Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire

David Lynch’s works are intense masterpieces. They are optical illusions that loose their shape if you stare at them too long.

Mulholland Drive is about a young lady whose promising career as a jitterbug dancer fails to propel her to Hollywood stardom. She’s a wreaked shell of a starlet, but she dreams a pretty dream that makes up the bulk of the film.

 Inland Empire has a much fuzzier plot, but it revolves around an out-of-work and aging actress who secures a role in a film about infidelity. She’s absorbed by her role as both her and the audience lose touch with what’s real and what’s part of her film.

Both of these movies comment on the harshness of Hollywood, with particular jabs at the industry’s treatment of women. The message and the labyrinthine plots are secondary to the delivery. Lynch’s vignettes swing from ethereal to spooky, digging at the intellect with dream logic.

Lynch tells his stories to the subconscious mind and is unapologetic when reasoning fails. He’s film’s abstract artist.