Mulholland Drive (2001) - The Nightmare Factory

Mulholland Drive (2001) is a film showing a rather critical portrayal of Hollywood as an institution - an environment director David Lynch himself occupied - that cruelly doles out arbitrary sanctions. This cynical view of Hollywood reminds me of a scene from my favorite show, Bojack Horseman:

Mulholland Drive sees Lynch dive deep into the black tar of Hollywood, all the while penetrating the even darker depths of our unconscious and dreams.

He cleverly satirizes the system through his recognizable film style, presenting a dark, unsettling portrait into dreams (of the aspirational as well as unconscious nature) and memories, of Betty/Diane. As a springboard, themes of the Hollywood circuit being rigged by executives, best represented by the caricaturish Roque and his cronies, are established early on. It is through the lens of Diane in the latter section where we arguably most clearly see a world constructed on pitting everyone against her. Yet it seems that more audiences are keen to take it to be the ‘waking reality’ of the film despite both chapters being apparently filtered through Betty/Diane’s subjective lenses. Lynch expands on these notions by focusing on the veneer of Hollywood, not only flipping its conventions but also unearthing Hollywood as a spectacle. In particular, the scene where Betty is introduced is at once hilarious for how over the top cliched it is but spine chilling in the unconventional, unsettling way it is presented. It pokes fun at the small-town girl going into the big city to make it trope that serves as the unfortunate reality for so many who wind up in Hollywood...only for the bulk of them to never catch that "big break".

The tragic nature of this desire to chase after something that is not even real is linked to the dismantling of the film’s diegetic realities later on. Parallel and repeated narratives of Mulholland Drive take what is presented and made known to the audience and distorts it or even breaks it apart. Chronology is forward driven for the majority of the first chapter, with the Winkie’s plotline interspersed. It is the sudden leaps and rearranging in the second chapter after Betty/Dianne wakes up, that we have to scrap everything we know and reframe our entire understanding based on later reveals. This manipulation of audience expectations could perhaps serve as a glimpse into the artifice of film itself as an artistic medium. A double entendre bringing to light the two-faced mask of Hollywood? The mindbending upending of an easily digestible narrative was the source of a lot of indescribably unnerving moments for me, as well as emotionally impressionable moments; specifically the piercing Spanish rendition of Roy Orbinson's ‘Crying’ at Club Silencio as it reminds me of the emotive power of Rosalia’s modernized flamenco.

No musical scene in a film had ever stunned me or absorbed me into the film so much as that one had. Her painted teardrop glimmering against her red and yellow-stained eyes. The echoes of her pained but still so tender voice enveloping me. It was clear to me. The greatest tragedy of that film wasn't revealed when Diane woke up, but through this scene. It serves as the bridge between sleep and "reality", preceding the moment where we open our eyes to the truth we don't want to face. It makes all that was felt, seen, and heard in this musical number all much more painful to experience. All those basal emotions shared between Rita, Diane, whoever's watching, was real - but also nothing more than just figments fed to Diane by her brain in her crackpipe slumber. It was explicitly said that the performance was nothing but a lip-syncing routine to pre-recorded tapes. And knowing that, the singer collapses, the little blue box opens, and we wake up. Yet I was so lost in the illusion that I had to take a moment to lie down from the whiplash.