Section 1 of five · TWO HALVES
The first hour, and then the other forty minutes
Two films in one running time, and which is which.
The view the title refers to. The road appears in both halves and leads somewhere different the second time.Photo: View of Los Angeles from Mulholland Drive overlook · Wikimedia Commons
4 pieces in this section
The film changes its mind at the ninety-minute mark
The first hour behaves like the opening of a television series and the last forty minutes behave like nothing else. What separates them is not a twist but a change of rules — names, apartments and jobs all reassign themselves.
Silencio tells you it is a recording, then breaks your heart
No hay banda. There is no band, it is all a tape — and Rebekah Del Rio's performance collapses anyway, in front of two people who have just been told it is not real.
Same addresses, and nothing working
The second part reuses the first part's locations and inverts what happens in them. Reading it as dream and waking is one option; the film never confirms it.
Winkie's is where the film shows its hand early
A man describes a nightmare about the place he is standing in, walks round the back to prove it is nothing, and the film does the thing he described.