Amidst all the playfulness and Lynchian tropes, there’s a classic hard-boiled LA detective story at play. LA is a city defined in no small degree by the idea of the detective, from Chandler to Elroy to Altman to Houston to Polanski to (even) Pynchon. The list could go on. The subtext of is that, in a city of power and image, there are secrets, things hidden behind the arras. In Mulholland Drive, Lynch gleefully joins the party. His heroine sets out to uncover a mystery and in the process she finds herself drawn into peril. As ever with Lynch it’s not quite that simple: the heroine has an alter-ego who might or might not be her in another dimension. Is she the author of the killing she is trying to solve? The questions add a piquancy to the story, steering it away from the formulaic. But the narrative drive of the mystery propels the movie through the directorial detours and flights of fancy. Lynch also reveals another LA, the Latino city that lies beneath the WASP creation. A different kind of tragic past which takes the viewer to places where Anglo Hollywood normally fears to tread.
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