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In the middle of the night, a limousine stops on Mulholland Drive. Inside, an elegant brunette (Laura Harring) is about to be murdered when an unexpected accident saves her. The wounded young woman falls through the forest in the direction of the lights that attract her, those of sleepy Los Angeles. The next day, a provincial blonde named Betty (Naomi Watts) arrives in Los Angeles to become a star. When she goes to the apartment that her aunt has lent her, she discovers an amnesiac brunette, following the accident. Betty decides to help her to find her identity. From there, the film slides into a Lynchian universe. Mulholland Drive is undoubtedly the film which will delight the fans of Twin Peaks (and not only because of the presence of a dwarf in an empty room). The director offers the same quasi-surgical study of a microcosm (Hollywood replaces Middle America) into which he plunges an inextricable mystery, a surrealist climate and strange characters. Lynch vs. Hollywood The choice of Los Angeles is not innocent. Besides the allegory of the title which, through this dark and sinuous road makes an obvious reference to the return of Lynch's twisted universe after the simple but successful film The Straight Story. It also allows him to make a satire of Hollywood. While this subject has already been examined many times, he does not however try to redo The Player. Rather he offers personal experience through the character of director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) who gets into trouble with the producers and studios. By showing Italian Mafia producers imposing, at any cost, their actress as the star of Adam's film, Hollywood is compared to a dull Mafia where all punches are permitted and artistic independence has very little place. This criticism is all the more convenient when one knows that Lynch had to find financing in France for this film after the project—originally conceived as a TV series—was aborted by the station. The degradation of big studio productions of the last years only confirms this. David Lynch also takes advantage of Adam to mock himself. The director is one talented but arrogant man who does as he pleases and does not hesitate to pursue a romance with his actress. Nor does Lynch spare the well-tanned aging actors—the old men of cinema. He shows that the city has lost none of its aura as a dream factory as well as its influence on the subconscious of each character. Betty, who arrives naïve and pure at the beginning of the film, will see her illusions disappear. The brunette takes Rita's name from a film poster with Rita Hayworth. Finally, the fact that Rita falls straight in the direction of the city lights rather than following the road, making this city a magnet to illusions. As for the choice of the relationship between two women, besides bringing a sensual dimension to the full-length film, he seems to demonstrate egocentricity in this environment. As in Time Code by Mike Figgis, a film that also covers the same themes, love between two actresses symbolizes the love of self, omnipresent in actors and actresses. Every lover becomes the reflection of the other one. The representation of Los Angeles onscreen has been so striking the last few years that the filmmaker cannot refrain—just as Takeshi Kitano did in Brother—quoting other films and directors. One clearly sees the influence of film noir as well as of Brian de Palma—one thinks of Body Double in terms of subject matter and the scene where Adam finds his wife with the plumber (country singer Billy Ray Cyrus!)—without obviously forgetting to mention Quentin Tarantino. Directions on Mulholland Drive Less inextricable than Lost Highway since it's more structured, Mulholland Drive is above all a remarkable film which first places its pawns with a meticulous logic in order to turn them over and upset everything by breaking the rules of conventional narrative. More than one but several interpretations are possible, knowing that certain points will remain a mystery, even in the eyes of its creator. It is first necessary to wonder if one can rely on the story and the characters. The only really clear thing here is that one cannot believe what Lynch shows us and even less what the characters see. Instead one must draw conclusions here and there and to try to find a logical chain knowing that many roads will be dead ends. The key of the film possibly hides in the theater where the comedian tells us that that everything is only an illusion. The lip-synching singer also confirms that we cannot rely on what is shown to us. It is necessary to remember that at the very beginning Rita has an accident. Rather than to having amnesia—what she believes—her memory is messed up. What one sees after the accident does not correspond to David Lynch showing us Rita's wanderings but what a spirit traumatized by shock perceives. Hence the mix of characters like Coco or the cowboy, for example. It is the little box that allows Rita's imagination to reality (the account expressed by David Lynch). Betty does not exist. She is only the projection of the Diane of the beginning, during her arrival to Los Angeles. This is confirmed by the presence of both Lilliputians who come out the box to terrify Diane. They are both retirees who arrived in the same plane as Betty. They symbolize the dreams and the innocence lost by Diane, the burst of consciousness that comes to haunt her for her crimes. Rita is Camilla, which explains that Adam is looking for a new actress. The fact that there is a new Camilla (a blond) and that sometimes Rita and Diane seem to be the same person underlines the exchangeable and disposable aspect of actresses in Hollywood. Hence Naomi Watts interprets two roles and the resemblance between Betty and Rita when they wear a blond wig. The moment when Rita puts the key into the box is a metaphor symbolizing the recovery of her memory. Betty then disappears, which then allows Lynch to get the upper hand to show us what really happened. This is only an interpretation that does not clarify everything. Nonetheless it seems more plausible than the claim of "it was all only a dream". David Lynch is too intelligent to give us such a simple solution, especially since it is such an overused convention in recent films. The actresses on the actresses While Justin Theroux is more than convincing, it's especially Naomi Watts and Laura Harring who burst onto the screen. Laura Harring has the Hollywood glamour and becomes a Rita Hayworth twin. She knows how to successfully embody an object of the desire—the femme fatale—as well as a strong woman. Naomi Watts is a real chameleon who splendidly crosses from someone unsuspecting to an exuberant actress, only to sink in to decay and despair. Mulholland Drive is a brilliant and daring film, an enigmatic puzzle and an amused satire, but especially a tribute to the women who try to follow their path in an environment where the testosterone reigns with impunity.
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