How Mulholland Drive creates an enigma

The film Mulholland Drive develops a narrative by creating an enigma. Throughout the film, this enigma is used to create a mysterious narrative where what exactly is going on isn’t clear until the end, and even then it can still raise questions. At surface level, the plot is a woman named Betty has moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, where she meets another woman named Rita who has been involved in a car crash, and is now suffering from amnesia. The two work together to help Rita rediscover her true identity. It captures dream-like Los Angeles, however underneath the surface it uncovers a much darker underbelly., which a lot of doesn't make sense when taken out of context early on within the film, but begins to be explained as the film progresses. This serves as an enigma as while it is mysterious and difficult to understand, it becomes clearer the more and more the story unravels and more context is given. This is effective within the film as the narrative would be boring if everything was clear from the start. Part of the fun of the film is the feeling of being lost in a new city, going in with big dreams and leaving with your perception of it ruined now that you know the truth, the enigma in this film creates a much stronger feeling of this than if it was done in a linear narrative.

Lynch makes Mulholland Drive mysterious by introducing a mostly clear plotline for the first two thirds. Sometimes it diverts from this but it mostly sticks to this clear narrative about an actress trying to make a name for herself in Los Angeles. However, in the scenes where we divert from this shortly, we see that there is a darker part of this story we don't yet know and have to ignore for the time being. Throughout the plot it slowly becomes less and less clear what is happening in the film, and then in the third act, it completely spirals out of control, where the enigma overtakes what was clearly happening within the plot. This makes the film feel mysterious, because when trying to make sense of some of the events in the film it begins to feel like a puzzle. This also makes the film feel "dream-like" as within dreams, many things do not make consistent logical sense. Many things emulate the logic of real life, but when looking back to it, there are certain things that defy logic, such as events that seemingly don't line up and things that just seem off. However, despite what we might perceive as illogical, our dreams also hold a lot of meaning which reflect the events of reality, which is the enigma that this film creates. It is an optimistic dream which begins to crumble the more "Betty"'s reality begins to reflect into it. This is a perfect example of an enigma in film.