FOR ME, INNOVATIVE FILMMAKING elicits powerful feelings from the viewer. People either love the experience or loathe it and there is almost no middle ground. When you receive that kind of feedback, you know you’ve struck a deep nerve somewhere. The film we’re looking at this month is a classic example of stimulating that kind of polarized response and it is not surprising that it would be the work of David Lynch, one of the truly original American directors of the last couple of decades.

From his shocking version of "Elephant Man" to the bravura creepiness of "Twin Peaks", Lynch has forged a totally unique filmic identity. Lynch’s movies are always triumphs of style, mood, and attitude. Much as life itself, the plot is never as important as the experience. (As a classic line in an REM song says: "life is a journey, not a destination.") So, when Lynch focuses his prodigious talent on a film about the entire experience of life and death, the result is mesmerizing, shocking, and, for me, exhilarating.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE was released in late 2001 (in the same 3 month period that saw the release of WAKING LIFE, BEAUTIFUL MIND, and VANILLA SKY) and Lynch was nominated for an Academy Award for his direction of the film. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is a notoriously conservative organization so the fact that Lynch was singled out is a real testament to the bravura nature of his work on the film. As many people have observed that MULHOLLAND DRIVE makes VANILLA SKY seem as easy to understand as a RoadRunner cartoon, the mainstream recognition of Lynch’s achievement is even more surprising and delightful.

The "plot" of the film seems actually rather simple to explain. A woman (Laura Elena Harring) is injured in a car accident on L.A.’s Mulholland Drive and wanders off into the night. ("Mulholland", as it is known in L.A., sits at the very top of the Santa Monica Mountains that separate the San Fernando Valley from the rest of Los Angeles. It is a winding, twisting road that provides spectacular visual vistas but it is also very dangerous with several blind turns and no predictability. As such, it is an utterly perfect metaphor for the film.) The woman (who takes the name of Rita) has amnesia and stumbles into an apartment where she is discovered by Betty (Naomi Watts), an aspiring young actress who has come to L.A. to become a star. Together, they set off to discover Rita’s true identity. Or they seem to. For the rest of the film, one is reminded of the classic line from the Beatles’ "Strawberry Fields": "nothing is real". Or is it?

Along the way, the two women encounter a typically Lynchian landscape: off-beat characters and casting (such as Forties’ dance goddess Ann Miller as a Hollywood landlord), a look at the experience of idealistic, young people in the film business (both sympathetic and scathing), a Spanish-language performance of Roy Orbison’s classic "Crying" that you will never forget, some non-graphic violence, and steamy sex. Living in the modern world today entails the experience of violence (unfortunately) and sex (fortunately); however, if you are easily offended or shocked at sexuality or violence in film, this might not be your cup of Chai. (Personally, I’m glad that a film that is as powerful as this one is in its depiction of a metaphysical journey is also very sexy. The current film UNFAITHFUL is another film with a very moral center that is also explicitly sexual. If there was ever a big convention in some afterlife state where a vote was taken on separating sexuality and spirituality, I strongly believe that there were a lot more of us protesting outside than there were on the inside voting.)

I sense that many of you might now be asking yourselves why I’m writing a whole column about a movie that might not seem, on the surface, to belong in this category at all. To answer that question, I must reveal my interpretation of the entire journey of the film itself, so please note: you might want to see the film first before you read the rest of this discussion.

To his everlasting credit, Lynch himself won’t reveal his own take on the underlying context of the film but, for me, the film is a breathtaking contribution to spiritual cinema. At the end of the film, it becomes evident (to me, at least) that the entirety of the experience has happened in the mind of the character of Betty in the actual instant of her death. She confuses herself with her lover and best friend and remembers her life and the events that led to her death in a very subjective fashion, just as all reports of this experience indicate. Lynch has made a whole film (reminiscent of the underrated and beautiful JACOB’S LADDER) that is devoted to our experience in the last moments of our life wherein we relive much of it in a non-linear instant!

If you have seen the film, how does that viewpoint sit with you? As I have received several emails requesting that I write a column about the film, I expect that many of you loved the film as much as I did and are thrilled to see it singled out. Others of you just were left completely cold-or angered- by it, yes? Great art does that. I look forward to hearing your comments. Let the games begin.

Next Month: A BEAUTIFUL MIND

© 2002 Stephen Simon

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Simon has produced such films as SOMEWHERE IN TIME and WHAT DREAMS MAY COME and also has served as President of 3 different film companies. Stephen’s first book THE FORCE IS WITH YOU: MYSTICAL MOVIE MESSAGES THAT INSPIRE OUR LIVES will be published in October, 2002 by Walsch Books/Hampton Roads. For more information, Stephen invites you to visit MysticalMovies.com and welcomes your comments: Stephen@MysticalMovies.com. TheMoviemystic@aol.com.