by Rod Machen
Watching Mulholland Drive at the new Austin Film Society Cinema was a memorable experience. Not only was it presented in 35mm, but an expert was on hand to explain it — if a David Lynch film can ever be explained. (It can’t.)
As part of the festivities, Dennis Lim, Programming Director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, gave some opening remarks related to his new book David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, a critical biography of Lynch’s work. The night was a perfect confluence of events. Lim described the AFS Cinema, with its large red drapes adorning the walls, as the most “Lynchian” of theaters, and Mulholland Drive as the most “Lynchian” of films.
And that it is. Lynch’s end game is to confuse, to jolt, to keep the viewer off balance at all times in service a narrative that will inevitably be anything but linear and straightforward. This film does that to a tee.
The story pairs up characters played by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring as they dabble in mystery, love, and even horror. Lim discussed how Lynch loves to put opposites together in powerful ways: the wide-eyed Los Angeles newcomer and the sultry Hollywood glamour girl; the blonde and the brunette; the innocent and the craven. The beauty of what Lynch does is that these things are never in stasis; characters will change names, motivations, and even hair color as the plot progresses.
Along with Lost Highway and Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive is a part of a late-career trilogy that Lim says are not just withering takes on Hollywood and its movie-making machine, but also true tales of horror. After the eventual failure of the Twin Peaks franchise, Lynch recalibrated and came back accepting no compromises for his vision of what his movies should be. Ironically, he has bookended this period with another go at the series, with Showtime set to air Season Three of Twin Peaks next year.
As always, Lynch loves to drop “What?”-bombs throughout the work. Justin Theroux’s character gets the brunt of these. Imagine your wife cheating on you with Billy Ray Cyrus, or having to meet a terse “cowboy” in the Hollywood Hills for advice that turns into a threat. It’s par for the course in Lynch’s world.
While Lim did a great job of setting the table, a movie like this can never be tamed. It isn’t possible to decode it away. According to Lim, it’s a puzzle movie, and the viewer puts it together over time. In the moment, however, the best advice he has is this: It’s okay to be confused and simply react to the visceral images and storytelling on the screen. David Lynch would appreciate it.
