Have you ever felt like not watching movies for a while just because you saw one that’s so damn good you knew watching anything else after it would just disappoint you? This is the spell that Mulholland Drive has cast on me.
David Lynch’s 2001 movie was chosen by a BBC poll as the best of the 21st century, yet for me, it’s more than that. For me, it’s the definition of art. Maybe that makes me too much of a New Formalist, but I do believe that what counts in a work of art is not the ‘what’ but the ‘how’. Lynch takes what could simply be a lesbian love story and explores its other dimensions – jealousy, toxicity, rivalry, and betrayal – while at the same time intertwining it with a Hollywood dream. Though this is fascinating, it’s not what sets it apart. What ‘does’ set it apart is how Lynch tells this story in the form of an unnerving, haunting, surrealistic, Freudian mystery/thriller.