E154 | Thinking Films: Mulholland Drive (w/ David Shariatmadari)

Today Alex discusses David Lynch's 2001 classic Mulholland Drive with David Shariatmadari. David is a writer and editor at the Guardian and is the author of Don't Believe A Word: The Surprising Truth About Language.

Including themes such as splitting, repression, the shadow, and the effects of guilt and moral injury - this film remains a beautiful, dark and enigmatic look at human psychology. 

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training.

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line.

Alex is not currently taking on new psychotherapy clients, if you are interested in working with Alex for focused behaviour change coaching , you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Coaching" in the subject line.

Check out The Thinking Mind Blog on Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-174371597

Episode produced by Ellis Ballard and Alex Curmi. 

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Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] A man's attitude. A man's attitude goes some ways the way his life will be. Is that something you might agree with? Well stop for a little second and think about it. Can you do that for me? No. You're not thinking. You're too busy being a smart lec to be thinking. Now I want you to think and stop being a smart lec.

Can you try that for me?

Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. As you all know, once a month on the podcast, I like to do a film analysis episodes where we take a film, which I think is of psychological import, and discuss it and see what we can learn from it. Today we're gonna discuss Mulholland Drive, directed by David Lynch, starring Naomi [00:01:00] Watt.

Maho Drive is generally thought to be one of the most enigmatic, atmospheric, psychological thrills ever made. Is it a dream? Is it a nightmare? Is it a satire of Hollywood? Who knows? But what the film does do is it pulls viewers into a labyrinth where you're constantly questioning reality and at the same time getting quite a grim look at human nature.

Normally I do these episodes by myself, but as it happens, I don't love talking about films in a room by myself. I like talking about them with people. So this week I'm thrilled to have a guest and that is David Shiat, mad editor and writer at The Guardian. David, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having me.

David, we discussed films a bit, not just when we're doing podcasts, and you had brought Mulholland Drive to my attention, obviously a classic, and you had asked me if I had watched it and I actually hadn't fully watched it before you told me about it. What's your relationship to this film? 

Speaker 3: So I remember seeing it in the cinema in one of the [00:02:00] cinemas in Leicester Square in London when it came out.

And I remembered seeing it in a packed auditorium and just being bowled over by it. And I can still remember the moments at which people in the audience gasped or sort of somehow emitted like a sound that demonstrated how baffled they were or confused they were. I think sometimes during a film you get the sense that, oh, this is something really special.

You know, this isn't a film that I'm gonna forget. And I really had that sense with this film and it kind of mounted. It was just a, an extraordinary experience. Yeah, and I returned to it several times. I guess I must have maybe watched it on video or then rented it on a streamer subsequently, and always found that it held up because I think with some of those kind of experiences that you have when you are younger as well, if it's a novel that you really love, you can return to them and they can feel a bit sort of.

Naive or mm-hmm. Or flimsier than they were first time. And I think that isn't the case with Mul [00:03:00] Haunted Drive, which I guess is a true mark of a work of art that Yeah. Is really significant. 

Speaker 2: How old would you have been when you watched it for the first time? 

Speaker 3: So I think I would've been 22 or 23. 

Speaker 2: I think I, I half watched it at some point when I was younger.

And maybe, I don't know if something external was distracting me or if it was the pacing of the film, or maybe I felt I needed to make more sense, but I didn't make it to the pivotal moment of the film, which we'll talk about later after you recommended it. I watched it in full and for the first time and it was like, it's like a punch to the gut, you know, the conclusion of the film.

And I actually really enjoyed watching it much more the second time. Because when you watch it the first time, too much of your brain, at least for me, is devoted to trying to figure out what is going on, like trying to make sense of the physics of this world. Once you've watched it once and you have an idea of the landscape, then when you watch it the second time, I watched it the second time yesterday and I just like really fully appreciated it.

'cause now all of the weirdness sits within the [00:04:00] context, which, you know, and I thought it was wonderful to watch for that second time. What do you love about this film? It's a good question. 

Speaker 3: I mean, it's a really disturbing film, but it also carries with it this kind of what I would call numinous quality. A sort of a sense of tapping into the archetypal in us.

A sense of almost transcendence of the everyday. A lot of the imagery is very compelling and beautiful and haunting. I think it's a story that moves you on a, on quite a deep level without showing it's working necessarily. You're not quite sure. I was thinking of, um, I mean we'll discuss various plot points, but.

The Lencia scene, when I re-watched it this week, I was hit anew by how moving that is, even though in many ways it's a kind of nonsense dreamlike episode. It's very emotionally powerful and it stirs you in ways that you perhaps don't quite understand based on the the elements of it. [00:05:00] And I think that's the, the film's power in a way.

It, it taps into something that makes sense on a deep psychological level, even if not every element of it is easily pieced together. 

Speaker 2: I'll talk about this a bit later, but it is so dreamlike in that you often wake up from a dream and you feel that nothing about that overtly makes sense. But I'm left with a deep emotional undertone, which could be a positive emotion.

Like, oh wow. Something satisfying about the dream or something. Desire fulfilling or something like that. But also sometimes you wake up from a dream doesn't make sense, but you feel anxious, feel that existential dread and that comes through a lot with this film. Just the deep kind of wretched emotion on theone 

Speaker 3: and the fact that it makes psychological sense on some level.

I think you know your point about waking from a dream. You kind of know what it means or you know, what the tenor of it was. Even if, as you say, the individual elements of it are, are a bit of a jumble, and I think this film does quite a good job of that. 

Speaker 2: I [00:06:00] mean, for me, as a film, there's many different cinema experiences you can have, right?

You can watch a blockbuster comedy and just laugh for two hours, and that's an amazing film experience. You can watch a really moving drama or a thriller or something like that. But my favorite cinema experience is having my world turned upside down. So this film is like that for me. But I also think of films, in terms of films that came out recently.

Films like The Substance, which I think we talked about, but maybe we didn't like as much as I did. But I, I like films that basically do something I could never possibly expect. 

Speaker 3: I guess I was a bit put off by the substance, just in terms of the sheer level of gore. Yeah. Which I don't always enjoy that.

But as you were saying that, another film came to mind, which is. All of Us strangers, which is that Andrew Hague movie about a single man thinking about his life being visited by a stranger. Spending time with that stranger. And then towards the end, there's a sort of moment that makes you have to reconfigure everything you [00:07:00] thought about the film.

