Mulholland Dr.

Lynch's labyrinthine meditation on identity, obsession and memory owes much to both Persona and 3 Women in the surreal, and quite literal, transferral of its two central female characters. While several plot lines run in tandem, the focus remains on Betty, an aspiring young actress who gets drawn into the darkest depths of Hollywood as she helps an enigmatic amnesiac named Rita search for her lost identity.

All the usual Lynchian trappings are present, although here he keeps the emotions of the women at the forefront of the film, generating a warmth not always present in his other work, as well as featuring a lesbian sex scene of candid passion and intensity uncommon in Hollywood cinema.

Hypnotic, confusing and deeply erotic, this is a distorted lesbian love story where nothing is as it seems, and no-one is who they first appear to be.

Michael Blyth