| Mulholland Drive |
| well, if youve seen this one, you know it is just a strange movie especially at the beginning when it just shows so many unconnected scenes, and even at the end, many of them are never really connected to each other for example, the guy who has the "dream" about that dirty, homeless man behind the dumpster, and then sees him and apparently dies? whats that all about? or the guy in that partitioned room who sort of "runs" things, but never talks and in fact seems almost incapable of talking... or how about the box? you know, with the key? people get sucked into it, or come running out of it? i dont know...its crazy, and seeming has nothing to do with the "plot" of the movie well...brace yourself, but i think ive sort of "figured it out" it might be a bit of a stretch, but bear with me: ok, what i perceive to be the "real" plot of the story, mainly happens during the last 20 minutes or so of the movie ill recap what im calling the real plot: "camilla" and "diane" are sort of dating each other camilla meets/falls in love with/gets engaged to the director ("paul" right?...ill call him paul) diane gets really upset about this, hires that one guy who wears the leather jacket to have camilla killed just as the hired hit man/limo driver is about to carry out his job and shoot camilla, an unfortunate accident happens, and everyone in both cars (except camilla) is killed the guy in the leather jacket, and actually a bunch of people, are all looking for camilla because they realize she has escaped (her being a famous actress and all) also, right around this time, diane (who has been slowly going crazy) cannot take the pressures that life has exerted on her, so she shoots herself in the head and THAT, is the "real" plot of mulholland drive as far as the rest of the movie...this is the part that is a little more difficult to grasp (and difficult to explain as well...but here i go) most of the movie that i have left out, involves "betty" and "rita" (who, im sure you couldnt help but notice, are the exact same people as "diane" and "camilla"...) well, when we first see "betty", she is coming to hollywood, and is excited to say the least she has this hyper-glamorous idea of hollywood and is also poorly acting...as if she was in a really bad hollywood movie she meets "rita" who has amnesia or something, and knows that people are looking for her blah blah blah so both of them (acting badly) decide to try and find out rita's true identity ok, rita doesnt want to call, but betty convinces her with a line that basically says "it will be just like in the movies, we can pretend we're someone else" THAT is what im going to call the....umm...the other plot, or the "movie" plot, of mulholland drive im calling it the movie plot because i think that is just what it is, it is a movie, within a movie but not in the literal sense, "camilla" and "diane" are not actually shooting a movie in which their character names are betty and rita, but they are meant to be taken completely separately so in this "movie plot", all of these crazy, movie-like things are happening (such as rita having amnesia, the weird "box", and both of them just way over-acting all of their lines) several times in the movie, people say "just like in the movies..." this eludes to the fact that things in movies are NOT as they are in "real" life so when a person clearly knows who one of them is (such as paul clearly knows "diane"), when they are assuming their "movie identity", the person can look at them and have no idea who they are (like when paul looks at "betty", he stares for a while to make the movie "interesting"...but does not recognize her, since he knows the "real" person diane, not the "movie" character betty) even the one scene when betty is practicing her lines with rita for her audition, when the scene first begins, you cannot tell that they are reading lines from a script, rehearsing and even once you can tell that this is the case, if you really think about it, the lines from this audition can actually apply to the "movie" characters' (betty and rita's) current situations (ie, "i can tell on you...you'll get in trouble...i love you..." blah blah blah) this is just another point that reinforces the whole "movie" subplot of the movie mulholland drive ok, how about when "betty" breaks into "diane"s apartment and sees her dead body on the bed? it is the same actress, right? well, sort of... since betty is simply a character, in contrast to diane, who is an actual person in mulholland drive, their paths can cross without affecting anything so that is why it is perfectly possible for betty to be able to look at diane's body and there not be a glaring contradiction in the movie as i originally thought when i watched the movie and as far as the "box" and the guy who has the "dream"... i think those, and just about all of the "crazy" scenes (the old homeless guy, the scene when paul goes home after losing his job, finds his wife cheating on him, destroys her jewelry and gets beat up by the boyfriend and leaves in his sportscar...) are all just a part of the "movie" plot of course they overlap a little bit, and that is okay the whole movie is about hollywood and actors/actresses there they seem to stress the differences between "real life" and "the movies" all the time in the movie, and --ironically-- they seem to have very blurred lines between the two all throughout mulholland drive overall, i thought this was a pretty good movie, and even though it took quite a bit of thinking for me to come up with my little "theory" on it, i think it makes a lot of sense, and gives me a new frame from which i can watch the movie again if anyone else has seen the movie, let me know what you think of my little theory, and let me know if you have any theories of your own id love to hear it =) |