Speaker 2: I just love having my mind blown. Yeah, exactly. Lack a better phrase. Other things I liked about Marathon Drive, obviously I agree with you. It's beautiful. The soundtrack, which is very Twin Peaks esque, half dread, half weirdly uplifting, and the uplifting parts of the soundtrack don't overtly fit. And yet they fit on again on a deeper level.

Obviously this is a cliche, but Naomi Watts in this movie is incredible. The acting in the first part of the movie, the first two thirds basically doesn't really make sense. And then her acting in the last third is devastating and makes that acting in the first two thirds makes total. Well, there's a really interesting thing about 

Speaker 3: the fact that this was Naomi Watts's breakthrough role, so it's kind of life imitating art in a way, because a lot of the movie is about trying to break into Hollywood and the idea of the female star who might be plucked from obscurity.

The fact that that actually happened to Naomi Watts as a result of this. I mean, it wasn't her [00:08:00] film debut by any means, but it was really the thing that brought her to a kind of star level for sure. 

Speaker 2: Okay, so a little bit about this film. Obviously it was released in 2001. By this point, David Lynch is already an acclaimed director.

He's made things, but like Eraserhead Blue Velvet Lost Highway, the TV series, twin Peaks, and then the movie Twin Peaks Fire. Walk with me. Funnily enough, I mean this is well known. This film was supposed to be a TV show and he made a pilot and the pilot was apparently rejected. Uh, and therefore he filmed some new stuff and then cut up the stuff he had made with the new stuff to make this film.

And it's crazy to think that a failed pilot can actually result in a film that many people regard as a masterpiece. I like to think about like what are films which are like similar to this film or what are films, which. Sit nicely alongside this film. Another way you could phrase it is what film would you choose to be a double feature alongside this film?

Do you have any thoughts on that? 

Speaker 3: [00:09:00] I suppose the film, I think that in Lynches Over that has the most affinity with it is Lost Highway. 

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 3: Which I haven't seen for a while, but I remember thinking had a similar sort of. Confusion and entanglement of the psychologically real with the actually real.

Mm-hmm. In a way that was hard to pause but was quite interesting. But that might a double, a double bill of Lost Home Mohan Drive might be too much Lynch. It might blow people's minds a bit too much. 

Speaker 2: So I haven't watched Lost Highway and I thought about watching Lost Highway yesterday after I finished Mahan Drive and I had that exact same thought of, I'd love to, but also maybe it's too much Lynch.

So instead I watched Spiderman from 2002, the original Spiderman, which has a kind of pallet cleanser, right? Uh, in terms of a double feature for me. So I think the obvious answer would be Fight Club directed by David Fincher. So Fight Club is that thing where, you know, has that twist and then that helps you kind of re-watch the whole movie different thing in a way that you can appreciate.

[00:10:00] I also thought of eternal sunshine of a spotless mind, and that's becoming a bit of a cliche in these film analysis episodes in that I seem to mention it when I talk about the Truman Show. I mentioned it when I talk about her. The first film I did, and then the last one I thought about was maybe inception.

Inception also being about dreams. I haven't seen Inception. Wow. So that's 

Speaker 3: one. That's one for my list. Okay. Maybe will that blow my mind? 

Speaker 2: I have not watched Inception since it came out, so maybe that's something we're both gonna have to revisit together. 

Speaker 3: I mean, I think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an amazing film and I, and I think you're right, that.

In terms of dealing with memory and regret and attempts to change reality by the characters, that would be a really good pairing. 

Speaker 2: So in terms of, you know, cultural relevance, as I said earlier, this film is widely regarded as a masterpiece. It appears on many lists of the greatest films of the 21st century.

Generally, people praise the fact that it has an unusual structure. Its critiques Hollywood, [00:11:00] you know, in a way that's quite funny in a lot of ways. It elevates surrealism into the mainstream, has a lot of iconic sequences. It was critically acclaimed immediately. So you have prominent critics like Roger.

EBIT immediately praised it, even though he had been quite critical of Lynch in the past. It won the best director award at Con commercially, you know, for an art house movie that, okay. And 20 million at the box office. On a budget of 15 million, but obviously its success has grown exponentially. We're gonna talk a little bit about the characters now and the plot.

So obviously we will be spoiling it. So this is a film where I think knowing the plot matters. So if you haven't watched it, do watch Mile Holland Drive before you listen to this. So in terms of characters, we've got Naomi Watts who plays Betty. A wide-eyed aspiring actress. We have Rita, who is a mysterious amnesiac who comes into Betty's life when she is found in Betty's aunt's apartment.

We [00:12:00] have Adam Kesher, who is a Hollywood director who is being harassed to cast a particular star in his film. So those are actually the main characters. There's lots of other characters, but those are the main ones you need to know as far as the plot. In terms of the plot, the film begins with this amnesia woman played by Laura Haring, surviving a car crash on Mulholland Drive.

She stumbles into Los Angeles, stumbles into Betty's aspiring actress's aunt's apartment. She eventually takes the name Rita. This amnesia, Betty is just, you know, a bright-eyed, optimistic, you know, gee whiz. New actress from Canada, and they become friends and they try to investigate, you know, why has Rita become an amnesiac?

And as they investigate, they form an intense, emotional and romantic bond. In the meantime, you see a bunch of really bizarre subplots, often ones that don't go anywhere, vignettes. But in particular, again, this Hollywood director paid by Justin Thoreau, who's being strong armed to cast a specific starlet in his film.[00:13:00] 

Speaker: When you see the girl that was shown to you earlier today, you will say, this is the girl. The rest of the cast can stay. That's up to you, but that lead girl is not up to you. 

Speaker 2: A few things happen and then halfway through the film, or two thirds of the way through the film rather. Rita, the amnesiac opens a blue box with a key, and then the narrative breaks completely and there's a reset, and then when the film starts up again, Naomi Watt's character is no longer Betty.

She's no longer this bright-eyed aspiring actress. She's now Diane, a struggling actress who is actually in a relationship with the woman who was an amnesia. Her name is actually not Rita. Her name is Camilla. It turns out that Diane was in a relationship with Camilla for a while. Their relationship ended very painfully, and then it turns out that Camilla was gonna become engaged to this Hollywood director that we see in the first part of the [00:14:00] film.

Diane is completely heartbroken and she goes so far as to hire a hitman to kill Camilla. Then she dissents in a series of guilt, written hallucinations, self-incrimination to someone knocking at the door. Ultimately, she commits suicide at the end of the film. So David, one way I like to frame these podcasts is like, what are the key questions a firm is trying to answer?

