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Why Mulholland Dr sucks balls

posted 5 years ago by Threadkiller (2947)
51 replies | jump to latest

https://callmesteiner.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/why-mulholland-dr-sucks-balls/

Nonlinear narrative style is nowhere more ambitious, nowhere more fragmented or assertive in the competitive filmography of David Lynch than in his baffling, frustrating, and plainly ludicrous postmodern opus, Mulholland Drive. Lynch’s ninth feature film is arguably most famous for defying comprehensive, critical narrative analysis. Published analytic reviews of the film tend to praise it; however, one common feature among this praise, perhaps the only consensus, is that ordinary sense simply cannot be made of Mulholland Drive. It is an unsolvable maze, comprised of a series of loose ends which never tie up no matter how many times the film is re-watched. Critical disregard of the nonsensical nature of Lynch’s work is most disappointing, irritating, and speaks loudly to the modern, vulgar pride of intellectuals.

If you want to feel like David Lynch is masturbating inside your brain, watch this movie.

It is the opinion of this blog post (and its author, obviously) that Mulholland Drive does not belong in the critically acclaimed light in which it currently resides; in fact, it belongs nowhere near it. The Matrix, a crucial postmodern film of actual intelligibility, currency, finesse, wild originality and intelligent applications of key postmodern concepts was released in 1999, the same year Lynch shot most of Mulholland Drive, and is superior to it in every conceivable regard, except perhaps for the number of nude female co-stars engaged in sexual congress, if such a thing may be regarded as a category.

In the same, wholly superior vein exists David Fincher’s Fight Club, a postmodern film (based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same title) which calls attention to vapid, meaningless consumer society and the disenfranchisement of the individual and its inherent humanity and the resurgence of the id through a personality split at the expense of the conscious self. Fincher’s film employs non-linear narrative conventions but unlike Lynch’s film, Fight Club is intelligible, surprising, effective and highly entertaining.

Stripped of its undeserved accolades, Mulholland Drive is a failed television pilot (conceptually similar to Lynch’s Twin Peaks). Good directors integrate symbolism, dreams, and various meanings into coherent, narrative structures, exemplified by Fincher’s and the Wachowskis’ films respectively. Bad directors, as Lynch was in this case, do not. This blog post shall not entertain the notion that by not making sense, this film has somehow transcended or elevated itself above the standard mode of moviemaking and is praise-worthy simply for ignoring the rules. There are plenty of dreamlike, surreal films which make sense. Mulholland Drive is not one of them.

David Lynch originally conceived Mulholland Drive as a television show. Similarities to Lynch’s previous work Twin Peaks abound, from the close familiarity of the eerie electronic musical themes to Lynch’s characteristic use of femme fatale characters and women who are either in danger or who are, themselves, the danger. When pitching to ABC for a first season run, an executive recalled, “I remember the creepiness of this woman in this horrible, horrible crash, and David teasing us with the notion that people are chasing her. She’s not just ‘in’ trouble—she is trouble. Obviously, we asked, ‘What happens next?’ Lynch responded, ‘You have to buy the pitch for me to tell you’” (Woods, 206). Although the origin of Mulholland Drive as a television pilot may provide a reason for the film’s tangled, irregular plot, it offers no help to organize or explain the narrative mess on-screen.

David Lynch’s film Mulholland Drive without question departs from traditional Hollywood forms. However, the departure enacted is not liberating, but contrarily painfully frustrating. Lynch’s film is a collection of plot set-ups and mysteries never developed, which have no business clumping themselves together and declaring themselves a film. The film’s two halves, if they may so be named, constitute the difference between the portion of Mulholland Drive which is composed of the roughly ninety minute pilot David Lynch originally shot, and the portion which David Lynch, quite entrepreneurially, made up in order to re-package his product in postmodernist, feature film wrapping.

Mulholland Drive is recognizably television pilot matter; firstly, it is cheap, as evidenced through its ill-fitting, out-of-date costumes and awkward, out-of-date effects, inexpensive sets and general lack of concrete detail. Additionally, the film contains lists of unnamed, undeveloped, inarticulate and senseless-seeming characters and fragments (loose ends), which, when included in the first episode of a television series logically create anticipation, eagerness and suspense for the viewer and logically urge the viewer to continue watching to observe their development throughout the season...

