Title: Mulholland Drive
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller ,Dan Hedaya
Director: David Lynch
Duration: 147 minutes
Certificate: 15
Released on Blu-ray: 13th September 2010
Originally released in 2001 Mulholland Drive is a dark, tense, psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch. It stars Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring as sort of star-crossed lovers.
Aspiring actress Betty Elms (Watts) arrives in Los Angeles, California to make it big, but the moment she sets foot in her new apartment that belongs to her aunt before she meets Rita (Harring) who is hiding there. It is revealed that Rita has lost her memory. We know that she has been involved in a car accident but Betty does not. Rita opens her purse to find a very large amount of money and even more bizarrely an unusual blue key. Where has the money come from? What is the key for? You think this is weird? Keep watching…
Mulholland Drive is a very odd film (well this is David Lynch after all) which features several seemingly unrelated vignettes that, of course, in true Pulp Fiction fashion eventually connect in various ways allowing the audience to have some sort of closure and understanding of the hereto apparently unrelated stories. As to whether every audience member will get this far is another matter. Of course with Lynch you have to persevere – his set-ups are notoriously convoluted, extremely detailed and slow. The pay-offs? Well some would say that they often leave the audience wanting more. Others would describe them as post-modern. They are of course anything besides conventional.
Mulholland Drive is full of surreal scenes and weird imagery all of which tie into the fiercely cryptic and non-linear narrative. What happens in the end will shock, confuse and probably irritate audiences in equal measure.
Mulholland Drive earned writer/director Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène (Best Director Award) at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Director. Here on Blu-ray is looks good. It’s not perfect, but it’s an improvement upon DVD transfers.