What do you think is a key question or questions this film is trying to answer? 

Speaker 3: Well, first of all, well done on the plot summary, which is pretty clear given that it's such a twisty story. Um, for me, I think the film is really about splitting and it's about the unsustainability of splitting. So it's about an attempt to wall off a very difficult and painful experience and the way in which that attempt is doomed to fail.

And the way in which aspects of that difficult, painful experience leak into the [00:15:00] fantasy and ultimately overwhelm it. 

Speaker 2: So what would your like interpretation of the plot be? 'cause I was actually surprised and there are actually multiple interpretations of the plot. What is your basic interpretation? 

Speaker 3: So my basic interpretation is that we have the character, Diane is the main protagonist.

She's a real character. She's a real character. The first two thirds of the film are her experiencing an escapist fantasy after she's murdered her ex lover. And this fantasy is an attempt to kind of repair that or imagine a different way that the relationship could have been to sort of expunge the awfulness of what she's done.

As I say, I think that task becomes impossible and is overwhelmed by the reality of the situation, which then is like a kind of wave crashing on her in the, in the final third of the film. Although, you know, parts of the final third of the film are actually kind of the run up to her decision to carry out the murder.

Lynch did say in an interview that actually the [00:16:00] story of Mulan Drive is, is relatively straightforward, and I think that's true. I think the reason it doesn't feel straightforward is this key thing that Lynch does, which is that he doesn't cue different psychological states or phenomena in the normal way that you'd expect a filmmaker would do.

What do you mean by that? So he, he doesn't sort of signpost the fact that, oh, this is a dream, this is a, a fantasy. It's not clear there's a ontologically level playing field for all kinds of experiences. Mm mm-hmm. And I think that's what is confounding when you first watch the film. But once you sort of know that's what he does, he presents dreams, fantasies, psychosis as all completely equivalent in terms of the filmmaking grammar.

Then it becomes easier to understand. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's how I felt. Again, I, the first time I watched it, there was a bit of frustration of like, what the hell is happening? Then once I knew more or less how it's gonna end, I basically agree with your interpretation that Diane is real [00:17:00] and that the first two thirds are basically Diane's fantasy.

You know, right before she commits suicide, or perhaps as she's committing suicide, you could say, if I wanted to get formally psychiatric, which you don't necessarily have to, but if you had to, you could say, maybe she's having a psychotic episode, perhaps, or she's delirious in some way. Yeah. So in terms of the key question, I think this film is trying to answer.

Where does the mind go when the truth is too ugly to bear? Sud, Dan's gone down this path and the notes I took down about Naomi Watt's acting when I was watching it last night was wretched. She becomes like a wretch. Her acting is so convincing in that final two thirds and then it makes again, the first two thirds make a lot of sense.

So if you watch the first two thirds of the movie, Betty's, so Exaggeratedly smiling and happy and she's perfect. 

Speaker: I was so excited and nervous. Sure. Great to have you to talk to. Remember. I'll be watching more. You're on the big screen. Okay, Irene, won't that be the day? Good luck Betty dear. [00:18:00] 

Speaker 2: Take care. And not only that, but she's helped.

Full. The first two thirds depicts her as an amazing actress, but also like a very generous person, so she's just like an a plus individual. Meanwhile, Rita slash Camilla is depicted as helpless. You know, she's in amnesia. She's totally dependent on Betty slash Diane. So you think maybe psychologically that's kind of what Diane would love is to have her lover to not be her own kind of independent person, her own sovereign person, but someone who's like fully dependent on her.

And I think that's a trap that a lots of people fall into in relationships. I think people often get scared in romantic relationships when they feel their partner can be too, uh, independent. Especially if you're a individual who hasn't sort of claimed a lot of your own independence. I think that's something that can happen quite a lot.

Speaker 3: I think what you also see there is a, a real attempt to roll reversal because in reality it's Diane who is under [00:19:00] Camilla's thumb. Camilla is the much more powerful individual become so because she has a lot of acting success. She's living this glamorous lifestyle. Diane is down on her luck. Yeah. And has actually been rejected.

And so it's an attempt to, in a way, put Camilla in her place, or be the person who is relied upon as opposed to the person who has to come begging for scraps or for, you know, advancement in their career. 

Speaker 2: In a way it's a, I mean there's, there's lots of psychological truths in this film. One of them is to not see your relationships purely in terms of power dynamics.

I mean, obviously power dynamics do exist in relationships, don't they? It's, it's a bit naive to ignore the fact that there's a power dynamic in your relationship, but I think it's equally a mistake to define your relationship in terms of power dynamics. And I think there's some other more profound way, maybe I'm struggling to find what the word is right now, but I think there's a better way to define your relationship maybe in terms of.

[00:20:00] Generosity, love forgiveness. Existing as a deeper layer below, you know, who has the most power, who has the most authority? This is a trap. I think the power trap is something you, you often see kind of more narcissistic people falling into. They often define their relationships in terms of winners and losers, you know?

Speaker 3: Yeah. I think there's a kind of absolutism at work in Diane's worldview as well. It's like any success that Camilla has takes away from me. Right. It's a zero sum game. Exactly. And, and it's like, I am either a nobody and a loser, or I am the greatest actress that ever lived, and there's nothing in between.

So there's a lack of like. Mixedness. I feel like Diane has fallen into this trap of all or nothing, and that's really bad for her because it means then she can't allow Camilla any success and she can't allow Camilla any good fortune because it means for her it's taking something away. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. Camilla's gain is Diane's loss.[00:21:00] 

What do you think of this film as showing kind of dream logic or as a kind of representation of a dream? I 

Speaker 3: think it does that amazingly well, and I think a lot of that, again, is revealed in the final third where you see lots of elements that you've encountered already. So for example, I mean, we should talk about the diner because the diner plays quite a crucial role.

You see Diane encountering a waitress whose name tag says Betty. And it's like, ah, okay. What Diane has done in the first two thirds is pluck elements from her real experience, and they've been integrated into the dream. As like we are all familiar with, right? So we see in our dream the random person that, uh, we saw in Pret or something and they're doing something.

There are a couple o other examples of that at the kind of engagement announcement party that Diana tens in the kind of real section of the film. You see a guy who is one of the mafia brothers, uh, just sitting at another table and kind of looking at her and you know, and you [00:22:00] see, okay, this is a fragment that she's just recruited.

