I’ve been researching the mysterious masterpiece that is Mulholland Drive (2001) recently, checking YouTube reviewers like TBR Schmitt and James VS Cinema, and I think I’ve finally figured it out.

By Emad Aysha
For those who don’t know, the story is about an unnamed actress (Laura Harring) who narrowly survives a ‘deliberate’ car crash, losing her memory and being helped by rising starlet Betty (Naomi Watts).

That’s on the surface, but the movie is really about LA, California and America. There are two keys to deciphering this mayhem of madness. The first is the opening sequence, where Betty is watching a 1950s-style dance contest, and it becomes apparent that she’s not alone.

NAMESAKE: Betty (Naomi Watts) at LAX with one of her very imaginary fans (Jeanne Bates). Sometimes perky doesn't cut it in the city of (fallen) angels.

There’s the old couple with her that she is supposed to have met when she was on the plane from Canada to Los Angeles. They’re supposed to be the judges of the jitterbug contest, or at least represent her dedicated fan base.

Note that after the LAX scene, you have the old couple, inexplicably, in a limousine.

You see that same style limo later on, with the mafia-type goons sent after the director. Still, it’s meant to highlight Betty’s glitzy image of California as if everyone’s a millionaire and the streets are paved with gold.

The entire movie is filled with aerial shots of the city, and Laura Harring looks out at the city from the hills at night, instinctively heading to Sunset Boulevard. (The street lights look like 'stars' in the sky).

The second key is the colour contrast you see between so many people, the yellow vs dark hair you see throughout, from the two cops investigating the crash to the Mafioso characters, contrasted to the incompetent blond hitman (with a Union Jack on his T-shirt) to the director’s wife (and her pool boy).

Not least Laura Harring, who calls herself Rita, and Betty. And you have Betty giving Rita a blonde wig, but that makes no sense because her aunt has red hair. That’s Betty projecting her sense of inadequacy onto Rita.

Rita herself, when you discover she’s Camilla Rhodes, is a carnivore. She enjoys showing off, passionately kissing the director in a rehearsal, right in front of Betty.

Then you have her kissing another blonde girl (Melissa George), also in front of Betty/Diane, which is when Diane realises what she is to her—just an amusement.

POSTER PERFECT: Laura Harring takes on the persona of Rita in this blonde-to-brunette dream within a dream.

The colouration is about California, how it was initially a Spanish place before it suddenly became Anglo.

The failed hitman is with a very blonde prostitute in one scene, and another blond guy and the girl has a bruised arm. The waitress at Winkie’s, called Betty, is also blonde.

The riddles are answered in a Spanish-speaking theatre named Silencio. Even the name Rita comes from Rita Hayworth, the great bombshell blonde of the classic era, not a brunette like Ava Gardner.

There’s also the crazy old woman warning Betty that her identity is fake, and the bag lady who is from a nightmare – both are blondes. They represent what Diane fears she will become when her wealth and beauty run out.

Now, you might say the two women are different, but that’s a common technique in surrealist cinema which mimics dream logic. A face can change in your head, but it’s still the same character in your dream—the same for the differing blue keys.

The movie explores the themes of split personality and moral dilemmas, with Diane forgetting why she initially became involved in the acting world – to be a proper actress, rather than a star – and the same applies to the inept director, Adam (Justin Theroux).

Even his movie project is a fake, a 1950s nostalgia piece from a supposed golden age of Hollywood that probably never existed. Hence, the deformed, medically-secluded mafia guy running things behind the scenes, and also the so-called Cowboy (Monty Montgomery).

The epitaph, 'cowboy,' meaning maverick, while in reality, he’s a conformist. How ironic that the actor is originally a ‘fringe’ movie director in real life, while Laura Harring (with her slight Latin accent) was Miss USA 1985!

DEAD RED: Laura Harring and Naomi Watts. From Latin film noir girl to cowgirl blues from down under.

She’s easily the most attractive actress to come out of America since Lynda Carter, also of Spanish descent, but if it weren’t for Mulholland Drive, hardly anybody would know her.

The movie is subjective, giving you a fictional and somewhat farcical world inside Diane’s head, quaking under the aftermath of having her former lover murdered.

These ghosts that haunt her till they kill her in a screechingly terrifying scene, with flashbacks spliced in with present-day interludes for our benefit.

Nonetheless, you can tell these scenes apart thanks to household objects and posters. The sound design is also creepy as hell, and the blurred visuals suck you in.

Needless to say, the acting is superb, but a real shout-out has to go to the duo of Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. Naomi takes acting to a whole new level, transforming an otherwise soap opera scene into a Shakespearean tragedy.

You see her nose and ears turn red with emotion, and the understatedness of her voice reveals the discipline involved.

FADE TO BLACK: The last heartbreaking scene of the two lost stars. The blue haze is borrowed from Silencio, as the city engulfs their love story.

She’s perfectly cast, with a naturally perky demeanour and rabbity features.

Her body is also very limber with a delicate frame that makes her look broken when she’s slouched over. Kudos to the makeup team, or lack of it. (When she’s at her lowest, she looks like Tim Roth!)

Laura Harring isn’t at the same level, but her approach is more natural. It’s all in her eyes, hurt, pain, worry, confusion and innocence. By contrast, when she wears makeup, she becomes a vixen.

The paleness of her skin accentuates the dark of her hair and eyes, and so how mixed she is racially.

AFFIRMATIVE REDACTION: Mark Pellegrino as the half-assed hitman with prostitute Rena Riffel and fellow goon Michael Des Barres. Notice the colour coordination?

How prophetic given what’s happening with all the Spanish evictions and the deployment of Marines.

But that’s the point of the movie, forcing the country to take a hard, long look at itself in the mirror, warts and all. Surrealism, like SF, is always one step ahead.