Photo: Laura Elena Harring as Rita and Naomi Watts as Betty in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive
"What are you doing, we don't stop here," says Rita (Laura Elena Harring) as her chauffer-driven limousine winds down Mulholland Drive, a boulevard of broken dreams that mainlines into the center of a sleepless Los Angeles. Rita is unknown to herself, a seemingly clueless participant in David Lynch's latest mirror-cracked vision of the world. As difficult as Mulholland Drive may appear at first glance, every trajectory in this metaverse is the equivalent of dreams spiraling into REM sleep. Roads and hallways fire action potentials spontaneously and continuously while sex organs engorge with blood and waking lives become the vital magnifying glasses through which sense is made of runaway chaos. Mulholland Drive isn't a movie about dreams, it is a dream (or, at least, until the blue box is opened)—a Hollywood horror story spun by a frustrated actress yet to cross into consciousness. Lynch's narrative is carefully configured, painstakingly difficult to decipher, but boldly obvious should one embrace its dream logic.
"What are you doing, we don't stop here," says Rita (Laura Elena Harring) as her chauffer-driven limousine winds down Mulholland Drive, a boulevard of broken dreams that mainlines into the center of a sleepless Los Angeles. Rita is unknown to herself, a seemingly clueless participant in David Lynch's latest mirror-cracked vision of the world. As difficult as Mulholland Drive may appear at first glance, every trajectory in this metaverse is the equivalent of dreams spiraling into REM sleep. Roads and hallways fire action potentials spontaneously and continuously while sex organs engorge with blood and waking lives become the vital magnifying glasses through which sense is made of runaway chaos. Mulholland Drive isn't a movie about dreams, it is a dream (or, at least, until the blue box is opened)—a Hollywood horror story spun by a frustrated actress yet to cross into consciousness. Lynch's narrative is carefully configured, painstakingly difficult to decipher, but boldly obvious should one embrace its dream logic.