Into her dream and 

Speaker 2: you see the cowboy walking in the background. You see the 

Speaker 3: cowboy as well. The 

Speaker 2: cowboy plays a prominent role in the first two thirds. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, so I, I think that recruiting of disparate elements is something that feels really true to life in terms of how dreams operate 

Speaker 2: and the cartoonishness of dreams and the other worldliness of dreams.

And how awkward they are. And they are kind of, they can be sort of full of awkward pauses and randomness, things like that. 

Speaker 3: And there's also even a kind of thing he does with the camera sometimes where it appears to be floating. And that's particularly the case in the first scene at the diner where two characters that we never encounter again are having a conversation.

So almost like the camera is hovering in this tentative way. That really adds to the sort of ambiance of that whole scene, which is a really crucial one. I dunno if you wanna talk about that now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of summarizing it, you have two men, uh, having breakfast in [00:23:00] a diner. One of them seems quite anxious and is talking to a guy who seems calmer.

One interpretation of that is it's a client and it's therapist. 

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 3: I'm sure there are lots of other interpretations, but the anxious guy is talking about. A dream he had that was set in that diner, which is called Winkys Incongruously enough, and it's about the sense that there was something very, very dark lurking behind that diner.

Speaker 4: I had a dream about this place. It's the second one I've had, but they're both the same. They start out that I'm in here, but it's not day or night. It's kind of half night, you know? And I'm scared, like I can't tell you. Then I realize what it is. There's a man in back of this place.

Speaker 5: He's the one who's doing it.

I [00:24:00] can see him through the wall. I can see his face. 

Speaker 3: Something intolerable, something that's really horrifying to contemplate. And the anxious guy is relating this story and let's call him. The therapist says, well look, why don't we walk out there? Why don't we go and see behind the diner if there's anything there.

Almost as a kind of exposure therapy. Yeah, I, I related to that other character a lot. And so they get up and they. Leave the diner and walk around the corner and they do see something horrifying and that, I remember that being a moment where everyone gasped so, so scary in the movie, it's so scary because of the buildup, because of the music, because you really genuinely feel from the anxious guy's performance that he has a sense of dread.

Like he conveys that really well. Yeah. And I have thoughts about the significance of that scene. I don't know if, if you do. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically what pops out from the behind the wall is essentially a monstrous [00:25:00] kind of maybe witch character. Someone who's a very scary looking person, I guess. And obviously this person is existing behind the diner in the dream sequence that what we think is the dream part of the film.

And then later in what we think is the real part of the film. Diane, we see her actually ordering the hit on Camilla in this diner. I suppose the interpretation would be this woman or this witch or this monster is the symbolic darkness that lies behind the diner, or the symbolic darkness in Diane's psyche.

This, maybe you could call it a shadow side, that is willing to do something as serious as commit murder because she hasn't gotten and needs met, essentially. Is that, is that how you interpreted it? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty much. I feel like it's a. Personification of the Heinous Act that Diane commissions in that diner.

It's like the weight of that act and the evil of it hangs around in that space and has almost a vibration, which sort of affects others. [00:26:00] It's interesting that the demon character can also just be read as a kind of hapless homeless person who's living in some boxes behind the diner. Right. So there's another comment maybe there about the sort of underbelly of LA or the othering of people.

But I think symbolically for me, it's like this is where the bad deed was done and there's almost a sort of lingering vibration there. 

Speaker 2: Yes. And the hitman actually says when Diane is paying for the hit. In the diner in the last part of him, the Hispan says, as soon as you give me the money, the deed is done.

Speaker: Okay? Now once 

Speaker 2: you hand that 

Speaker: over to me, 

Speaker 2: it's 

Speaker: done deal.

You sure you want this more than anything in this world? 

Speaker 2: And we do see this witch slash monster character appearing in. In Naomi Watson's hallucinations at the end of the film, so she comes back. I think this also leads to, I think, what's super psychologically [00:27:00] important about the film, like, uh, something that's very relevant.

I think we all have that part of ourselves, so this is something that's talked about a lot in psychotherapy. If you think about Jung in psychology in particular, Jung was a big proponent of trying to be aware as possible of our shadow side. That part of ourselves that we don't like to think about the part of ourselves that can be jealous or have all of these, what we think of as petty, but can actually be quite important emotions because if we're not aware of these parts of ourselves, they will.

Unknowingly motivate us to do things which are terrible. So this film, in a way, is quite a cautionary tale. Certainly. It really ends like a cautionary tale that you want to be very vigilant for. What are the dark parts of yourselves? You know, go behind the alley, like look for the monster in you, which I think you can get glimpses of if you look and your even in your ordinary day-to-day life, because otherwise, like bad things are gonna happen.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think partly it's like the further you push it away, the more horrifying it becomes. [00:28:00] So really with Diane, she's made a, an incredible effort to completely expunge or to distance herself from that side of herself, and therefore, it's an even more horrifying demon than it otherwise would be. Right.

And again, like maybe there's a connection there with exposure therapy or becoming closer to your shadow self, then it diminishes in 

Speaker 2: power and No, absolutely. I mean, I, I, I literally, the analogy I often use is clearing out your attic. You know, if you clear out your attic regularly, it's annoying. There'll be some stuff in there and some dust, but it's manageable.

If you don't look in your attic for 10 years and then you go in there, it's gonna be an absolute nightmare. 

Speaker 3: Well, it just reminds me as of the picture of Dorian Gray as well. Mm-hmm. Which was a glamorous man about town who so distanced himself from any of his sort of weaknesses and. A Yeah. Impulses that, right.

This portrait literally assumed the most hideous. Yeah. Sort of aspect you can imagine. 

Speaker 2: Absolutely. [00:29:00] I also think this film is a really good portrait of the dangers of like not just sort of repressing the dark side of yourself, or not looking at the dark side of yourself, but indeed doing the opposite to kind of living in fantasy.

Obviously this is an example where someone. Really retreats into fantasy 'cause of something super catastrophic. But I think the takeaway for the average person is we all kind of have the temptation to dip into fantasy in small ways a lot. I think fantasies are okay for a bit of recreation, a bit of comfort, but you really don't want to live in fantasy.

One of the things I worry about is that in modern society, we have all of the things available to us to live in fantasy more and more. So thinking about even something as simple as a recreational drug can cause you to live in fantasy video games. Now, ai, the ability to just kind of sequester yourself from the world.

