Mar 7, 2011

Mulholland Drive (2001) - someone's mind need to be broadened


directed by David Lynch / starring Naomi Wats, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux

Mulholland Drive is part 2/12 of my resolution for 2011.

Last night I went to see Black Swan. Or tried to. After sitting in the auditorium for a half an hour, we were announced that the projector is broken, so they gave us two free tickets and told us to come back some other night. So, I'll try again today... And instead of a cinema night, I then decided to finally watch the film I was supposed to see last month according to my New Year resolution.

 So, I began to watch Mulholland Drive, after first trying to clear my mind of all prejudices and the certainty that I would find it terrible. Well, unfortunately I know my taste too well. The hours crawled by as I kept glancing at the clock and waiting for something earth-shattering to happen or an explanation for the random characters that kept showing up to come. Then, towards the end, I gave in to my lack of interest and began to do other things, though knowing perfectly well that I was making a mistake not fully concentrating on the film. And indeed, I think I missed the most important turn of events, because first they were in that Silencio place and next time I paid attention there was something else, something pretty freaky, going on and I didn't know what had happened. And frankly, I wasn't bothered enough to go back and check. So, I watched the last fifteen minutes with raised eyebrows, not even trying to make sense of it all, because I was already a lost case.

I'm a bit chagrined that I didn't surprise myself and love the film. I was silently hoping to find a cultured intellectual inside of me, but well, what can you do, tiger and her stripes and all that. I'll know better and stick with the more earthly stuff in the future. (Except that it's March now, which can mean only one thing: it's A Space Odyssey time. Oh god.) I can name a few postitive things about the film, anyway. The first scene with the Lost guest star... No, wait, there were two Lost guest stars. Well, the one that had a bit less confusing role in the film. If you're still not following, I'm talking about Mark Pellegrino's character, the hitman or whatever. (You see, I'm getting as confusing as the film. It's clearly affecting me.) So, anyway. The first hitman scene actually made me chuckle a little. That was one positive thing. Besides, the mood was very eerie and quite haunting, which can also counted as a plus, because it shows I'm not totally immune to what everyone else sees in the film.

And actually, as I afterwards consulted IMDb to find out what had happened in the film I'd just watched (pathetic, isn't it...), I was sort of able to see why everyone calls the film brilliant. It is structured in quite a clever way and the plot it pretty fascinating when you think about it. I don't know if it tells more about me or the film, but the story sounds much better on paper that it was on screen. And is the viewer really supposed to figure all that out by themselves just by watching? I know I missed some critical bits, but still, some of the 'explanations' were just pretty damn far-fetched.

Probably by now it's pretty safe to say that David Lynch just isn't for me. I guess my mind just isn't stretched far enough. Too bad.


"It'll be just like in the movies. Pretending to be somebody else."

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