Favourite films are a weird thing. I always struggle to answer the typical question levied at any fans of film. How do you judge your favourite? What you consider the best film? A film which powerfully resonates with you? A hella ambitious film? A film that is masterfully executed?
I think I've finally managed to bypass this difficult task, thanks to an odd wee man from Missoula, Montana. Watching David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive' for the first time in the summer of last year, I felt a way that I've never felt before. It's almost indescribable (some have gone for the feeling of 'uncanniness'). In his efforts to use the medium of film to create a mood above all else, 'Mulholland Drive' seems like it seeps straight into the subconscious. You're experiencing the noir of twisted Hollywood, as opposed to watching it.
That sounded super pretentious. Normally, if someone said that to me, it would be met with a scoff. But this is a film that lingered with me long after the credits. In fact, when the film first finished, I was more angry than anything else. I had worked hard over the past 2 hours and 40 minutes to assemble the various jigsaw pieces of the plot. Instead, strands were dropped, became irrelevant, or changed beyond compare. Even in my confusion, I knew I had watched a masterpiece. I could feel it.
The problem, and it's a problem that some reasonably can't or don't want to overcome, is that you need to not intellectualise the film. Don't get me wrong, it's a very clever film - particularly in the astonishing ways the two worlds of the film parallel each other - but it's not clever in a rational sense. You're in David's dreamland, and a necessity to enjoying it is leaving your predisposed idea of what a film should be at the turn off to Mulholland Drive. It needs to be wallowed in.
To me, Lynch considers plot just another tool in his mood-kit, and not the definitive factor as it is in most films. Consider the moment Rita in her sleep necessitates the trip to Club Silencio. It comes from nowhere, but the actual scene symbolises something hugely significant in the wider context of the film. Speaking of Club Silencio, the sequence that takes place there is one of the most mesmerising pieces of cinema I have ever seen. When I watched it for the first time, I was transfixed. It made no sense yet in terms of the film I was watching, but it was a surreal, beautiful sensual experience that I found weirdly profound. I thought of little else the following days.
It's in the film's favour that the traditional elements are splendid also. Naomi Watt and Laura Harring give dynamite performances, Angelo Badalamenti's score has the right amount of grit, there are moments of wonderfully dark humour, and the cinematography lends itself perfectly to the sordid, dreamscape LA that Lynch aimed for.
David Lynch works best when confined. The fantastically bizarre 'Twin Peaks' had to fit the TV format, 'Blue Velvet' had a simple A to B story, and 'Mulholland' is two-thirds a dropped TV pilot. The one-third he had to play with to make it a complete movie led to the game-changing narrative that makes the film what it is. Without any confines, Lynch made 'Inland Empire', which has memorable sequences but lets go of narrative completely too early and, for me, flies off the rails. The critics which claim his surrealism is pointless and reductive have good ammunition in 'Inland Empire', but 'Mulholland Drive' is different. It is a completely unique feeling, and that is why it's my favourite film.
Plus, hot girls making out!
If you want more Lynch stuff, check out part of my english dissertation focussing on 'Blue Velvet', which I posted as part of BEDN!
Hope I didn't spoil anything for you!
Tara x