It's really, I think one of the, um, the bedrocks of psychological health is to [00:30:00] regularly ground yourself in reality. Like even if you're doing something really practical, like you're doing a work project to assess how it's going, you need to find ways to ground yourself through reality. Okay. How is this project going?

Can I get some data on it? Can I get feedback from other people? If you just do everything by yourself, it's remarkable how much people can convince themselves of the truth. That's totally divorced from reality, I guess is what I'm saying. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. I also wonder about the kind of portrait of ambition and success that is painted in this movie.

Yeah. And how, if ambition is a totally organizing principle for your life. To the expense of everything else, right. That can have really damaging effects. 

Speaker 2: I, I mean, I, I agree with you and there's flexibility about how you can choose your ambition. So you can imagine, you know, if I wanted to go to Hollywood and become an actor, there's different ways you could go about it.

You could say, in order to be successful, I have to be a mainstream actor as a starring role in mainstream films and won an Oscar. [00:31:00] Or I could just like for me, my version of success is I want to be the best actor I can possibly be. I want to develop my craft as much as possible. And you see, even with those two versions, it's very different.

They're very different implications psychologically. So the first one, conventional success, really, it depends a lot on the opinion of other people. Many factors are outside of your control, and it's also very like rigid and specific. It's a very specific form of success. So you make it much more likely that you're going to fail, whereas in the second version, I want to develop the craft as well as I can possibly can.

Suddenly, everything is within your control. Other people's opinions, although they're still important, you do want to get feedback, they're not going to be the deciding factor. And success in that second example can look very different. You have much more flexibility. So for me, if there's one other point from this film, it's be ambitious.

Like it's nice to be ambitious, but choose how you are ambitious carefully. And a lot of people, they don't ever think [00:32:00] about what their criteria for success are. So again, they tend to remain unconscious and then they just feel ashamed all of the time because they on some level feel they're not meeting it.

Speaker 3: And what is the ambition doing in your life and your psyche? Is it attempting to make up for a love that you feel you didn't get enough of as a child or something? Yeah. You know, are you kind of filling a void? Filling a void, or sort of expecting success to give you something that it could never do? So, you know, success can never make up for that kind of lack.

Whereas if you are, you know, like you say, if you are ambitious in the sense that, well, I wanna have good experiences and I want to experience flow and I want to have the sense of reward from encountering things that I was fearful of but then was able to do, that's very different. You are not sort of desperately.

Trying to make up for some, uh, or to s solve some wound, which actually isn't related to your acting career or whatever career it might be that you are looking to advance in. 

Speaker 2: I guess also what we're talking about is how does ambition feed into [00:33:00] identity? Like again, ambition might be one portion of your life and one portion of your identity, or is it the whole thing.

And for some people it's the whole thing. You know, I talk a lot, mainly last year I talked a lot on the podcast about the idea of the insecure overachiever, which is one of the biggest tragedies of modern life, I think, where you have someone who's really, really competent, they're really good at doing stuff.

They're smart. They're hardworking, but they're not the author of their own life. You know, they look for other people o often to submit to, because I think when people have a lack of self-esteem, they have a huge amount of trouble self-directing. So they look for other people to direct them, and they typically find, I find insecure overachievers often match with specific bosses.

Or companies that like to control people and like to take advantage of that, like, and I think a Hollywood director is an amazing example, 

Speaker 3: but also I was thinking like the psyche of actors must be quite interesting, right? Because these are people who, not to generalize, but like there's an aspect [00:34:00] of wanting to perform, which is about craving appreciation, craving the admiration of other people being told that you are the special one, you are the best.

Wanting the spotlight. And again, you could pursue that because you love the craft and you love the camaraderie, and you are good at it, and you enjoy doing something you're good at, or you could pursue it because it fulfills a desperate need in you to be liked and you don't think you're likable. Yeah.

But I'm sure, I mean, you know, there are endless examples of actors who have become very successful. And then they've crashed and burned. They've fallen apart psychologically or they've got into substance abuse. And you know, I don't think those two things can be totally unrelated for, for certain personality types.

Speaker 2: No, I've seen this in my psychotherapy work where actors have to walk this line. You know, often actors might go into acting because they have low self-esteem, so they have to walk this line where, how do I continue doing the craft, which relies on the opinions of other people. While still developing my own self-esteem, and again, keeping myself as a more kind of [00:35:00] psychologically healthy, sovereign person.

On this note, there's a really interesting scene in the first two thirds of the film where Naomi Watts, again, as Betty, the idealistic young actress, she's auditioning for a role and she does an amazing job, and everyone in the room is totally flawed by her performance. But the director has to say something negative.

It's clear he's also flawed, but he goes, oh, well. It was a little stiff, but other than that it was pretty good. So you get the sense you had to say something negative to be a good director in some sense? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is an amazing scene and it also feels like it doesn't kind of quite match with the Betty that we've seen so far who is a bit of an ingenue and a bit saccharine and yeah, you get the sense that obviously that's like a cherished fancy of Diane's that she would wow.

A room full of casting agents, the director producers. That then she would be plucked from her world of rejection and suddenly like she's the hottest thing in town. 

Speaker 2: There was something amazing about that scene when she's [00:36:00] acting and she almost seems a little bit demonic. She seems all of a sudden, again, as you said, she's supposed to be the saccharine person, and this is the first time in the film where you get a glimpse that Naomi Watts can be something very different.

All of a sudden she's in control and she has a lot more, uh, emotional power. So again, watching it the second time, it was amazing to watch 'cause you're like, oh, okay. Not everything is as it seems. And even in the, there's another scene in that first two thirds where a random woman knocks at Bey's door and she's like, this isn't something's wrong.

You know, this isn't quite real. Whatcha 

Speaker: doing in Ru's apartment? She's letting me stay here. I'm her niece. My name's Betty. No, it's not. That's not what she said. Someone is in trouble. Something bad is happening. 

Speaker 2: And everyone thinks she's a crazy lady in that context. But again, watch it for the second time.

It's an amazing Easter egg. 

Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I was gonna say that moment with the woman who comes and she sort of has a veil over her face or something, [00:37:00] like a kind of Catholic mantilla or something. Mm-hmm. Which adds to the sort of spooky vibe of it, but for me, that's one of the instances of. The leaking of this reality that she's gonna have to reckon with ultimately.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Leaking is a great word. When you're watching the second time, that first two thirds, as you see, oh, reality is piercing through a different moment. 

