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Fri 18 May 2012
Mulholland Drive PDF Print E-mail
Written by Jeffree Benet   
Friday, 26 December 2008 03:27

Tags: Ann Miller | Dan Hedaya | David Lynch | Justin Theroux | Laura Harring | Naomi Watts

Many moons ago, after director David Lynch did Twin Peaks, he had another brainstorm for a television show.

Mulholland DriveIt was called Mulholland Drive and went into production for ABC. They shot a pilot, but after the studio saw it they freaked and pulled the plug on the whole deal.

So Mulholland Drive went into hibernation until three years ago, when Lynch decided that it was time to try to push it as a feature. The result is his latest film of the same name.

A cop-out answer as to what this film is about would be to say: it's about Hollywood. Cracking open with an acid induced swing number over a purple backdrop and then fading down to credits with some sort of blue haired drag-queen whispering "Silencio, Silencio" to those of us in the audience.

Mulholland Drive has been crafted to the point where the film entertainment value goes far beyond any sort of basic, rudimentary level. This film is intriguing on all levels, which simply means that the viewer is pushed further and further into this moving dreamscape.

The film makes the audience work, both mentally and emotionally. Once you do go and see this, there is a good chance that you will leave the theater after the curtains have drawn and feel completely exasperated; coupled with the sense that their is some vague catharsis that you missed somewhere along the line. But by no means is that a reason not to go. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, whom play the two leads, were virtually unknown too much of the world.

Watts starred in a few features in Australia and Harring found herself in roles ranging from Roger Corman films to the trash television show, Silk Stockings. Despite this fringe past, they both have given solid performances. Other members of the cast include the always super-cool Robert Forster and the absolutely badass performance by Michael Anderson as Mr. Roque.

As in his previous film, Lost Highway, the entire piece moves like a dream and deep in this dream is a mystery, yet Mulholland Drive is not so much a mystery to be solved, but more of a movement to be experienced. It says a lot for the world when a person like Lynch is allowed to do what he does.

Coherently speaking, his work may not makemuch sense and nor be fully comprehended by the Spielberg generation, but somehowz one feels compelled to saythat his films help push the art form as a whole one-step further in it's evolution; and in addition help cast new lights and shadows among the celluloid exaggeration that echoes real life on the screen.

Thinky says: It takes both a weapon, and two people, to commit a murder.


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Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 January 2009 08:29
 

Our valuable member Jeffree Benet has been with us since Wednesday, 17 December 2008.

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