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 5 years ago

When devices meant for a television series are unnaturally compressed into a feature film, they will invariably fail their function; they will create suspense, anticipation and eagerness, which Lynch’s work accomplishes, but will lose the aha! moments of reward for finally recognizing their reason and will correspondingly nullify the payoff. When Mulholland Drive ends, so do hopes of deciphering any rewarding meaning from the experience, thus rendering the application of multiple initial mysteries valueless. This film is no great exploration into a new cinematic form, but is rather a collection of misapplied television formulas which the academic community is apparently too intellectual to grasp.

(Mulholland Drive loose ends include but are not limited to: Cowboy character, dirt monster, pandora’s box, Betty’s convulsions, death of Singer at Silencio, man in underground chamber, Italian financiers, phone line characters, original Camilla, change of characters into other characters, white-trash hitman asking presumed prostitute “Any new girls on the street? a brunette maybe, a little beat up?” obviously alluding to Rita (still Rita) but this goes nowhere, etc. The fact that Roger Ebert rated this film 4/4 makes me want to resurrect him just so that I can murder him for gross stupidity and injustice.)

Interestingly, the pilot portion of Mulholland Drive ends roughly around 1:30.00. Lynch shot a ninety minute pilot, meaning the succeeding hour of the film is new content which Lynch shot in order manifest a film from his pilot’s humble origins. More interestingly, the content which makes up the second half contains the lion’s share of desperate-seeming filmic attempts to build the fanciful, irregular and nonsensical narrative conclusion which this post is keen to address. The second half of Lynch’s film is a combination of pornographic imagery meant to distract the viewer from the narrative mess the film becomes, an incredible, ludicrous multiple character

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 5 years ago

reversal, and a hodgepodge of loose ends featured at the conclusion in a very sorry attempt to justify their presence in the first half. The narrative construction of Mulholland Drive only becomes laughable after the first ninety minutes, supporting the theory that Lynch simply added content illogically to a failed television pilot.

The introduction of an unexplained key found by Rita at minute 45 and an unexplained, literal pandora’s box abruptly, truly magically, shifts the cinematic narrative when the blue box is discovered in Betty’s purse within Club Silencio, which Betty and Rita visit after having sex. The sex scene does not enhance nor lend meaning to the narrative structure of the film in any regard but rather sensationalizes the spectacle of female nudity, as do the succeeding sex scenes and portions of nudity. Once home, Betty magically disappears and Rita fits the key inside the box and the film’s narrative is quite literally thrown up into the air and the falling pieces randomly rearranged by Lynch. The fantasy life of Betty is magically transferred onto Rita. Rita’s amnesia, that is her forgotten life, the film attempts to claim is equal to Betty’s fantasy and as Betty explores Rita’s amnesia and falls in love with her (as she has fallen in love with the idea of Hollywood stardom), she (and the audience) begins to realize that her fantasy life is, somehow, the real life of Rita, which her amnesia was disguising. This transformation of character is so abrupt, so realistically unexplainable and so dependent upon suspension of disbelief that it must be regarded as a fault in the film’s construction, not a hidden gem explainable only through its inherent inexplicability.

After the pandora’s box is opened, Betty magically transforms into Diane, the waitress from Winkies. Rita magically transforms into Camilla, who is shown earlier auditioning for the film within the film.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 5 years ago

Betty’s (Diane’s) landlord turns into the director’s mother, which is nonsensical, as she would have mentioned that she had a Hollywood director son to Betty as she knew Betty was looking for acting work. Also, Betty (Diane’s) aunt conveniently dies, which conveniently explains the money Betty (Diane) uses to order the assassination of Rita (Camilla), after Rita (Camilla) is proposed to by the director, who is still the director. Then, Rita (Camilla) intimately kisses… Camilla, who is also present, for no justifiable reason, as Rita (Camilla) had won the film role introduced earlier. The second half of Lynch’s film is pure narrative comedy, only were the critics to realize. Though, despite extreme narrative inconsistency, Mulholland Drive does offer something of a Hollywood commentary worth considering.

Where Mulholland Drive is successful is its critical depiction of the oftentimes harmful desire, or craving, for fame and success achieved through the powerful machinery of Hollywood. Tools which bred machines have made possible the interaction between millions of people separated by hundreds, thousands of miles. Hollywood is a vehicle through which massive interaction and recognition is facilitated. Therefore, it is logical that humans who greatly value interaction and recognition, which all humans, to varying extents instinctually do, seek it out from an industry which is built upon the very impulse.

