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| A Masterpiece |  |
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The dream resembles a TV-movie, and reality itself is fragmented and torn. David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is more than just a curiosity piece expanded from a scrapped TV-pilot, though it uses the forms and conventions of television to explore the increasingly addled fantasies of a would-be starlet. Those who found Lost Highway an audacious stunt, transforming its protagonist into someone else at the midway point, will be flummoxed by Lynch's askew storytelling methods here. Not only do the characters morph into deeper representations of their secret selves, the entire schematic approach to the mini-series dissipates into an altered state.
To the tune of composer Angelo Badalamenti's wine-dark funereal melodies, Lynch forages his way into the nocturnal avenues and expressways of Los Angeles. On Mulholland Drive, a beautiful, raven-haired amnesiac (Laura Harring) staggers from the twisted wreckage of a black limosine and makes her way through the night-shadowed Hollywood Hills toward the beckoning city lights. The sound of her high heels is preternaturally loud as she evades impending pursuers, hiding away in the tangled bushes surrounding a residential apartment complex.
The clear light of day brings no comfort. Two men (Patrick Fischler and Michael Cooke) in a coffee shop recount a nightmare about some strange, shadowy figure that peers through walls and lurks behind the diner, a controlling force that brings death. To prove there's no such thing as phantoms, the men investigate the neighboring alleyway and make a startling discovery.
Arriving in L.A. for the first time is a bright-eyed innocent named Betty (Naomi Watts), filled with naïve dreams of becoming a movie star. Temporarily staying at her aunt's opulent home at 1612 Havenhurst (a Lynch preoccupation: showing us Where We Are), her first brush with Hollywood may shatter those illusions. Before this fledgling has a chance to spread her wings, she finds a newfound friend and roommate in the helpless amnesiac. Drawn into the mystery of "Rita's" identity, the two women attempt to uncover the truth. Along the way, a savage attraction blooms between them that could be the start of something exquisite and hazardous.
To delve further into this labyrinth would be a disservice to any audience open to forming their own subjective connections and analysis. Suffice to say, these subplots merge together, involving gangsters and studio moguls, magicians and chanteuses, detectives and assassins, red curtains and pinheaded villains, spare hotel rooms with hissing radiators. There are spontaneous bursts of violence (like when a film director, played by intense, bespectacled Jason Theroux, smashes the windows and headlights of a posh limo with his trusty golf club) and sexual forays that might be described as subterranean. Lynch's preoccupations with noir's form and graphic design prove an ideal match for the impassive, sparse cityscapes of the west coast. "Welcome To Los Angeles" is one of the first signs glimpsed in transit; it has rarely felt so foreboding.
Presuming that Mulholland Drive takes us deeper into fantasy is more than shortsighted; it's a misnomer. Inner feelings of sentiment and dread directly affect the external images, remaining truthful to Lynch's heartfelt observation of the world. Setting aside logic, it's better to consider the Lynchian mold as an emotional, musical tapestry, one that filters into collective anxieties. There's nothing obscure about the question of self, an obstacle Betty and Rita both must confront. Romance and betrayal morph them into new roles. Lingering underneath the starlet might be a calculating rube, under the seemingly timid amnesiac stirs an ever-ripening sensuality.
Sketched in muted colors and pervasive darkness by superb cinematographer Peter Deming (who also lensed Lost Highway), the standards of television rely on conventional medium-shots and close-ups to fit the small screen. Lynch makes advantageous use of those unwritten rules, though he contorts them through his unusual camera placements and penchant for lingering on obscure beats (who else would linger on a cup of espresso during a confrontation scene, thereby making the cup of espresso into a menacing artifact?) As the characters merge into something Other (or, alternately, become fully realized versions of themselves), Deming's photography becomes more ragged and hyperreal, accompanied by Mary Sweeney's serrated knife-edge editing technique of shock cuts.
Holding this bundle of nerve ends together are remarkable ensemble performances from startling newcomers and established veterans: legendary Amy Miller as a freakishly maternal hotel caretaker; Dan Hedaya as a volcanic movie financier; Lafayette Montgomery as a soft-spoken cowboy with murder in his eyes ("You'll see me one more time if you're good. You'll see me two more times if you're bad."). The real finds are Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, whose balancing act recalls Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek in Robert Altman's Three Women. They're the lifeblood of Mulholland Drive, offering richly calibrated incarnations of womanhood. Watts and Haring are poised for triumphant careers, two more reasons why Lynch and his collaborators have created a masterpiece. As they say in show business, this is where the magic happens.
Jeremiah Kipp
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