"Mulholland Drive" is a Chinese Puzzle of a movie with enough disconnected pieces to

make you wonder why they are even there. Some of the answers are probably on the cutting room floor, or locked away in writer director David Lynch’s head, since most of what is on the screen was intended for a TV pilot that never materialized. Yet, even though some of the movie may appear disjointed or misleading, the haunting images and compelling scenes that remain will pull you into its netherworld of smoke and mirrors.

Imagine, if you will, a three sided coin with each side representing a different reality. There’s the cheery fantasy of the wide eyed blond ingenue Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) who comes to Hollywood in search of stardom; the nightmare world of a mysterious amnesiac whom Betty unexpectedly finds in her new apartment; and the harsh life of drug addict Diane Selwyn that dominates the last quarter of the movie. Her story gives "Mulholland Drive" a logic that ties the surrealistic wanderings of Betty and Rita (Laura Elena Harring) together in a way that defies description.

"Mulholland Drive" is put together with a pastiche of cinematic styles that run the gamut of the shadow world of the noir films of the forties to the bright lightweight sex comedies of the late fifties and early sixties. Lynch stretches, bends and twists each genre into a series of metamorphoses that dangles the Hollywood Dream in front of Betty leading her down a trail of self deceit that will take her and Rita to a decaying body that could be symbolic of the extinction of her hopes and aspirations.

A lively jitterbug sequence opens "Mulholland Drive" with swatches of vibrant color that splinter the dancers into cardboard figures. They disappear in a haze of soft focus orbs of light that congeal and turn into the head beams of an oncoming car in the dead of night. The car careens down the notorious Mulholland Drive, famous for its twists and turns and poor nighttime visibility. A sensuous brunette, who will call herself Rita after seeing Rita Hayworth’s name on a movie poster of "Gilda," escapes from the car with a bag full of money when her intended killers are blindsided by another car full of party goers. The next morning perky Betty arrives at LAX ready for a future as bright as the California sun that illuminates her new surroundings. She is greeted by a gregarious landlady (Ann Miller) who gives Betty the key to her out-of-town aunt’s apartment where she finds the disoriented Rita soon after the car wreck. Betty offers to help Rita find out where she came from. Their quest is riddled with a series of mysteries that eventually lead to a nexus of opposing dream states that culminate in an erotic lesbian relationship. It is our first inkling that Betty and Rita may be one and the same person. Rita is everything Betty - or her alter ego Diane - could ever hope to be as seen through the looking glass of David Lynch’s imagining. She is equally beautiful, has money and is a woman of mystery. Rita is transformed into a blond to look like Betty in a scene reminiscent of Scottie Ferguson’s obsessive attempt to turn Judy Barton back into the doomed Madeleine in Alfred Hitchcock’s "Vertigo." Soon enough the two women virtually disappear into a black hole and emerge as Diane Selwyn and Camilla Rhodes (also played by Naomi Watts and Laura Elean Harring), two friends whose relationship disintegrates with Camilla’s ascent to stardom. The transition between these alternate realities hinges on a disturbing scene where Diane tries to pleasure herself in a drug induced state while fixing her gaze on a distant wall whose design lends itself to an extended vision of the soft focus orbs of light that helped launch the movie. The idea that everything up to this point is David Lynch’s idea of a masturbatory fantasy is irresistible and tangible given the evidence that supports this hypothesis.

Another motif that runs through the movie is the story of a young director named Adam (Justin Theroux) who is bullied by two Mafia types (who to my mind are caricatures of Miramax’s Bob and Harvey Weinstein) into signing an unknown actress for the lead in his new film. This sequence is played out in the same somnambulistic style that characterizes some earlier scenes. Later Ann Miller reappears, not as Betty’s landlady, but as the director’s mother at her son’s engagement party to his leading lady, Camilla Rhodes, the one who was forced on him. One can only surmise that this is the real story and Betty and Rita are figments that help Diane cope with the unbearable reality of her own life. Jealousy replaces friendship and Diane’s attempt to put a hit on the woman who was her best friend brings the movie full circle to the attempted murder at the beginning of the movie.

Some of the other movie’s highlights reflect Lynch’s ideas on the nature of cinema. Betty’s audition with a leading man played by Chad Everett reveals the smoldering sexuality hidden beneath her Golden Girl veneer. Later, she and Rita visit a late night haunt to see a piece of performance art. A woman sings a Spanish version of Roy Orbison’s Crying acappela. She collapses on stage while the song continues. It appears she was lip synching all along, an illusory byproduct that is typical of David Lynch’s cinematic vision. Nothing is ever quite as it appears to be.

If movies are, and "Mulholland Drive" in particular, by the very definition of cinema, merely illusions created by a specific combination of sights and sounds to produce a desired response, then David Lynch is perhaps one our most audacious illusionists.

Copyright 2001

If you want to see what David Lynch can do with a traditional narrative, this overlooked masterpiece is the one to see.

"A Straight Story" (1999) - The sounds of nature and man’s inventions are as much a character as septuagenarian Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) and his John Deere lawnmower in this story of a man totally aware of his environment, his place in the world, and the meaning of family. Alvin must visit his estranged ailing brother. There’s more here than meets the eye and ear with an amazing soundtrack of subtle sounds that captures the miracle of life. This G rated movie has a totally adult sensibility. This should have topped my ten best list for 1999 because the experience of this movie has stayed with me since it was first released. There are not enough superlatives to describe this movie.

"Lost Highway" (1997) - In retrospect, this looks more like an experiment to work out the ideas about alternate realities and dream states that reached fruition in "Mulholland Drive." It’s individual parts are often better seen as set pieces rather than taken together as a whole movie. Bill Pullman is a jazz musician who is a suspect in his wife’s murder. The alternate reality tells a different tale. Patricia Arquette, Robert Blake and Robert Loggia stand out in a cast that includes Gary Busey, Giovanni Ribisi and Henry Rollins.

Naomi Watts played Jet Girl in "Tank Girl" (1995) with Lori Petty in the title role but she got her start in some bit parts for Australian director John Duigan. Look for her in these two productions.

"Flirting" (1990) - More a vehicle for Nicole Kidman, with Noah Taylor ("Shine") as a student who falls in love with a Black Girl (Thandie Newton) at a prestigious girl’s prep school.

"Wide Sargasso Sea" (1993) - Based on a novel intended as a prequel to Jane Eyre. This is more interesting for its premise and Jamaican locations than for its execution as a movie, but Naomi’s in it.