I was told about a movie by David Lynch, Mulholland Drive, that picked my curiosity. With so much brouhaha I've discovered on the internet discussing the "mysteries" of this movie, even on salon.com, I read these forums, and was intrigued enough to pull out that movie from the pile, watched it and came up with my own interpretation... The best, of course!
Nothing complicated at all.... a simple story told by David Lynch... in a rather clever way...
1. Diane Selwyn, who suffers an indeterminate mental illness, hallucinates and sets up an elaborate story....
about a mysterious beautiful brunette who was about to be killed by two hit men when she was miraculously saved by a freak car accident. The scheme is elaborate to the point that it leaves enough clue to establish that someone vanished from the scene of the accident (one of her pearl earing is left at the accident site, just to confuse the audience and make the mystery believable.)
This brunette, suffereing from amnesia caused by the accident, made her way to a vacant luxurious apartment to later be occupied by Diane Selwyn, imagined to be perky and always in control Betty. Betty helps amnesic "Rita" to learn who she really is. The scheme is again elaborated with twists and turns to introduce a large sum of cash, a mysterious blue triangular key, a menacing cowboy and a mysterious clairvoyant man in a coffee shop. There is even a scene of a savage killing of three persons related to a black book... supposedly containing information regarding the whereabout of Rita, just to throw the audience off on a wild goose chase. To me a most deceptive trick thrown by David Lynch is the scene in which the real Diane Selwyn/Betty came to her "real" apartment #12 to see her "real" one time lover, a woman who, in the movie is not shown to know Diane Selwyn. That is a real cheap trick setting up the scene showing the dead and decaying body of Diane Selwyn.
While helping Rita and in total control, Betty fantasized to have a lesbian relationship with her and inserted her real name Diane Selwyn into the scenario. In this scenario, "Betty" sees vision of Diane's death. This is clue that Diane is suicidal.
The real story is told at almost the end, at 2 hours 12 minutes into the movie... by Betty/Diane...
2. Diane Selwyn won a dance contest and came to Hollywood trying to make it in the movie business. She lost an audition to Camille/Rita, a stunning brunette and told the story of her life during a party given by the movie director who is about to marry Camille. The reason Diane Selwyn is invited to this high society party is obviously because she has a relationship with Camille. In this scene, it is evident Camillle clearly enjoys lesbian relationships. In reality, Diane Selwyn lives in a run down apartment inherited from her aunt where she does have a lesbian relationship with Camille. This relationship is terminated by Camille and confirmed to Diane Selwyn during the fateful party at the director's home on Mulholland drive.
This is the reason that Diane Selwyn descends to the deep end, hires a hit man to kill Camille. It is obvious that the contract did come to a successful conclusion because a blue key was delivered to Diane Selwyn as the hit man's confirmation of the kill. This confirmation of Camille's death pushes Diane Selwyn to commit suicide, just as she had vision and finally carried it out.
David Lynch threw in all kinds of side shows to glue the various plots imagined (or invented) by Diane Selwyn to tell the story, which is quite simple which is:
An aspiring movie actress has a lesbian relationship with a mvoie star and was dumped. She gets revenge by hiring a hit man to kill her ex lover and committed suicide after her deed was carried out. Simple story, nothing complicated.
Every forum I read talks about "dream." This is no dream, just a psychotic woman who goes berzerk, transcribes all her realities and beautifies them into an elaborate story as told by David Lynch. There is no car accident, no clairvoyant man, no amnesic woman, and no blue box. David Lynch is a clever story teller telling a simple story in a mysterious and intriguing way that got his fans all worked up. But that is what movies are all about: story telling. The best directors tell the best stories that make the best movies.
The moral of this short story of mine? Do not believe what you read on the internet, especially worked up forums discussing famous movies... and do not believe what you read on this page either. This is but one interpretation... yours may be quite different. I am still trying to figure out how many days elapsed during the entire story of Pulp Fiction as it was told by Tarantino.
I can't believe June 1st is around the corner. Hurricane season again! Bring it on!
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