The danger in seeking such recognition from the amoral industry of Hollywood is accurately portrayed through the character Betty (prior to magically transforming into Diane). Lynch’s film describes Hollywood’s menace, the specter of fame which so often disguises the reality of poverty, crime, and abuse which constitutes the lives of many unsuccessful dreamers, a rank which Betty (Diane), inexplicably, joins. Betty’s initial girlish innocence is effective in rendering her later magical character transformation more potent, more painful to observe.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 5 years ago

Furthermore, Betty’s convulsions within Club Silencio serve no purpose, other than perhaps to allude to the magical nature of the club, which, in the opinion of this very serious blog post, is narrative cheating. The inclusion of an unexplainable event which may be applied to explain other unexplainable events is not professional, Hollywood-grade work by a long shot. Additionally, an unnamed character at Winkies in the beginning of the film faints at the sight of an unexplained dirt-monster. Perhaps these characters are convulsing in response to the ridiculous narrative their work is intended to support…

The final word of the film, Silencio, is most likely a personal message, from Lynch, to viewers who were able cut through the nonsense, something like please do not speak of this film if you realize what I did. The final shots of Hollywood through the window edited against shots of Betty’s beaming face seems to be a message of Lynch’s as well, saying Hollywood is to blame for not picking up the pilot, and now this is what you get!

But when the noxiously convoluted, inarticulate nature of the postmodern condition is applied as the measuring stick, Lynch’s work truly measures up. The postmodern condition is perhaps the only intellectual avenue through which a disorganized film such as Lynch’s can find an audience willing to entertain and even praise it. However, this film aught not to call itself postmodernist, nor should postmodernists call this film a postmodern work. Both the postmodern theory and the postmodern thinker suffer immensely to include this film among its ranks. Only if critical postmodernism is the misapplication of devices can Mulholland Drive be considered an expression of critical postmodernism. This post does not entertain the notion that critical postmodernism is the misapplication of devices; therefore, Mulholland Drive is absolutely not a form of critical postmodernism in any stretch of the, granted, highly stretchable, term,

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 5 years ago

When addressing Rita, who borrowed her name from a poster of Rita Hayworth, Betty explains, “Well I couldn’t afford a place like this in a million years. Unless of course I’m discovered, and become a movie star. Of course I’d rather be known as a great actress than a movie star, but, you know, sometimes people end up being both. So that is, I guess you could say, sort of why I came here…and now I’m in this dream place!” (min 26). Within this scene Betty announces her whimsical naivety though her dreams of stardom by failing to offer any evidence that she knows or is aware of the potential sacrifices, consequences and risks of pursuing stardom. It is the destruction of this exact type of innocence for which Hollywood is disparaged. Lynch’s work is an interesting portrayal of such a loss of innocence, and a fair warning to would-be starlets that there is indeed a cancerous underbelly to the glitz and glamor, a dark reverse to the shining marquis; the price of fame can be as harmful as its rewards are desirous.
Rita’s amnesia, however, is a poorly explained, incoherent mechanism which is appropriated by the film to illuminate Betty’s fantasy life and to separate it from her actual experience in Hollywood. Betty discovers Rita hiding in the apartment in which she was staying, and pledges to help her discover the source of her amnesia and her real identity, which the audience plausibly suspects is the central plot of the film. Though, once the pilot content runs out and Lynch begins filming and writing blindly to turn failed television content into a film, things head south. The audience is endlessly confused, the plot is endlessly confused, characters’ sexual orientation is continually reoriented, and no meaning can be derived of anything. but has merely cunningly masqueraded as such.

This film is nothing but masturbation.

Thank you.

[–] snepts (11123) 4 years ago

TLDR

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

Furthermore, Betty’s convulsions within Club Silencio serve no purpose

You may have just put your finger on why Naomi Watts didn't earn an Oscar for best actress. At first, it looked to me like she was experiencing unexpected turbulence on her flight back to Deep River. On my second viewing, I realized that she was supposed to be having an orgasm. You simply have to think like Freud. Have a quick look at the girls going in to Club Silencio.

https://ulozto.net/file/T7JVGsc99Rhc/mulholland-dr-entrance-to-club-silencio-mp4

The narrow entrance to Club Silencio. A vagina. The doors on either side of the opening. Labia. The taxi cab approaching the entrance. A penis. After the girls enter the club, they pass through another narrow opening. The cervix. Finally, they enter the uterus. Club Silencio is a metaphor for the uterus, as is the blue box. And, the odd shaped key that fits in the hole. A penis. Have a quick look at the 'orgasm'. If you look carefully, it looks like the magician also has one. For a brief moment you'll see him thrust slightly forward, and you'll hear a muffled 'hmph', just before Betty stops shaking.

