Just saw David Lynch’s Mulholland Falls (watched it mostly for Annie-Pie Miller, my own fault). My personal guesses:
I have gone mad and can no longer follow linear filmmaking.
The scripts for half a dozen David Lynch films accidentally got collated together by the script girl and no one noticed till it was through editing.
It was self-indulgent, impenetrable, artsy claptrap.
Can someone please explain to me what the bloody hell was going on in that film? I don’t know if spoiler boxes are in order, because frankly, I don’t think it’s possible to “spoil” the plot.
But based on what I’ve heard, its success is a combination of (3) plus a lesbian sex scene. Those who aren’t into lesbian sex scenes will say that the movie was an innovative expression of a non-linear storyline and if they didn’t appreciate it, it was just because they were too dense to follow such avant-garde filmmaking. Those who are will say that those two chicks were totally doing it. Whatever the case, David Lynch wins.
Don’t have time for an extensive post (and there are plenty of threads that cover substantial ground on the film), but suffice it to say that it is a giddy, poison pen letter to not only the physical institution of Hollywood, but to the Dream Factory it symbolizes for so many. I think it’s much more biting, substantial, horrific, and uncompromising than Wilder’s Sunset Blvd.. Absolutely brilliant and heartbreaking.
Well, I was doing OK till the sixth dream sequence/flashback/character change/complete plot shift. Then I said, “fun is fun, Mr. Lynch, but a girl can’t laugh all the time.”
Synopsis -
1: Linear, plot driven filmmaking is for girly men.
2: It’s like sex with a crazy person. Don’t try to make sense of it, just enjoy the ride.
It made perfect sense to me. It’s in my top 5 list for movies from the past 10 years. I like movies that encourage thinking. MD made me think a lot, so I like it a lot.
I submit my live journal as exhibit A of my crazypersonhood.
Please note that the latest entry is somewhat sane, but is largely the set up for “I Survive A Brush With Horrible Sticky Death”. I’m also working on an entry involving heaven, hell, Septa, and a nice chat with John Candy.
I have an apointment tuesday, but I can cancel everything else this week.
Eve, if it’s any comfort I also recently saw it and my reaction was exactly the same as yours. I loved “Twin Peaks” and I at least understood “Blue Velvet”, but “Mulholland Drive” was incomprehensible to me. It was not only incomprehensible, it was frustrating. I say it was frustrating because I was really interested in seeing how some of the plot lines turned out. It gives the impression that Lynch originally planned to go somewhere with them but then lost his way and ended up doing whatever the hell it was he ended up doing. (That’s the impression I got, but I realize that he probably intended it that way from the beginning). I understand about things like non-linear plots and twist endings but this film simply didn’t work IMHO. SolGrundy, there may be some truth in what you say about the lesbian sex scenes but the TV version of those scenes is ruined by heavy pixellation, to the point where you can barely tell that it’s a lesbian sex scene. (Well okay, you can tell what it is but you can’t enjoy it). In any case, if I want a lesbian sex scene I can look at plain old uncomplicated porn and not have to be distracted by an incomprehensible plot (or any plot at all, for that matter).
I only watched MD once and it made perfect sense to me up until that through the box thing. It’s been a while so I don’t remember why it made sense to me up to that point…
But my best friend has a reaction similar to Eve’s and I’m not sure she’s forgiven me yet for making her sit through it.
