Mulholland Drive: Cult Masterpiece or Unbearable Nonsense?

Mulholland Drive: From 'tedious bore' to a ten-part interpretation guide

Released in 2001, Mulholland Drive continues to split audiences into two halves that barely interact. For some, it is an unbearable bore sustained only by sheer willpower. For others, it is, without nuance, the best film in cinema history and one of humanity's greatest works of art. Meanwhile, a third group presents an uncomfortable argument: the issue is not the film, but the dubbed version they watched.

The movie has become one of those titles requiring piece-by-piece reconstruction. So much so that there is an interpretation manual spread across ten installments, clung to by those who suspect enigmas where others see only disorder.

From an ABC-rejected pilot to a film financed by France

Mulholland Drive was not originally conceived as a antiestéticature film. Lynch first shot a pilot for ABC, which rejected it and shelved the project for a year and a half. French producers then entered: they bought the rights and contributed seven million dollars to finish it as a movie. The final 25 minutes and the love scene were shot, and footage reserved for chapters that never existed was rescued.

This borrowed TV structure, some argue, explains why the film seems to contain one story and its reverse. The dream and the waking state. What Diane wishes and what Diane did.

Why the casting agency sequence is key?

There is consensus in highlighting the casting sequence as one of the peaks: a veteran actor delivers a lesson in cinema that, it is said, ruthlessly portrays the current industry. The disagreement arises in placing it. It is not at the beginning, but towards the middle, functioning as a clue that what is seen is a dream.

From there, analysis descends into harsher readings, seeing in the film's authority figures the echo of an abuse suffered in early adolescence. All interpretations: the film confirms nothing.

The dream, the money in the bags, and clashing theories

The dominant reading holds that the first part is Diane's, the blonde, dream, piecing together her own biography. The money serves as proof. When Rita empties her bag, there are four or five stacks of bills; in Diane's, only one. From this, it is deduced that both combined acting with prostitution, with one far ahead of the other, having better clients and, according to this version, cocaine use.

The breakdown does not stop there: it reconstructs scene by scene who pays whom, where each stack comes from, and what role the hired murder plays. It is, by far, the most meticulous part of the rereading.

Naomi Watts was about to leave cinema, and Kubrick never saw it

Naomi Watts was about to abandon acting and return to Australia when she received the lead role. Another curiosity: Kubrick died without seeing it, and it is conjectured he would have enjoyed it. Mel Brooks chose Lynch for The Elephant Man after a screening of Eraserhead and a quote cited as prophecy: «I didn't understand anything, but you are a genius».

Lynch vs. Kubrick: the duel no one closes

The comparison between these two directors always ends in a draw. Kubrick appears as an analytical superdot with technical resources Lynch could not even imagine; Lynch, as a poet swimming at pleasure in the unconscious and conjuring emotions the other could not reach, to the point that he wanted Spielberg to handle Artificial Intelligence to add the sentimental part.

The most repeated conclusion: thank God both exist. And neither comes off badly.

What to watch next: Inland Empire, Twin Peaks, and Wild at Heart

For those who leave scalded, there is a route. Inland Empire is cited as the next step, with the warning that it makes Mulholland Drive look luminous. From Twin Peaks, its second season is rescued against what is described as a subsequent attempt foreign to the author. And more amiable titles are reclaimed: A Real Story, with an ending remembered in tears, or Wild at Heart, directly qualified as extremely funny.

Original version or you haven't seen it

Here the tone hardens. Watching Mulholland Drive dubbed is, for many, equivalent to not having seen it: the song is sung in Spanish in the original, and there are script lines in Spanish, in addition to voices changing the register. The title with which it was released in some Latin American countries, Dreams, Mysteries, and Secrets, is cited as an example of how to ruin a movie from minute one.

Six viewings and the feeling that there is still something to decipher. The exact point where analysis gets stuck is not the meaning —there are theories to spare—, but why a film one does not understand is able to keep one glued to the sofa until the last credit. No manual fixes that.