Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2879 in DVD
• Brand: Universal
• Released on: 2002-04-09
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 147 minutes

Amazon.com
Pandora couldn't resist opening the forbidden box containing all the delusions of mankind, and let's just say David Lynch, in Mulholland Drive, indulges a similar impulse. Employing a familiar film noir atmosphere to unravel, as he coyly puts it, "a love story in the city of dreams," Lynch establishes a foreboding but playful narrative in the film's first half before subsuming all of Los Angeles and its corrupt ambitions into his voyeuristic universe of desire. Identities exchange, amnesia proliferates, and nightmare visions are induced, but not before we've become enthralled by the film's two main characters: the dazed and sullen femme fatale, Rita (Laura Elena Harring), and the pert blonde just-arrived from Ontario (played exquisitely by Naomi Watts) who decides to help Rita regain her memory. Triggered by a rapturous Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison's "Crying," Lynch's best film since Blue Velvet splits glowingly into two equally compelling parts. --Fionn Meade

From The New Yorker
A woman wanders away from a car wreck and into a strange house. Little old people scurry under the foot of a door, squeaking like mice. Yes, it's a David Lynch project. This one began life as a TV pilot; you can just imagine the aghast faces of the network executives as they saw what they had commissioned. In the event, the elongated weirdness, stretching to two and a half hours, feels discomfortingly at home on the larger screen; if you ever wanted to see an epic horror-soap, this is what it would look like. Many established Lynch motifs are in place, most of them summoned from one corner or another of the nineteen-fifties: the innocent blonde (Naomi Watts), the baffled brunette (Laura Elena Harring), the clueless cop (Robert Forster). Addicts of the director will tie themselves in knots trying to pick the lock of the film; the rest of us can lie back and enjoy the spooking. With Justin Theroux and, as a tough old landlady, Ann Miller. Yes, that Ann Miller. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

In Hollywood Dreams... Nothing Is What it Seems
In 2001, David Lynch (director of Dune and creator of Twin Peaks) released a complex mystery film that defied the genre rules and mystified audiences. The film starred Naomi Watts, in an outstanding performance, as a seemingly naive and innocent young actress who stumbles upon a car crash victim with amnesia, played by Laura Elena Harring. The two befriend one another and begin to search for clues to the haunted woman's past. Meanwhile a rebellious young director is being told who to recast as the female lead in his next film but when he refuses, strange things begin to happen.
The film unfolds into a delirium of complex schemes, startling eroticism and complete insanity. But it keeps its viewers interested, though it never truly explains itself. Many people have attempted to unravel the film's meaning (there are quite a few interesting theories suggested by other reviewers). Some say that it's about the dream of a psychotic woman on the verge of committing suicide. Others say it's an allegory for the corruptive nature of the Hollywood lifestyle. There have even been some who feel that the whole film is just an epic mindf**k, which wouldn't be that surprising coming from an iconoclast like David Lynch. But what is surprising is that most people will admit that they don't fully understand it, and yet they can't get enough of it. Perhaps its popularity can be attributed to the complex plot, or the brilliant acting, or maybe the raw sesuality of Naomi Watts' performance. Whatever the appeal may be, there's no doubt about it, Mulholland Dr. is a provocative, titillating and mesmerizing trip that you have to experience for yourself. Maybe even more than once.

Dream-like quality
This is Lynch's craziest film. Since I've seen it 4 times in 7 yrs. trying to 'understand' something about it, I guess it's one of my favorites. First, I have not followed the 10 hints in the DVD cover, if indeed the 10 hints are anything but another Lynch spoof. The film must be approached via what Theodor Reik called 'listening with the third ear' (or seeing with the third eye), registering first impressions. Logic won't work, this is more like looking for clues for a rare disease, or trying to discover whether a painting is a fake. The first impression was that I was reminded of 'Persona'. The second thing, represented by the garbage can event, is that dreams are reality here. But what about the older cracked pair at the airport, who were they? Did Dianne use her aunt's money to pay the old guy in the wheelchair to make sure that she was in the film? The 3rd thing is the message of 'Silencio', that the tape/dream keeps running even if the person performing quits playing. So I think Camilla 'dreamed' the whole affair up until she opened the box, at which point 'Betty' disappeared and the tape quit, especially since they both saw 'Betty' as Dianne dead in bed earlier. After that came the real story of events. Now, back to that ugly nut behind the garbage cans .....

master of the surreal
This movie is absolutely brilliant. This review is a complete spoiler.
One should resist the temptation to analyze every detail of this film because i do not think they all have symbolic meaning. This is because the first half of the movie is a dream. And while many things in dreams are symbolic, many are nonsensical items created by one's subconscious. they will drive you nuts when you try to analyze them. This is evidenced by the apparent role reversals within the film. I cannot possibly count the number of times i have had dreams where someone i know is not "being themself". These types of dreams, personally, have two manifestations. Either the person is not aware (but i am) that they are not "being themself" OR the person is actually someone other than their real life persona and we are both unaware of it... until i wake up. The first situation is easy to interpret: i have some issue with this person and i feel that they are not behaving like themself or acting like a phony. The latter situation is much more difficult to interpret probably because, for all its mysteriousness, there is not much to interpret.

The dream portion of this movie shows our main character, Diane, as Betty. Betty represents Diane in her idealized self. It also portrays her lover/friend, Rita, as an amnesiac. Only late in the film (reality) do we see Rita as a former lover, who has obviously spurned Diane for a new flame. Adam the director. The amnesia aspect could likely be interpreted as Diane's perception that Rita has forgotten where she comes from. More importantly, she has moved on romantically and has also forgotten about Diane.

There is a monster with a blue box. The monster could represent a number of things or nothing at all aside from a good shock. The box is surely an allusion to Pandora. It fits when you realize that this movie is, mainly, a scathing criticism of Hollywood. We all know the story...Pandora, beautiful and seductive, is the mythological alpha woman. She was warned, by Zeus, to keep the box closed. Ignoring the warning, she opened the box (or jar) and released all the world's evils. Same with the movie. It is as if Lynch is warning young, would-be actresses about Hollywood.

When the blue box is opened, the movie does an about face and plenty of evils are unleashed as Diane is awakened from her dream. In reality, she is obsessed, psychotic, and suicidal. She has failed in Hollywood and is rapidly descending into its underbelly. She is waiting tables at the restaurant she dreamed of. She has lost her lover Rita (who is now Camilla).
The essential scene of this movie is the party overlooking Los Angeles. Roles reversed, everyone is pretty much portrayed as being a whore. Adam, the director, has sold out to the Hollywood production machine. Coco is giving Diane snobbish looks that say "you are such a loser". Rita/Camilla is sadistically rubbing her success and her new romances in Diane's face. She kisses her new female lover (dream Camilla) and her lipstick smears all over her mouth....in the middle of a dinner party. The sleaze is absolutely tangible. Diane is trying not to crack.
As a result of all this, Diane has Camilla killed which subsequently drives her mad and she commits suicide. You really feel sorry for her. This was the first time i had ever seen Naomi Watts and she was brilliant. It's a great role because it requires the actor to play very emotional, polar opposites of the character... and Watts makes the most of it.

Analyzations of surrealitites aside, this movie has a very clear message. As far as this director is concerned, Hollywood is a bad place. Be warned.