Speaker 3: Exactly. I also think that's what the blue box represents as well. And the key, that's the intrusion of. This painful reality. It's like you can't live in this fancy world forever.

That seems to be saying. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's how people experience it in life when they repress something and then the reality of their situation, they experience it as an intrusion and in my profession. So something I might worry about ethically, you know, I might see someone for psychotherapy, but I might also, in other context, psychiatric context, prescribe medications.

And something that's legitimate to worry about is. When you are prescribing someone with medication, are you helping [00:38:00] them to kind of repress stuff that's important? So if you're treating someone for depression and they have good reasons to be depressed, let's say they're really unhappy about their career, are you helping by just prescribing a drug, helping them kind of maintain that status quo of unhappiness, repress that unhappiness, and kind of get along and carry on?

Now I wanna be very careful as I say this, so this is not an anti-medication point really. Uh, but it's more a point where if you're treating someone for something like depression, you want to, whether you're a psychiatrist or a therapist, try and view the patient holistically and help them view themselves holistically as well.

And be like, Hey, okay, you are low mood. Let's, yeah, medication as an option can help you feel better, can totally be an option for you. But also let's unpack why you're having this low mood and so we can take steps in your life to address it. And so, so something I worry about is that second part of the conversation often doesn't happen when drugs are prescribed.

Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So it's a kind of masking, well, if the [00:39:00] person gets the support they need that it could be that medication actually is the thing that gives them the wherewithal to then Oh yeah. Examine their life without so much fear or, or whatever. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. So they can work really well in combination. Right.

But I think medication relied on, on its own too much without a greater examination of why are you feeling bad, I think can be a problem. 

Speaker 3: I have a question for you, Alex. Yeah. Which is like, yeah. Not if someone who just murdered their ex-girlfriend came to you, but if someone who had had a very painful breakup and then came to you with something like the dream of the first two thirds, so they're asking you to interpret a dream they've had, how would you begin to sort of analyze that for them?

Speaker 2: That's a good question. So I guess with dreams, you generally don't want to just analyze it for the patient or client themselves. You want them to do as much of the work as possible. And so if a client relates a dream to me, my first question is gonna be like, what do you make of this dream? And maybe we can help unpack it together.

And sometimes [00:40:00] dreams work differently in different contexts and for different reasons. So, you know, if I was relayed this kind of dream, I might ask, you know, how do you feel about this dream? What was it like for you to have this kind of more idealistic. Persona, what was it like to be in relationship to, uh, Rita and have her being amnesia and not really have a lot of control or wherewithal?

So you're trying to get them to do the interpretation for you, but for different clients, dreams can function in quite different ways. So in Mulholland Drive, the dream is kind of an idealistic fantasy, but for other people, a dream can kind of just represent their own inner world. So every character in the dream might be a different part of their psyche.

I'm sure there's a way, perhaps you could read Mul Holland Drive like that as well. I'm not exactly sure how, but there's many ways to read dreams and generally you just want to give maybe the client some tools. Here's one way you could do it. Here's another way you could do it. Uh, but you ultimately want them to hopefully come to the understanding themselves.

I should [00:41:00] say interpreting dreams is very difficult unless you really understand the nuances of a person's life. But then once you do understand them, then collaboratively you can get a lot of very rich information from dreams. 

Speaker 3: So if Diane had maybe been a client for some time, you'd have some handle on what those things represented for her.

But if she came in as an emergency, you, you'd be a, a bit of a loss. 

Speaker 2: Absolutely, because the dreams need the context. So again, it's like watching the movie for the first time. You have like, I have no idea what this dream means. I don't know why Rita is an amnesiac. I don't know why. You know, Betty is so saccharine.

I don't know why there's this movie direct, this subplot. But then once you get the context, ah, now it won't make sense. And now there's a real richness there. Are there any other psychological truths that this film got right psychologically that you want to emphasize? 

Speaker 3: Well, actually the thing that was popping into my head that we haven't talked about in so much detail is the Silencio episode.

There's a line there where the sort of compare [00:42:00] announces. It's all an illusion. 

Speaker 5: It's all 

Speaker 4: a tape recording. 

Speaker 5: It's 

Speaker 4: an illusion. 

Speaker 3: And in a way that could be that, that's quite a big sentence. I mean, in the film maybe it's functioning as a, as a sort of signpost to the fact that this is a fantasy. There's a bigger meaning as well, isn't there?

Which is that to a certain extent and you know, this will be a kind of Buddhist inflected insight to a certain extent. Everything that we experience is illusory in so far as we construct the stories that make sense of our experience and. Those stories can change or be changed. So again, maybe there's quite a sort of fundamental bit of truth telling there.

Speaker 2: And wasn't David Lynch? I know he was into meditation. I think he was into transcendental meditation. I don't know if he was into Buddhism per se. 

Speaker 3: I think the insights would overlap anyway, because I suppose partly [00:43:00] what meditation demonstrates to you is that reality is kind of constructed and the sensations that you have or the affect that rises up.

In, in your sort of field of awareness. Mm-hmm. In a way, your interpretation of that is up for grabs. Yes. You kind of construct reality as you go along, or you construct a story, 

Speaker 2: which is a point that I think a lot of people find difficult to come to terms with. This is kind of what I meant when I said earlier, you know, don't live in fantasy.

I guess what I would want people to know is that fantasy can arise in a, in a very, very subtle way. So when I say the word fantasy, I can give an example. If you're like feeling really socially anxious and you walk into a party and you see people like looking and laughing, and then you come to the conclusion that they're looking at laughing at you, to some degree, that could be a total fantasy.

Like it could be the case that they looked at you and laughed, but it could also be they happen to laugh and look at you just as you are walking in. [00:44:00] So we are, we're making these interpretations of reality all the time. A lot of the time we're just making the interpretation, which matches our emotional state at the time, so it, it really is the case that.

Not living in fantasy really involves questioning your thoughts at quite a deep level. 

Speaker 3: I think that's definitely true. I mean, it would like, as you say, it'll be hard to sort of totally subtract fantasy from your life. 

Speaker 2: And fantasy can be useful as well. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a way that the brain leans, I guess. 

Speaker 2: I mean, fantasy is nice 'cause it's this thing.

The brain has to like imagine a better future. Imagine possibilities which don't exist now. And I think when they serve that function, again, recreational fantasy, but the problem is like living in fantasy and you know, if you imagined as a percentage being like 85% fantasy, 90% fantasy most of the time is a bad idea.

Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, and also this makes me think of the sort of default mode network. Okay. Which is the kind of, if you like. I mean, I'm probably gonna say the wrong thing here, but [00:45:00] I guess it's the sort of self-referential or ruminative faculty where you're thinking about yourself and your relation to You're lost in thought.

Exactly. And that's the name of the brain network that is supposedly active when that's going on, versus a more meditative state where you are sort of resting in awareness of what sensations are are coming up and you're sort of grounded in the physical and, and maybe you're focusing on the present moment more.

And I'm sure that David Lynch would recommend dwelling in that sort of present awareness for more time than probably most people do. 

Speaker 2: Uh, again, like if you're hearing this and you want to live more in reality and less in fantasy, acknowledging he can doit, absolutely. Meditation is one of the best tools you can use to do that.

Having a meditation practice can be the difference. In that example I mentioned between walking to a party and being like, those people are laughing at me, versus walking into the party and being like, oh, and having the thoughts. That those people are laughing at me. That's not necessarily true. And maybe I can [00:46:00] go and talk to those people and find out, you know what they think about me or talk to someone else.

That gap seems subtle. It's kind of a big deal once you achieve it. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, completely. If you just read your thoughts as a one-to-one reflection of reality, that can be really tricky. 

Speaker 2: Try writing down your stream of consciousness one time for like five minutes and it's like I'm just looking at on a piece of paper and seeing how starkly absurd so much of it is.

In terms of like other practical takeaways. So we talked about fantasy, I think unprocessed negative emotions, so jealousy, resentment, shame. Can lead us to make very bad decisions. The other thing this movement reminded me of, of course, is Cain and Abel, that classic Bible story where Cain becomes resentful because even though he's trying to make sacrifices, God doesn't think he's making the right sacrifices.

Abel gets all the success. So Cain goes ahead and kills Abel. I think resentment is one of those emotions that drives what people often view as some of the most heinous crimes. Like I think school shootings, for example, are often a result of [00:47:00] resentment. So honest confrontation with those emotions is a good idea.

Um, and maybe the last one is when people appear really wretched and hateful, as Naomi Watts appears in the last two thirds, we can often feel very repelled from those people. And maybe it's good to keep in mind those people are often deeply hurt. You know, they probably made some mistakes. They're often people who have endured a lot of difficult things and you know, people rarely end up in that state, you know, by accident.

Speaker 3: Yeah. The word pitiable just popped into my head. I mean, in a way it's just like a synonym for wretched or degraded or whatever. But it also is someone who can inspire, pity, and pity can be a empathetic emotion. However she got here. She's in a dreadful state and the thing that she did was very wrong, but it came from a deep wound.

Yeah. And a deep sense of hurt. I mean, that thing about revenge as a solution, as a way to sort of heal is really is interesting, isn't it? Because presumably there was a [00:48:00] part of her that thought, if I can just destroy Camilla, then I'll feel better. Yeah. And it's like, that's so, so wrong. It 

Speaker 2: might feel real 

Speaker 3: to a lot of people.

Yeah. But what is the satisfaction that revenge gives? I suppose it's like. You can see it with children as well. If they think that something unfair has happened, they'll rum or they'll lash out or whatever, and it's like, what is the understanding there that this is somehow gonna write the balance of things?

Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it's something like, I'm gonna make you feel as much pain as. Then you're gonna regret having fucked with me. It gets a feeling of control back. So I think often in these situations, people feel a real lack of control. Like, so in Diane's case, my career is going nowhere. I'm alone. You know, again, this is her interpretation of reality, but that's, you know, that's how she's feeling.

I have no control. And revenge, I guess, by definition, is something that you're, it's a very active. It's not a great step. It's not super mature, but it's very age agentic. You know, [00:49:00] hiring a hitman, someone, it's not healthy, but it's age agentic and I think that helps regain this sense of like, I'm in control of my life in some way.

Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. That does make sense. I'm gonna 

Speaker 2: take someone outta the picture. So in past film analysis episodes, I've talked about who I think the psychologically healthiest person in the movie is. What do you think 

Speaker 3: the most psychologically healthy person. Do you know what? I think it's the anxious guy in the in winkys in that scene because he is being honest about a difficult experience.

He's taking the tentative steps to confront it with the support of someone else. So there's a relational aspect there, and although it kind of bowls him over, so when he encounters the demon, he sort of collapses in a faint, doesn't he? But. You know, I mean, baby steps, it's like he's shared with someone, so he's externalized this difficult thing.

He's been prepared to have a go at challenging [00:50:00] himself and however they integrate, you know, I think of those guys as like a client and a therapist, and that may not be the case, but however they integrate that experience or deal with it is bound to bear some kind of fruit. Yeah. Unless, you know, if he runs away and he's like, okay, I'm not engaging with this anymore.

I'm never going back to the diner, I'm never seeing you as a therapist again. That would be a sort of phobic reaction, which wouldn't be helpful, but as the starting point for something, maybe that's a healthy thing. 

Speaker 2: Now, the only problem is that the character you mentioned is technically if we agree with our interpretation, a product of Diane's mind, so that that technically doesn't count as a, as an actual person in the movie.

And that's where I had trouble. But maybe that's a healthy part of 

Speaker 3: her. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it does rule a lot of characters out, I suppose the, the, the dream sequence side of things. There's the neighbor who again is sort of puncturing the weird world that Diane is sort of living in, but then she's not a very generous character.

It's not like she's really desirous of helping. So I dunno, who, who do you think is, [00:51:00] 

Speaker 2: I don't even have an answer. I was, I was curious to see what you would come up with. I don't think that's the most important category for this film. How would you rate this movie overall as a movie outta five? 

Speaker 3: I mean, I hesitate to give anything five stars, 'cause that just sort of suggests perfection, which, you know, nothing is ever perfect, but I would say like 4.75 stars maybe.

Okay. Alright. 

Speaker 2: Okay. I'm gonna give it a four outta five. So I think it's an excellent movie. I think like you, I'm hesitant to give anything full marks. I think there are flaws in the movie, which I don't feel as a psychiatrist and not a film critic. I don't even really feel qualified to give, you know, since I've been doing these film analysis episodes, I find the, the psychological interpretations really rich, but it's also made me realize how much film criticism itself is an art that I need to learn a hell of a lot more about before I go about critiquing films.

But overall, I want to give it a four on five. [00:52:00] How would you rate the film in terms of psychological accuracy out of five? 

Speaker 3: Maybe I'd match my 4.75 stars. I mean, I do think it feels really truthful. I also think the film has flaws watching it. Again, I find some of the industry bits they can drag a bit, so I'm not super into the sort of, um, the mafia subplot.

And 

Speaker 2: the, the weird thing about this film is this. We've talked about it for almost now, and there's so much we haven't mentioned. Yeah, that's 

Speaker 3: true. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And also the, one of the Mafia brothers, the one who is in the engagement dinner is also Angelo Badalamenti, the composer. Oh, okay. The guy who spits the espresso out.

Yeah, that's, yeah. Anyway. That's a diversion. So the psychological JI, you know, you tell me if you think there's anything that rings really not true in it because I feel that I'm on board with most of it as really feeling truthful. 

Speaker 2: I think it feels very truthful. I, I give it a 3.5 outta five in terms of psychological accuracy.

And that's not because there isn't a lot of psychological [00:53:00] truth in it, but more because like some of the films were done are either like true stories or you could interpret them very, very literally. So we did the movie. Her and I think you know, Joaquin Phoenix's character and her, we see that happening.

That's happening in real life. When we did the Wolf of Wall Street, that was based pretty accurately on a true story. So I think this film is all metaphorical truth, metaphorically, very true. But it's not good as like a one-to-one case study, if you like. I think it's 

Speaker 3: obviously a really extreme situation.

It's an extreme, so it's very unusual. It's a low probability 

Speaker 2: situation. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I wonder whether, if I had to pick holes in it. Whether Camilla's sort of torturing of Diane is entirely realistic, it feels like with the invite to the party, with the sort of parading her love for the director. Yeah. In front of Diane.

And you know, even kissing another girl in front of Diane, it feels like that's gratuitous and. [00:54:00] Would she really have subjected Diane to that? So maybe that's more of a kind of plot function than it would be something someone would actually do, unless Camilla really also has terrible psychological problems that are less explored.

Speaker 2: And often, you know, people with psychological problems find people with their counterparts psychological problems. So people who feel very insecure, who feel very unconfident often get into relationships with people who are overly confident and dominating. Right. I mean, he'd hate to see a prequel to this movie, but on some level it'd be interesting to see a Camilla and Diane prequel and see what their relationship was like before the events of the movie.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And were there any good parts to it, you know, beyond the sort of sexual attraction or whatever, was there, was there anything that more closely resembled what Betty and Rita had? Yeah. At any point, 

Speaker 2: yeah, that would be interesting. Is there a world where they could have made their relationship a bit more?

Betsy and Rita like. Before we go, uh, this is one of the last podcast episodes we're releasing in 2025, [00:55:00] the last film episode we're releasing in 2025. Are there any other films you've watched that came out this year that you want to shout out? 

Speaker 3: I recently saw Pillion, which is I think the debut feature film of a Young Bridge director.

And it's interesting, like it kind of relates to what we've been discussing about power dynamics in relationships. So it's like a, it's an unusual film. It's got a kind of Mike Lee esque kind of tweeners and humor sometimes, but actually the subject is sub dom relation, gay relationship, and Okay. I think what's interesting about it is it sort of poses the question of what is toxicity in a relationship versus what is kink playful dominance?

Well, it's a bit, this is interesting 'cause it's a bit more than playful dominance. It's like one of the guys is totally submissive and is basically like a kind of servant. Mm-hmm. And. The other is very laconic and dominant. And so it's about like, what about this is [00:56:00] fine and good for the participants to indulge in and what about it is destructive and, and the result of damage or immaturity.

But that kind of makes it sound very sort of highfalutin. It's, it's also quite a funny movie. Yeah. Unexpectedly funny and Sweet. 

Speaker 2: I haven't watched that yet. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, it, it's interesting. It felt to me like it was quite an unusual movie in its fusion of genres. Um, and then in terms of more mainstream film with a bit of a sort of blockbustery flavor.

It was the House of Dynamite, which is Catherine Bigelow's latest movie, and it's a real pressure cooker of a movie. Incredibly intense, quite stressful experience that sort of pulls out all the Hollywood stops to have you on the edge of your seat. It's a drama about, uh, potential nuclear attack on the United States.

And it's a kind of minute by minute what that experience would be like for the people in power. That definitely like left an impact on me. I, I sort of remember feeling tense all over as I left, but as a [00:57:00] piece of cinema, it's kind of amazing that something can do that to you. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, I watched House of Dynamite.

I liked a lot. Similar to you. I found it very impactful and I felt that sense of. Nervousness and, oh my God, well, how is this gonna pan out? And it, I think the film succeeds in that. I think Catherine Bigelow wanted to make a film about the reality of having nuclear weapons in the world and how dangerous that is.

I think to that extent she succeeded. I think there was maybe something unsatisfying about how the film wound down, like the first third of the film, you think, wow, this is the greatest movie ever. And then there's something unsatisfying about the conclusion. But I, I did enjoy it. Uh, films I'd like to shout out just to give you guys a sense of the kinds of films that are, you know, current that I watch.

Some of my favorite movies of the, of 2025 was weapons. So Weapons is a horror film about what happens when a whole class of kids mysteriously disappeared, I should say. I love horror films. Horror is that genre where, in my view, almost everything that gets made [00:58:00] in the horror genre isn't very good. But then the, the good stuff is some of the best cinema ever.

I think that speaks to the fact that horror has a lot more flexibility than most other genres. So when real true auto directors gets a hold of a good horror film, someone like Ari Oster, they can make a film that's truly exceptional while at the same time being incredibly entertaining. And that's how I felt about weapons.

I also loved one battle after another, which I don't really need to talk about. I think it's on everyone's minds in the cinema world right now, and it's set to potentially sweep the award season. And I loved Begonia such the Emma Stone movie where she plays a pharmaceutical CEO who gets kidnapped by a conspiracy theorist who believe that she's an alien.

And I won't tell you too much about this film, except go watch it. I really enjoyed it. I found it very thrilling. Thank you for joining us on today's episode about Mulholland Drive, arguably one of the most haunting depictions of the human psyche [00:59:00] ever put on film. It refuses to be solved definitively, but it does invite a lot of reflective discussion and interpretation.

It endures because it mirrors the complexity of our own minds, which we have to grapple with. Thanks for joining me, David today. Thanks. It was great to talk Alex.