https://ulozto.net/file/letQ5loFMG0L/mulholland-dr-in-club-silencio-mp4

So much for the easy part. I can see what David Lynch is trying to SHOW me, but I still don't understand what he's trying to TELL me. The obvious interpretation is Freud's primal scene, or possibly the Oedipus complex. However, both these scenarios usually involve only three people, Mommy, Daddy and the kid. If Rita is the kid, who is the lady with a punk hairdo that's watching mommy and daddy go through the motions?

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

Mulholland Drive loose ends include but are not limited to: Cowboy character, dirt monster, pandora’s box, Betty’s convulsions, death of Singer at Silencio, man in underground chamber, Italian financiers, phone line characters, original Camilla, change of characters into other characters, white-trash hitman asking presumed prostitute “Any new girls on the street? a brunette maybe, a little beat up?” obviously alluding to Rita (still Rita) but this goes nowhere, etc.

I'm still in the process of analyzing the film, so I don't have an answer to every one of your loose ends. I'll stick to the one that I'm pretty sure about.

[u]Dirt Monster[/u] - I assume you're talking about the 'black guy' behind Winkies. Let's go back to the scene where Dan is telling his friend, Herb, about a dream he has been having.

Dan - "There's a man...in back of this place. He's the one who's doing it. I can see him through the wall. I can see his face. I hope that I never see that face ever outside of the dream. That's it."

Herb - "So, you came to see if he's out there."

Dan - "To get rid of this God awful feeling."

Herb - "Right then."

Herb pays for breakfast, the two men leave, and, out back, they encounter the 'dirt monster'.

https://images2.imgbox.com/df/d6/r4NGU9Zg_o.jpg

So, who or what the Hell is he? Well, Dan told you. "He's the one who's doing it." Doing what? Dreaming. If you agree that this entire film is one crazy dream, then someone has to be dreaming. More accurately stated, the man in the back of Winkies is the dreamer's shadow. Who or what is the dreamer's shadow? Ask Carl Jung.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

[deleted]

[–] AP (5256) 4 years ago

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I have to question the writer’s taste and pop culture knowledge when claiming The Matrix was original or intelligent.

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

I have to question the writer’s taste and pop culture knowledge when claiming The Matrix was original or intelligent.

I agree. The Matrix has its merits. The idea that sometime in the future computers may evolve to become an intelligent life form is intriguing, probably even correct, but not novel. The film also suggests that one day machines may take control of our world. Interesting, but not novel. There's also the idea that machines and humans may enter a symbiotic relationship, where we may become co-dependent on one another. Interesting, but not novel. What I didn't like was the idea of turning the film into some sort of video game, where the human player has to fight against dozens of computerized opponents. I see no obvious connection between a simulated conflict and the three themes I just mentioned.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 4 years ago

If one reads Grant Morrison's The Invisibles graphic novel and then watches the anime Ghost in the Shell, you won't think much of the Wachowski surgically-altered-brothers' ability to do anything creative.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

I don't know about the story being a direct rip of The Invisibles (it sounds like the Wachowskis also took a bit from The Terminator and other sources). However, yes, the visuals were ripped off from The Invisibles.

The one thing I will give them credit for is how they used the matrix concept as an accessible metaphor for the illusory nature of reality ("maya", "Plato's cave", etc.). That's one thing that can't be taken away from them.

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

The one thing I will give them credit for is how they used the matrix concept as an accessible metaphor for the illusory nature of reality ("maya", "Plato's cave", etc.). That's one thing that can't be taken away from them.

Now, that's an interesting idea that hasn't already been beaten to death!

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 4 years ago

I'll give 'em that. Can't say that I didn't love The Matrix regardless. It's just a mind blower to watch Ghost in the Shell and Matrix back to back.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 3 years ago

I don't disagree with that. The general concept may not have been entirely original but they certainly left their own unique mark with it.

[–] Kowalski (57178) 4 years ago

WHO SPENDS THIS MUCH TIME ON SOMETHING THEY THINK SUCKS BALLS?

