(8) DAVID LYNCH –

MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001)

This entry is to commemorate director David Lynch – who at the time of this entry only recently passed away (15 January 2025). Previously, I had awarded him special mention, but you know what? I like him being here in my top ten, particularly in a place above director Robert Eggers – the films of the latter always prompt my mind to David Lynch. I wouldn’t call them Lynchian as such – in some ways they’re the reverse with their attention to historical detail while the time period of the setting in Lynch’s films is often amorphous – but there’s a vibe there, particularly when the films of Eggers get dream-like.

Which brings me to the definitive and often touted quality of David Lynch’s films – their surreal dream-like nature. “He is considered one of the most influential filmmakers of his time for his idiosyncratic audiovisual style (since semi-formally dubbed “Lynchian”), as well as arguably the most popular director regularly associated with surrealism…his works’ utilization of dream logic”.

He does have some more straightforward films in his oeuvre but for the most part I like his films – at least my favorite films – to dreams. There’s kind of a logic to them, albeit the aforementioned dream logic that hazily drifts you along when not being a complete mind screw – but the sort of beautifully classy neo-noir dreams you wish you had rather than those of the inferior direction of your subconscious. Your subconscious that is, mind you, not mine – my subconscious is Lynchian.

I haven’t seen all his films (yet) – I guess I’ll have to now – but I have seen my Lynchian holy trinity of Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive. Blue Velvet is perhaps the most comprehensible in narrative, Lost Highway the biggest mind screw of them, and Mulholland Drive is somewhere in between the previous two.

My interpretation of Mulholland Drive – not original to me but the one with which I agree (and which seems to be reasonably common) – is (SPOILERS – if one can spoil a Lynch film, as their meanings tend to remain elusive by design) that the first half of the film is the wish fulfilment fantasy of Naomi Watt’s character from the second half of the film (in a dying dream).

My favorite part of the film is actually the subplot of the film director “who just can’t seem to catch a break” – among other things, he encounters The Cowboy (a title that prompts the director’s incredulous exclamation), who may or may not be the usual extra-dimensional supernatural being that pops up in the films of Lynch.

FANTASY

As per TV Tropes, most of his films or television fall into the genre of magical realism in some way or another – which is to say that they often “go into the realm of pure fantasy” a la Twin Peaks or “somewhere in between”. Surreal fantasy – they’re dreams after all.

COMEDY

Oh yes – but usually black or dark comedy. Or meta-humor, like a joke layered in a dream.

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)