Mulholland Drive: StudioCanal Collection

David Lynch has made some films (The Elephant Man, Dune, The Straight Story) which are easy to summarise and follow. Other titles in his canon such as Eraserhead, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and Inland Empire have narratives and imagery so bizarre that to provide a preci of the film is nigh on impossible. Mulholland Dr. is one of the latter.

It begins when a woman (Laura Harring) is being driven in a limo along Mulholland Dr. when the car stops and one of the drivers turns around, points a gun at her and orders her out of the car. One of two cars being driven at high speed by hyped up teenagers slams into the limo, killing both drivers and leaving the woman with complete amnesia. She makes her way down to Los Angeles and sleeps outside a house, before sneaking inside when the owner leave, hiding under the worktops.

Having arrived from a sleepy town in Idaho, wide-eyed actress Betty (Naomi Watts) gets a taxi to her aunt's house and walks in on the mysterious brunette having a shower. Assuming she lives there, Betty apologises profusely but asks her name and, when there is no response, apologises again and goes to the living room. Seeing a poster for Gilda, the strange woman tells Betty her name is Rita and Betty accepts this as the truth. It isn't long before 'Rita' confesses that she is fair because she needed somewhere to sleep following a car accident and has no idea who she is, where she has come from or why her purse contains thousands of dollars. Betty decides to help Rita by doing a bit of amateur sleuthing whilst Rita helps Betty learn her lines for an upcoming audition and the mutual attraction between them seems to be growing stronger with every day.

Meanwhile film director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) is having problems casting his latest project due to interference by some people, led by a strange dwarf, who appear to have complete control over the picture. They want adds to cast one of their actresses for the lead in his film, something that Adam finds most distasteful to the extent that he storms out of the meeting and takes a golf club to the gangsters' limousine.

So far, so straightforward, but as with anything described as 'Lynchian', nothing is what it seems. It isn't long before Betty decides to help Rita disguise herself by putting on a blond wig and changing her wardrobe and make-up in an obvious nod to Hitchcock's Vertigo and the close relationship between the two seems to evoke Persona, Ingmar Bergman's great movie. There is also the small matter of the club Silencio, a strange blue box and the third act that turns everything on its head.


Mulholland Dr. is a film that demands your attention from first minute to last and even then you'll probably be left wondering what the hell it was all about as the credits finish rolling. If you look at the message boards for it at the IMDb you'll find numerous well written and well argued posts saying what really happens and what everyone and everything represents, with many of them offering different and contradictory opinions. This is the beauty of the film and like the most obscure of Lynch's work, not everyone will interpret it in the same way. I have my theory but I'm keeping it to myself rather than spoil it for someone or invite a load of comments telling me how wrong I am.

This was the first David Lynch film I ever saw and couldn't wait to re-watch it and see the other movies he made. I love it and would recommend it to anyone who likes their films intelligent, thought provoking and challenging - you need to concentrate, formulate an opinion and then watch it again to see whether your theory stands up. Whether you like the film or not, there is no escaping the fact that it is beautifully constructed, shot and acted, especially by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring who provide a tangible sexual tension.


Even if you do pay close attention and try and work out exactly what is going on, the third act may just leave you utterly baffled but there are visual and verbal clues early on in the film that may help you to understand what is happening, but even then they may contradict and even complicate matters! This is part of the reason why I love Mulholland Dr. and have watched it many times since my first viewing several years ago. I consider it a contemporary masterpiece with extraordinary writing and direction from Lynch and career-best acting performances from Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring. If you're not a big fan of interpretation, you can just read the whole film as a dream and just enjoy the direction, performances and incredible sound design, not having to concern yourself with what the Cowboy represents.

The Disc

Extra Features
The first feature is an introduction (9:55, HD) by French film critic Thierry Jousse which is very well delivered, interesting and very appropriate as something to you to see before the film starts. He talks about the genesis of the film and how it was supposed to be a TV series to run after Twin Peaks but the project fell through and so it was changed to a feature film with the pilot as the first two thirds and the final episode as the final act.

The main featurette is In the Blue Box (27:33, HD), a French featurette which involves many French filmmakers and writers/academics who break down the film into various different aspects and discuss them in detail. The only English-speaking contributor is Richard Kelly as Donnie Darko and Mulholland Dr. opened at about the same time and even shared the same cinema. This is an extremely interesting and 'deep' piece which will be all the more fascinating if you have studied film academically.

On the Road to Mulholland Drive (23:40, SD) seems to be an EPK piece, consisting largely of behind the scenes footage and interviews with David Lynch, Angela Badalamenti, Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring and is Justin Theroux. They talk about various aspects of the film, their characters and working with Lynch and is more interesting than it has any right to be as it's fascinating to see David Lynch at work.


There are three interviews, one with editor Marie Sweeney (6:03, SD) in which she talks about her relationship with Lynch having worked on three of his films and two with composer Angelo Badalamenti, one at the time (16:46, SD) where he discusses composing from Twin Peaks on and another 10 years after Mulholland Drive as a retrospective piece (16:30, Audio Only). The interview with Marie/Mary Sweeney is a reasonable overview but nothing too in depth or revealing whereas the two with Badalamenti are extremely interesting and tell you a great deal about his background and his collaborations with David Lynch.

Return to Mulholland Drive (23:52, SD) begins with a group of people who have just seen the film telling you whether they understood it or not and is, like the other featurette, a French production with French subtitles over the English dialogue and English subtitles over the French dialogue. It is one man's interpretation of events so don't watch it until after you've seen the film! Of course, David Lynch will never say whether this interpretation is right, so it's up to you to make your own mind whether this makes sense or not. After stating outright what he believes the film is about, he goes on to deconstruct the film and say are David Lynch's '10 clues' fit into the film and how they tell you what events really mean.


The Picture
Very well presented in 1080p, 1.85:1, this shows why David Lynch is such a master of mise-en-scène as his visual flair and control of the shot is breathtaking. There is a tremendous use of colour, lighting, costumes, make-up and every visual element adds to the texture of the story. There are many clues in the aesthetics as to what is real and what is imaginary/fantasy/a dream so you really have to pay attention to the colours, costumes and hairstyles to try and work out exactly what is happening.

David Lynch is a true visionary director and his use of mise en scène is extraordinary in its complexity and intelligence. This is a film with so many layers and emotions which are part of the visuals and the visuals are part of the emotions.


The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 delivers clear dialogue which is extremely crisply presented through the front speakers. In addition, the surrounds are used are extremely good effect especially when Angelo Badalamenti's score really begins to swell and surround you.

The initial car crash is appropriately loud, filling the room with the sounds of broken and twisted metal and objects flying around. David Lynch always seems to put a great deal of time and effort into how his films sound with extremely complicated and complex sound design and soundtracks that incorporate music, speech and other sounds which overlap and integrate in order to create something extremely special, emotionally involving and disturbing.

Final Thoughts
David Lynch is a director whose work you either 'get' or you don't, there really isn't a middle ground. You may like films such as The Elephant Man or The Straight Story but he's more abstract work leaves you cold. I prefer his abstract work to the more mainstream stuff as there are times and I like to watch a film that will leave me a little lost, constantly playing catch up and with a desperate desire to watch the film again. Mulholland Dr. is one of these and a film I will never tire of watching.

This set is extremely good with vastly improved AV quality and a decent array of extra features so it is worth serious consideration to David Lynch fans but, if you're not familiar with his work, a rental is probably the way to go.