Mulholland Drive
David Lynch, USA, France, 2001o
In memoriam David Lynch (1946-2025), this is the film that many consider to be his strongest: a young actress and a beauty with memory loss get caught up in a whirlwind of eerie events in LA and grow closer and closer together in the process. Told in dream logic, but actually constructed in a strictly logical way – plus brilliantly staged.
David Lynch is the director of the uncanny. Since his first film Eraserhead (1977), his characters have been constantly threatened by violence and death. For Lynch, however, the most unholy phenomenon of all - and the greatest fascination - is the human psyche. Lynch's films therefore have the logic of dreams; more than any physical violence, madness looms in them. Mulholland Drive belongs in the ranks of Lynch's masterpieces, along with Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Lost Highway. With a suggestiveness second to none, the filmmaker here tells the story of a hopeful young actress who meets a mysterious beauty with memory loss in the Hollywood hills. The more intrepidly the two women seek to solve the mystery behind this story, and the closer they become in the process, the more the ground of reality eludes them. Lynch and his crew stage this border crossing with some narrative cabinet pieces and a stupendous sense of atmosphere. Like all the greats of the seventh art, Lynch needs seemingly little on the outside to override everyday perceptions: ambiguous dialogue, an outstanding lead actress (Naomi Watts), ironclad consistency in the choice of sets and colors, Angelo Badalamenti's insane score, finally the fantastic images of Twin Peaks cinematographer Peter Deming ... In other words, it takes a lot for something like this.
Andreas Furler