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

I imagine if it weren't for the perplexing high praise the film received then he wouldn't have bothered. But let's be honest, in general people love talking about movies they passionately dislike just as much as the ones they love. Just look at any of the Star Wars boards

[–] Kowalski (57178) 4 years ago

YEAH.THATS ACTUALLY ONE OF THE THINGS THAT DRAGS THESE KIND OF PLACES DOWN.MOST PEOPLE CANT MAINTAIN ANY LEVEL OF RESPECT FOR ALTERNATIVE OPINIONS.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

I won't rag on anyone to who enjoys this movie or anyone who likes movies I happen to think sucks. I will though criticize pretentious third rate film student wannabes (not saying that's you) who find "genius" the "symbolism" & other "hidden meanings" who call people 'idiots' for criticizing the film. My personal opinion is it's a failure of a movie if it requires you write a thesis to make sense of an incoherent narrative that relies entirely on jumbled up "symbolism" . A film can have symbolism and still provide a coherent narrative. This movie failed spectacularly on the latter.

[–] Kowalski (57178) 4 years ago

YOUVE CONVINCED ME...YOURE COOL WITH ME.

[–] Moonglum9 (10697) 4 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLLNdeBM4IY

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

The person who wrote that is an idiot who's trashing the movie because he/she didn't understand it or bother to understand what it was all about.

The movie is a mind bender in the vein of Fight Club. Once you figure out that it's about the blonde chick (Diane) having a wish fulfillment dream after she killed a woman she was obsessed with (Camilla Rhodes), the movie makes complete sense: https://filmsdeconstructed.wordpress.com/2017/11/08/yes-theres-actually-a-legit-explanation-for-mulholland-drive/

[–] Towelie_Towel (1699) 4 months ago

Didn't understand it?

What's there to understand?

There are random scenes, purposely added to not make sense and to not have a continuation.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

I believe the women in this movie liked each other. I doubt they sucked many balls.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

Sadly I suspect that's secretly the reason behind a lot of people who enjoy the movie. For the gratuitous softcore porn moments.

[–] Titaanzink (44) 4 years ago

I found this review to be more pretentious and convoluted than the actual movie, which is one of Lynch's more straightforward ones in my opinion. The comparisons with the Matrix are almost enough to make me think this was a troll review. I mean; "a crucial postmodern film of actual intelligibility, currency, finesse, wild originality and intelligent applications of key postmodern concepts"? I love the Matrix, but seriously?

Mulholland Dr. is a brilliant movie though I can totally see that it isn't for everyone. And that's fine.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

That's the ironic part about that review. It accuses MD of being the very thing it's most guilty of being. Maybe the author's own muddled thinking is why he/she found the movie convoluted and nonsensical. MD is not a movie everyone grasps on first viewing but it's one of those films that once you've viewed it at least twice, you realize how straightforward it is.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

I found this review to be more pretentious and convoluted than the actual movie, which is one of Lynch's more straightforward ones in my opinion. The comparisons with the Matrix are almost enough to make me think this was a troll review. I mean; "a crucial postmodern film of actual intelligibility, currency, finesse, wild originality and intelligent applications of key postmodern concepts"? I love the Matrix, but seriously?

Mulholland Dr. is a brilliant movie though I can totally see that it isn't for everyone. And that's fine.

I've seen several other Lynch projects which I for the most part enjoyed & had no issue following the narratives. Mulholland Dr on the other hand was such a jumbled incoherent mess that I swear part of me suspects Lynch was simply trolling the audience to see how many wannabe pretentious film connoisseurs he could trick into over-analyzing & theorizing the "brilliant" symbolism hidden within what he secretly knew himself to be incoherent jumble of ideas he threw together. The fact that it was conceived as an ill fated television series & was re-tooled into a film makes me suspect this even more.

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

It is an unsolvable maze, comprised of a series of loose ends which never tie up no matter how many times the film is re-watched.

Lynch says the film can be understood intuitively, but I don't agree with him. This is my second attempt, and I still don't have a clear understanding of what I'm seeing. I bet the meaning of the film will continue to be debated for another hundred years.

