3

In Mulholland Drive Diane (Naomi Watts) asks a man (Mark Pellegrino) to kill Camilla (Laura Elena Harring) at a diner.

This man is earlier shown killing some other guy and in turn having to kill another woman and then the janitor. Though the scene is hilarious, what is the relevance to the film?

Is it just to establish that he is an assassin who is sloppy or does it have a deeper interpretation?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

As mentioned in this question there is a pretty good analysis of the movie here. Here is a snippet about the hitman:

The hit man thing is confusing. Who is the long-haired guy he murders? And what about the prostitute he ushers into the van? Is that Diane, too?

The guy he shot so perfunctorily made some remark about a car accident. The implication seems to be that he was in one of the joyriding cars that hit the limo, and that he ended up with some sort of black book that the guys who were about to kill Rita possessed. In the logic of Diane’s dream, the hit man needed that as a lead to where she was. We know that it’s not going to help him find Rita, but he doesn’t know that.

As for him later on at the diner, remember that at that point Diane is awake. Earlier when the hit man shoots the janitor (and everything else) that is during a dream. There may or may not be a real significance or relevance (this is a David Lynch film after all), but a lot of the movie seems to show the contrast between Diane's dream (what she wants to happen) and her reality.

It has been a while since I have seen the movie, so if I am mistaken about the timeline or anything feel free to correct me!

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    Hmm, true but instead of it being a straight out assassination, he ends up killing two others because of his goofing up. Diane dreams of this sequence this way because she imagines Camilla's assassination to be this way, humorous, so she could better deal with the fact that Diane got Camilla killed? (Perhaps?)
    – John
    Dec 23, 2014 at 6:28
  • 1
    @John - Interesting thought! I also considered something similar: since Diane's dream is basically a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy, maybe Diane dreams that the assassin is clumsy and not very good at his job, and thus might have even failed to murder Camilla in reality
    – pitamer
    Apr 20, 2021 at 18:11
  • 1
    @pitamer, right-o!
    – John
    Apr 22, 2021 at 11:24

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .