want to give the ending away by telling you who commits suicide. But on the other hand, I couldn’t actually tell you who it is, because I don’t know anymore. The character is not who I thought they were.
After the ending credits, I thought ‘Hmm, I’m not sure what I have just seen here. I have no idea what that was about.’ But that’s not unusual for me, I struggle to follow Mission: Impossible and I have seen that movie half a million times.
I decided to do some research into what other people thought of David Lynch’s intricate and lunatic work. The man himself has always refused to comment or proffer an explanation. Good lad! I think that would ruin it, it would be like Freddie Mercury explaining what the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody are all about.
I think the problem lies with us, dear reader, you and me. We have this obsessive compulsion to make sense of things, to explain them. Everything needs to fit neatly into one of our little drawers of life experiences, ‘Ah yes, I understand, it’s like that time when abc happened and it means xyz. It all makes sense now.’
Would you be happy if I finished this review by saying Mulholland Dr., the fascinating movie, does not make any sense?
Ok, I can see some of you shifting uncomfortably, so here goes my interpretation...Remember when you first had a crush on someone? Maybe you were 12 or 13 years old and it was someone you saw everyday at school but your teenage awkwardness prevented you from ever talking to that person? (Hell, I still do it and I’m 29.) So you day dreamed about them. What it would be like to speak to them, what you would say, what they would say back. Where you would go on your first date and how they would kiss you for the first time. And every night you have that dream, the setting slightly changes, maybe your imagination evolves. And every now and then, your mind wanders....you are torn from your dream because the neighbour’s dog is barking or your mum’s shouting at you to get out of bed...your beautiful daydreaming is dispersed with sounds and sights from the real world, things that don’t really fit into your fantasy, but you incorporate them anyway to allow you to continue dreaming.
And that’s it, dear readers, it’s David Lynch’s days of teenage daydreaming, seen through the eyes of a character named Diane Selwyn, packaged into a brilliant movie called Mulholland Dr.
Oh and if you’re still not convinced- it’s got Billy Ray Cyrus in it!
| 20 |
| Vote |