I think the film would be a lot easier to understand, if I knew more about the theories of Freud and Lacan. You have to imagine that YOU are Sigmund Freud. You have a patient in your office sleeping on the couch. There are wires attached to his/her head that feed into a machine. Thanks to state of the art of technology, you are now permitted to SEE a person's dream displayed on a monitor. Your task is to make some sense of all the confusion. Perhaps the meaning of the dream will always remain just as mysterious as the subconscious. But I STRONGLY suggest that you use a psychoanalytical approach. This Youtube vid will get you started, but you've got a long way to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Qcmhsvcms

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Once you've seen the movie a second time, it becomes obvious what happened in the movie. The blonde woman murdered the brunette in real life, then had a dream where she wishes she had never killed her. The dream incorporates everything that happened in the weeks leading up to the murder, and she imagines a revenge fantasy on the director who she blames for stealing the brunette away from her.

Honestly, it makes me frustrated when I keep reading comments like yours insisting that the movie is hard to understand, especially when there are so many essays and analyses that discuss it. It's almost as if you're willfully deciding that it's hard to decipher. It's not: https://filmsdeconstructed.wordpress.com/2017/11/08/yes-theres-actually-a-legit-explanation-for-mulholland-drive/

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

Honestly, it makes me frustrated when I keep reading comments like yours insisting that the movie is hard to understand, especially when there are so many essays and analyses that discuss it.

Rhetoric? I've seen plenty of reviews on the film, and I don't find any of them convincing. However, I think this Lacanian (Jacques Lacan) perspective is the most accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zePEG7qKX-Y

As for the page you showed me. Regardless of the title, the author freely admits that the theory he's presenting is a CONSENSUS, not a definitive fact. He also admits that the said theory leaves many unexplained loose ends. The one that 'sticks out like a sore thumb' is the appearance of the Bogeyman and the lady with the punk hairdo AFTER Diane commits suicide. If, Diane was dreaming all along, after she died, the screen should have turned black.

You might imagine that the two bizarre characters in her dream are really supernatural beings that somehow possessed her mind and drove her to insanity. Or, perhaps you're in to Zen Buddhism and believe in instant Karma and reincarnation. I prefer a simpler explanation. Quite simply, Diane is NOT the person who is dreaming, and the dream did not actually end.

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

The dream begins when someone seems to be going to bed.

https://ist6-2.filesor.com/pimpandhost.com/1/_/_/_/1/9/1/b/q/91bqz/3.-Bed_l.jpg

Notice, that we do not see who is sleeping. What we see is what the dreamer sees. A cinematographer like David Lynch might call this perspective, a point of view (POV) shot. I'll give one more obvious example.

https://ulozto.net/file/T7JVGsc99Rhc/mulholland-dr-entrance-to-club-silencio-mp4

Do you get the creepy feeling that the girls are being watched? Lacan called this the gaze. Does it seem like someone is rushing to get in the door at the same time the girls go in? That anonymous PRESENCE is the dreamer. Again, you don't actually see who is dreaming, you just see what the dreamer sees. Presumably, the dreamer identifies in some way with the people he/she is looking at. The dreamer could be an elderly woman (remember that 1950's stuff?), and Betty/Rita could reflect her younger days. The girls could be friends or relatives, or they could simply be two imaginary women altogether.

So, what's my point? If the dream begins with a POV shot, it should end that way. In a POV shot, we would not see Diane shoot herself. Instead, we would see a gun pointing at us, followed by a bright flash and caboom! What we actually saw is someone dreaming about a woman who killed herself. We did NOT see the dreamer commit suicide.

[–] Erniesam (32) 4 years ago

Yes, we do not see the person who goes to lay on the bed in that POV shot, but there are plenty of references within the movie to suggest that this is indeed Diane. We see Diane waking up and we see Diane dying on the bed. When Diane shoots herself at the end clearly she´s not dreaming; hallucinating yes, but not dreaming. Well, if you really wanted to you can suggest that ALL of MD is a dream, but that will take the gutwrenching emotional punch out of it.

I don´t believe that something that begins with a pov shot should end with one, certainly not when we see the protagonist waking up later in the movie.

[–] Zeekmoont (86) 4 years ago

More on Jacques Lacan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA4qIuqiS0Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qypBFozF24g

If you're French, you're in luck. The video series by Sapiens sur un caillou (Homosapiens on a pebble???) can be very enlightening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb-_PUBKt-4

[–] ducksoup (3933) 4 years ago

Wow, what a load of malarky. Fight Club better than Mulholland Drive? That's nuts! Fight Club is good, don't get me wrong, but I think this blogger must have been injecting the wrong things into the wrong part of their own body. Or something.

[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

> Comparing Mulholland Drive to The Matrix

K, I'm going to stop ya right there.