INTERPRETING 'MULHOLLAND DRIVE'

As with any David Lynch film, 'Mulholland Drive' stays with the audience for much longer than the two hours of screen time. The constant questions being presented with absolutely no answers given, Mulholland Drive can be both beautiful and extremely confusing after the first watch. The confusion is a part of the beauty for me, the endless amounts of questions, dead-end characters and many subplots mean that the film is discussed frequently and often has different interpretations, in this post I will be sharing my thoughts and views on the film.

It seems that the first half/three quarters of the film (up until the discovery of the key that fits the box) is chronological, with a simple plot and characters that make sense. This first half is what I like to call the Hollywood dream. I don't believe that it is a literal dream of the character of Betty/Diane, to me it's more like the dream of any budding star. Moving into a dream apartment, easily making friends, breezing through auditions and falling in love. The dream theory is one that is brought up a lot, with an interesting point being the diner scene near the beginning when a worried man is telling of his dreams, then leaving the diner and encountering a sort of beast, suggesting to the audience that we are actually in his dream. Lynch uses none of the typical editing techniques such as transitions or an inter-title to explain this, he respects his audience's intelligence and allows them to come to their own conclusion.
The film explores all of the 'normal' mainstream elements of film in this first half, and is easy to follow, however everything changes when the key to the mysterious box that Rita finds comes into the picture.

The box, to me, represents awareness and consciousness. During the first half of the film, the two female leads hide the box, pushing their consciousness away and allowing the dreams and hopes to take over their lives, it is only when the box is opened that this fairy-tale of a story is shattered and we are entered into a world completely diverged from the one previously presented to us. This world, in my true side of Los Angeles that Diane/Betty sees. Her failed romance, lack of acting work, and eventual suicide.

When looked at it in these two halves, the film is a lot easier to take in, and after a re-watch with these thoughts in your brain, you perhaps may be able to look at it from the perspective that I view it.
There is, however, parts of the film that I do not understand or cannot put my finger on the meaning behind them.

The odd characters such as the Cowboy, the man controlling the production of the film and the elderly people who drop an excited Betty off at the airport are much harder to decipher the meaning of. Perhaps they are there to spook the audience, as we know Lynch likes to do for his own amusement more than anything else. The elderly people can be viewed as the figures of society whom Betty feels she needs to impress, they are perhaps the reason for the entire first half of the film, is it all representative of a lie Diane told to them?

No matter how many times we discuss the film, the hidden meanings and the deeper motives for all of the characters, there will always be different and new questions raised. What is the relevance of the Silencio club? The death of the singer? It's all a tape- huh? That is one of the factors that allows me to enjoy the film more and more every time I watch it. Films needn't always be wrapped up neatly in a little parcel like a present under a Christmas tree. It's not Christmas day in David Lynch's world and you have to do some thinking before you get any sort of gift from him.