Film of the Week #53 - Mulholland Drive

Karl Hungus

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/

First David Lynch film to make FotW, and it's quite the masterpiece. This was probably the film to put Naomi Watts on my rader as an excellent actress, and she's absolutely fantastic here.

Discuss!

galactus

Didn't blow me away this one to be honest but a good show I suppose.

I thought it a bit of a rip-off, I mean heavily inspired, of the more excellent Jacob's Ladder tbh.

The Elephant Man and of course the under-rated and much slagged-off Dune are far more Lynchian to me.

strangesdays

My favorite film by the crazy man with the amazing hair. Freaks me out a little bit more each time I see it

And i haven't even mentioned the lesbian scenes. Which are also nice:rolleyes:

Karl Hungus

galactus wrote: »

I thought it a bit of a rip-off, I mean heavily inspired, of the more excellent Jacob's Ladder tbh.

What? How so!?

johnny_ultimate

What can you say? Probably David Lynch's most assured and accessiable film (well, aside from the 'normal' ones like The Elephant Man). Full of his trademark surreal imagery, this one scores points because on a second viewing I actually somewhat made sense of this one (well, not all of it: who the hell was that dude behind the diner, and I still don't get Lynch's 13 clues to understanding the thing).

But I always imagined the majority of the film was

the post-suicide dream of Watt's character (absolutely terrific in this, by the way). It is all based on her dreams to be a Hollywood starlet: hence you have movie clichés like amnesia, violence and the wannabe actress. She is creating an ideal dream by using the Hollywood norms she has seen over the years. She even gets the girl

A truly fantastic movie from one of the few true visionaries out there.

senordingdong

I really didn't get this when I saw it and dismissed it as some artsy fartsy trip.

Should I re-watch it or does my previous assessment mean I'm doomed to never get it?

BurnsCarpenter

senordingdong wrote: »

I really didn't get this when I saw it and dismissed it as some artsy fartsy trip.

Should I re-watch it or does my previous assessment mean I'm doomed to never get it?

I'd suggest having a look at the detailed explanation on salon.com.

Loved this movie. Some of the scenes are incredibly tense while being on the verge of completely ridiculous - the cowboy, the meeting with the studio execs.

Ho-Hum

senordingdong wrote: »

I really didn't get this when I saw it and dismissed it as some artsy fartsy trip.

Should I re-watch it or does my previous assessment mean I'm doomed to never get it?

I had more or less the same opinion of it and I have been meaning to watch it again to see if it's better the second time round.

Jello

I'm ashamed to say that I've never seen a David Lynch film Would this be a good one to start with?

CrazyTalk

Suffice to say, I had no idea what was going on the first time round, but it made more sense when I thought about it afterwards, definitely very unique

galactus

Karl Hungus wrote: »

What? How so!?

In the sense that by the end of the film you have to completely re-evaluate what you have just seen. IMHO, Lost Highway has a more original and satisfying structure.

Also I don't really care about the characters in Mulholland. Whereas in Blue Velvet you end up rooting for Jefferey (and even Frank).

Karl Hungus

galactus wrote: »

In the sense that by the end of the film you have to completely re-evaluate what you have just seen. IMHO, Lost Highway has a more original and satisfying structure.

The same could be said of many films with a twist ending, are they all rip-offs of Jacobs Ladder?