Mulholland Dr.

Brunette Rita (Laura Elena Harring) wanders Mulholland Drive, dazed and confused after an auto accident. She finds refuge with Betty (Naomi Watts), an aspiring blonde actress who has arrived from Deep River, Ontario, with her innocence intact. The two work together to try to piece together Rita’s story… But nothing is quite what it seems in this rich, disturbing neo-noir from David Lynch, an enigmatic mystery which invites multiple interpretations but which seems to imply these two women are in some ways mirror images… Indeed as the film goes on, it becomes its own mirror.

Films about filmmaking figure prominently in Sight & Sound magazine’s list of the Greatest Films Ever Made: Singin’ in the Rain (#10), Man with a Movie Camera (#9) and Mulholland Dr. (#8) all qualify (as do 8½ and Close-Up). Lynch’s title echoes Billy Wilder’s Hollywood black comedy Sunset Blvd, and his view of the movie business is equally acidic, with Justin Theroux’s auteur losing control of the film within the film to shady power brokers, and Betty’s “innocence” ultimately exposed as either a nostalgic memory or pure fantasy.

Released in 2001, Mulholland Dr was instantly hailed as a classic, and twenty years later it’s the most recent film in Sight & Sound’s top 20.

Sunday’s screening in our PANTHEON series will feature free refreshments and a short introduction by an expert in the field.

September 17: Introduced by Steven Malcic, Media and Culture Lecturer in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University

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