Winner Dec '01

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Other Winners & How to Win!

Mulholland Drive

Posted by: FIFUSWEATER

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Hi everyone,

I know the movie came out months ago, but I just saw it for the first time tonight and was desperately seeking others to compare notes with (thanks to everyone else who has posted their insights - they're all very interesting to consider). So please bear with me if you've already discussed this interpretation... :)

My take on the movie was slightly different from what I've seen posted thus far... What I got from it was that the entire film was different versions of the SAME recurring dream that the guy in the diner (Winkie's) was discussing at the beginning. (He mentions that he keeps having the same dream over and over, and the only constant he can remember is that the guy across the table from him is always standing at the counter in the dreams.)

So for us, the viewer, the first 2/3 or so of the movie (with Betty and Rita) is mostly ONE version of that dream. When the actress who played Betty suddenly plays Diane, that's when we're watching a SECOND version of the dream, in which most of the actors in his dream are randomly reshuffled in the dreamer's mind, and play DIFFERENT characters in the SAME story.

But as Dream Interpretation 101 will tell you, what's ultimately important about dreams is the feelings they evoke, NOT the logic of them. In this case, even though the actors change characters in each version of the dream, we're supposed to follow is the CHARACTERS-- regardless of who's playing them at the time-- if we want to comprehend the logic/sequence of the story.

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I actually believe that Betty, Camilla (who calls herself Rita after suffering amnesia), and Diane are in fact three SEPARATE characters. See if this makes sense:

Chronologically, Camilla and Diane had their relationship first. Camilla's manipulative nature (first by acing Diane out for the big part in the movie, then by cheating on her with the director AND another woman) ultimately drives Diane to commission a hit man to kill both Camilla AND the director. She succeeds in killing the director (who is represented by the scumbag with the long, brown hair killed by the hitman with the silencer), but the drag race accident on Mulholland Drive spares Camilla of her life (the hitman THERE is represented by the two men in the front seat of the car).

Camilla then suffers amnesia and stumbles into Betty's apartment, purely by chance. Betty-- who is a naive, kind-hearted girl through-and-through-- extends herself to Camilla and eventually begins (what we are to assume is her first experience with) a lesbian relationship with Camilla (who now calls herself Rita). Thus Betty's affection for Camilla/Rita makes Betty willing to assist her in her lengthy search to recover her personality (Camilla's manipulative nature strikes again).

To the best of my understanding, the romance between Camilla and Betty is never resolved-- that's when the dreamer starts re-dreaming the whole story again (recasting the actors as new characters), or starts having those semiconscious, nonsensical nightmares while "coming to."

So... if we're to believe that the whole story is the diner guy's dream, then what does this dream mean to him? It seems like the recurring theme in every storyline of the dream is "powerlessness"-- whether by Diane submitting to Camilla, or by the director submitting to the "higher powers" who tell him who to cast as his leading lady.

The dreams seem to be a manifestation of Diner Guy's struggle with powerless in his own life-- of feeling like he DESERVES to be in control, but knowing that he never will be. (I wish we had seen more of his character, to get a sense of why "control" is such an issue for him).

This may also explain the mystery of the box/key, which (I believe consciously) takes on a "Pulp Fiction suitcase"-esque all-importance, representing the solutions to his problems-- if he can JUST open the damned thing. But once it finally is opened in the dream, one of two things happen: Either you can take the literal interpretation of there being nothing inside (as if to underscore his ultimate hopelessness), or you can interpret that RUSHING ZOOM into the box as the re-shuffling of the deck-- just as he gets CLOSE to figuring out what it all means, the dream starts all over again.

One of the main reasons I believe this Diner Guy/Dream Sequence theory to be true is because of the scene in the Silencio Theater, where the magician waxes poetic about the distinction between a REAL band and a recording (an illusion). Since the scene has no discernible bearing on the plot, I interpret it as a message intended directly for the audience-- to make us aware that what we THINK is happening is merely an illusion, designed to convey the IDEA of "music" (a.k.a. a "theme") so that we can understand things on a more universal level.

I'm definitely going to see this movie AT LEAST one more time, to test if my theories have any bearing upon second viewing. But in the meantime, I hope what I'm saying makes some sense, and I eagerly welcome any comments.

Thanks for your time, all. :)

-Aaron

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