If one of the ways of measuring the classic status of a movie is the way in which it successfully tears up the rules of filmmaking then the films of David Lynch are clearly worthy of consideration - Lynch is no stranger to subverting narrative expectations and twisting the form into something surreal and unexpected. Mulholland Drive, his 2001 film starring Naomi Watts as an aspiring actress who finds herself embroiled in a mystery which becomes increasingly bizarre as the film progresses, condenses many of Lynch's preoccupations about memory, dreams, identity and the unconscious mind and emerges a real triumph of modern cinema. Wildly experimental and hugely atmospheric, Mulholland Drive's head-scratching plot opens up like a cinematic Pandora's Box, while repeated viewings reward the viewer with one revelation after another.
