Review Detail

9.4 5 10
Preservation May 11, 2016 10305
Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Mulholland Dr. is the best David Lynch movie in my opinion (I am a fan of most of his other works). I think it's one of the best films ever made. For all the effort many have made to "figure it out," that doesn't really matter. Not to denigrate those efforts, and searching for logic in narrative as I actually think there's a very logical plot which makes every scene make sense. I'm just saying that it doesn't matter. The film is transcendent and wonderful on a visceral, semiotic level. I fell in love with it LONG before I ever put all the pieces together (with some help, thank you Internet).

This isn't just to wax on about the theatrical version, it's to say that the film is a visceral experience which doesn't make "sense" for the first two hours. The final act contextualizes what you saw previously. The pilot is made up of footage from the first two hours. I tried to put aside my knowledge of the movie and imagine a world in which Mulholland Dr. was a show. And holy shit, that's kind of a cool world. The characters are so interesting that I could see many side jaunts proving fruitful. Who wouldn't want to watch an episode centered around Joe, Dan or Det. McKnight?

I feel like it's prudent to mention the bootleg pilot here. As much as I'm a Lynch fan, I never watched it for a couple reasons. First, I'm a quality snob and it's so rough. Second, I used to not want to watch anything that the creator didn't like, or wasn't his or her vision (I've softened on that considerably since I found the world of fanedits haha). Third, the movie is pretty much perfect (kind of a dumb reason not to be interested in alternate versions, but I was kind of a dumb, snobby kid).

I did watch a little bit of it after watching the theatrical film and Q2's pilot preservation but turned it off pretty early into it. I just can't do that A/V quality. I'm sure that sounds douchey but it's a truth fact. I understand the edit had to take some liberties with the pilot due to not having HD commercially available footage, but I didn't notice anything wonky. It's not the tightest narrative in the world, anyway but it all worked for me. I will definitely revisit Q2's edit from time to time for a fun alternative experience. The theatrical stands tall and will never be replaced but that certainly wasn't this edit's goal, anyway.

Great edit and thanks for making it. Preserving a bit of film/TV history in the best quality available is a great thing.
T
Top 50 Reviewer 114 reviews
Report this review Was this review helpful? 0 0

Comments