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There are two femmes fatales, Betty/Diane (Naomi Watts) and Rita/Camilla (Laura Elena Harring). Betty begins her role as a perky starry-eyed blonde - she has an uncanny resemblance to Tippi Hedren in The Birds - and unravels into a scary psychopath. Sexy brunette Rita wanders in with amnesia and winds up with a blonde wig. There's a movie within the movie, directed by Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux). Characters and caricatures, plots and sub-plots abound, but there's no book here. It's like opening a set of blue lacquered Chinese boxes, each with its own mystery inside.

What I enjoyed most about Mulholland Drive was the sound design by David Lynch. The sound editing was flawless, too. The low-key lighting added a creepy suspenseful touch. The odd camera angles that I expected from Lynch were there, along with icons of the Southland - palm trees, Hollywood sign, dark over-furnished apartments facing in on overgrown courtyards, old over-tanned actors and garishly made-up actresses, house in the hills with pool and view. I got lost on Mulholland Drive, but the sights and sounds were spectacular!

1. FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE MOVIE STARTED:
Oh, I wasn't looking forward to this one. Not a fan of Lynch am I. Bored senseless by "Blue Velvet" and "The Elephant Man". Found "Twin Peaks" intriguing, at times stunning, but ultimately vacuous. And the "Straight Story" made me quite sad, but confused me too. Have already planned my escape route out of the theatre, in case boredom sets in before the half hour mark.

2. THE FIRST TWO HOURS:
An over-the-top pretentious opening, that I realize is supposed to be over-the-top and pretentious. A really good start. Ooh, look at that car crash! Lynch captures the power of steel on steel much better than Cronenberg ever could. And now we meet the two girls. Laura Harring (Rita) and Naomi Watts (Betty; she's from Deep River, Ontario, which got a nice chuckle at my Toronto screening) are both sexy, while being two halves of the same coin. The former, dark and mysterious. The latter, light and innocent. They're both great.

Uh-oh. There are a couple of scenes that just don't fit. Who were those two guys at the restaurant? And what the heck did they just see in the back alley? I'll admit this, though: it was terrifically frightening. A viscerally charged moment. And then we get a scene of botched burglary that keeps going wrong. And who the heck are the Castigliane brothers, and what do they have against espresso? The Little Man from "Twin Peaks" has a cameo, just to remind you that you were watching a David Lynch movie. Yeah, like I could ever forget that. So now we're wrapped up in a weird mystery plot, surrounded by a surreal Hollywood (What year is this? 1950? 2001?).

Now for the lesbian scenes. Coolly erotic, although out of place and creepy somehow. I bet this is intentional.

And on we go to Club Silencio. You must have heard about this scene. A master of ceremonies tells us, to our faces, that all we are about to see (and, by association, all we have seen) is pre-recorded, fake, phony. To prove this, a trumpeter comes out to play a few notes, only when the trumpet drops to his side, the music plays on. Ah. And now, out comes Rebekah Del Rio. She's going to sing Roy Orbison's "Crying" in Spanish. Oh my god, this is heartbreaking. And then...(!) I'll not ruin the surprise. Probably my favourite scene from any movie this year. It's supremely appealing on an intellectual *and* an emotional level.

And then the Pandora's box opens, and the movie...

3. THE LAST HALF HOUR:

...gets really weird. I'm trying to keep up. My brain is working overtime. Who is that? Is she still Betty? Is she still Rita? Is this all a dream? An amnesiacal remembrance? The visual style and tone of the first half carries forth, only it's all a lot more sinister and surreal. The narrative falls away, to be replaced by a dream-like state. Full-disclosure: dream-like states in movies always feel like self-indulgence to me. The filmmaker obviously couldn't find a cohesive ending, so they throw random images against the wall hoping they will stick. That's usually my take. Here, for some reason, I was into playing along with Lynch's game. Big time.

Okay, so now the credits are rolling. And it all kind of makes sense, but not really. I think I'll take a walk to clear my head.

4. THE LONG WALK HOME FORM THE THEATRE:

It's starting to crystallize. She was also she, and that was also that, and they were this, and this was that (oh how I wish I could give you the details along with the above sentence; but that would surely spoil your fun). And yet, some things are just too cloudy to forgive.

5. DISSECTING IT WITH MY ROOMMATE:

She had just seen the movie the day before I. We talked for a long while, piecing together the puzzle. Ah! Now I get it. It actually makes a whole lot of sense.

POSTSCRIPT:

Here's my advice. Never think of "Mulholland Drive" as having a standard narrative. It doesn't. Never mind that characters come and go without rhyme or reason (Robert Forster and Dan Hedaya, two fantastic character actors, have two scene and two lines between them!). Try not to think of its genesis as a TV pilot. It never would have worked as an open-ended narrative. It only works thematically, symbolically (I suspect others out there caught the obvious visual reference to Bergman's "Persona"?), and viscerally. And when I say "works", I mean it. This one's a stunner, folks. A pure, cinematic stunner.