Mulholland Doctor

 That's what Alexa calls it. When asked how long the movie Mulholland Drive is, Alexa will tell you Mulholland Doctor is 2 hours and 17 minutes long. Not even a robot with all the brain power in human history can figure out what the hell David Lynch is up to. 

My earliest understanding of Lynch was from Dune, a movie I'm pretty sure he tried to disown, or at least distance himself from. I loved every second of it. The film made me want to read the book, and once I had, I could feel how much effort Lynch had put into creating a close facsimile to the Herbert masterpiece. He created room to breathe on screen, room to think and feel, and helped us experience what Paul Atreides might be feeling as a rising god-king. A lot of people who know a lot more about film than I know shit all over this movie. To those I say, let me have my much-maligned sci-fi classic. 

Twin Peaks was a revelation for me. I'd never watched something in which every scene was so enthralling, carried so much energy. The absurdity, mystery, and surreality of the show sets it apart from anything else I've seen. In 2013 I saw a Roger Ballen mixed media exhibit at a 17th century former church building in Denmark. Lynch and Ballen were eating the same mushrooms, I'd decided. And it wasn't so much that I wanted to eat them too, but I was a-okay with consuming the resulting media.

I've not seen all of Lynch's work, nor is it my goal to. But having seen Blue Velvet, I knew that another Lynch movie would probably be just as weird, if not weirder. Yep, Mulholland Dr. was weirder. The thing I was most enthralled by was how well Lynch captures the dream state. It made me think of Kelly Link's "The Hortlak." Both Lynch and Link get dream logic and dream feelings more than any other creators I've come across. 

The hallmark moment of the film for me was at Club Silencio. I'm no film critic, but I felt like the movie hung together around that scene. Rebekah Del Rio's "Llorando," and the song continuing to play after she collapses, is as haunting and beautiful as anything I've seen, and reminiscent of some of the lounge scenes in Twin Peaks. 

I'm not sure I loved the movie, but I'm not sure I was supposed to. It was funny and uncomfortable and captivating. I'm glad it's now registered in my "movies watched" log, but I feel like I need to see a shrink now. 

Hmm...maybe that's why it's called Mulholland Doctor.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Promising Young Woman

Pr omising Young Woman is uncomfortable. It wants to be. It's jab after jab at the predatory culture we've allowed to happen, in which "nice guys" can take advantage of girls who may not be sober enough to "deny consent." But it's a left hook at the institutions that have empowered these promising young men to act with impunity, and it's an uppercut to our expectations.  I watched the blooming romance between Bo Burnham and Carey Mulligan and thought, oh that's nice, it's turning into a rom com. There was always going to be renewed conflict in which Mulligan's Cassie gets pulled back into her dark pursuit of vigilante justice for her friend who killed herself after being raped in med school.  But the movie's climactic scene doesn't play out like I'm anticipating. Cassie, dressed like a mid-century nurse (interesting commentary there) has her friend's assailant handcuffed to the bed at his bachelor party. She is about to ca...
Read more

20,000 Leagues and whatnot

There's this weird thing in life where we wish everything was exciting. We wish everything was about discovery and the feelings associated with something new and fantastic.  Think of it like this. If I were exploring thermal vents and found a bizarre looking species of fish that hovers around them in the deep ocean, I might get pretty excited. I'm already 20,000 leagues under the sea in a submersible. Hollywood as fuck. But not only that, I discover a new species. Wow! So what next? Well, I have to catch one. Collect a sample. I have to go back up to the boat. I have to float back across the ocean to the shore, through probably angry waters. I have to go to my laboratory. I have to where a white coat and goggles and gloves. I have to take very good care of my sample. I have to put parts of it under a microscope and get data to put into a computer to compare with other similar species to see the differences. I have to read lots of scientific names and whatnot. I have to write a ...
Read more

Dialogue journal 1

Both characters trying to win the conversation: Bri held up his Kyrrin and looked at it carefully. This particular carving seemed to be in a stiff wind. The artist did well with the coloring, too—gray, black, and crimson gradiated throughout the figure. He held it close to see if the artist had left their signature on its base. Yes. There it was. A tree with a door in its trunk. Curious. He’d never seen the symbol before. “Are you taking your turn, or have you just removed that piece from the board?” asked his brother. “I’m happy to accept the latter.” E’Li was always so formal, so serious. Even when he was ribbing Bri it was done with an air of formality. Where the fath had it come from? Their mother was long dead; Bri had no recollection of her manner, which meant E’Li had no recollection either. They were twins, and Bri was the elder. Their father, on the other hand, was a dockman. E’Rydyn paid little heed to formality in all its shapes. A hard day’s work, a stiff drink, a smoke...
Read more