Mulholland Drive (****)

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is the crown jewel in his quest to make the most confusing fucking movie in history. It is something of a miracle, then, that that movie seems on retrospect, and after only a single viewing, to be almost penetrable. And crushingly good. It's the sort of movie that self-selects its audience. Someone who says "That movie is weird" with a sneer on their face and a disapproving gaze toward anything that doesn't explain itself straight up will really fucking despise this one. This is the sort of movie that makes Being John Malkovich seem like Dodgeball, in terms of its complexity.

Yet, I'm being misplaced in my generosity, I feel. The real trick to Mulholland Drive is not its complexity, or the way it weaves fantasy and reality through the device of the Unreliable Narrator - artsy-fartsy fucks have been playing with that kind of mode for decades - it's the sheer eloquence of it: the fact that you don't really have to understand it to appreciate it, that even if you aren't able to distill the fantasy from the reality, and fully grasp why a character, for instance, appears as a bright-eyed Hollywood newcomer in one scene but later appears to be very different - well, you can still appreciate the way it affects your subconscious, if you were simply to sit back and accept it.

I'm of two minds about this review. Part of me wants to brag. Part of me wants to reveal, for instance, that the plucky-faced heroine of the first four-fifths of the movie, who's even named Betty Elms for Christ's sake, is a bit too pert and innocent to be real in a David Lynch movie, and that that was the clue that tipped me off to the fact that - well, hell, if you want a synopsis as to what in the movie is real and what is fantasy, I'm sure you can find one. Google is your friend. And yet, there's a genius to it - a maniacal way in which halfway through the movie you're convinced it's going to be completely impenetrable and then you reach the end and it all sorts of falls into place.

You've heard that before, I'm sure. Let me assure you it's no simple gag. Bruce Willis isn't dead. It's not an explanation of the plot of the movie, but an explanation of the theme.

I'm not explaining the plot of the movie. How could I? When we first meet Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), she's moving to Hollywood, into her Aunt's apartment while she is off making a movie. She lands auditions. She lands one, but it's for a movie that will never be made; she talks to another director, but he's involved in a plot of his own, where shady behind-the-scene forces in Hollywood are making sure a particular other girl is cast. A woman (Laura Harring) who calls herself Rita - after a poster of Rita Hayworth - shows up in the apartment uninvited. She was in a car crash, saving her at the last minute from a man in the front of her limo, that was going to shoot her. She needs a place to stay. Betty gives it to her.

In time, they become lovers. There's a certain innocence to the way that Betty tells her she doesn't have to sleep on the couch tonight. When they make love, the scenes are erotic in a way most movies these days don't dare to be. I tried to think of the last time I saw a sex scene that wasn't forced, desperate, comic, or a combination of all three. That Laura Harring's character names herself after Rita Hayworth is not a coincidence.

What happens then? I'm not sure I could explain, though I'm fairly certain I understood. I will say that the fact that, for the majority of the movie, the idea that there are vast behind-the-scenes conspiracies aimed at getting other girls into roles that Betty is aiming for seems a likely excuse.

What really happened? I wouldn't dare say. But I will say to pay close attention - not just to the whole movie, though that's important - but to everything that happens after the prolonged, bizarre scene in the theater. There are clues.

Halfway through this movie I thought I was going to hate it. I had quotes in my head. "Completely impenetrable. The juxtaposition of the scenes with the innocent starlet and the behind-the-scenes forces acting on the director are never completely resolved." And they aren't. Also, I would have gotten to use the word "juxtaposition" outside of quotation marks. I still might, some day.

And yet, there's a logic to it. The fucking thing works. It's like Lynch knows just how far to fuck with his audience before he loses them, pushes it just beyond the ledge so as to clear out the rifraff, and then pulls you back. He makes you work for it - but not so hard that you need to be a film student to guess. Stay through to the end, and think about it, and then maybe see it again while the thoughts you came up with were still fresh in your mind. Some of the movie is fantasy. Some is reality. All is exquisite.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 4).

There Will Be Blood should arrive Monday, as should S1D1 and S1D2 of Deadwood