A fractal is a geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces. In simple terms, it is the Russian doll, or  “Matriochka” effect.

Fractals are a way to make another movie within a movie, as with Russian dolls. There is a film, or characters playing parts in the movie. Fractal scenes are very important in Mulholland Drive, as they give very helpful clues for the comprehension of the whole movie. The film in itself is a fractal. Indeed, we have a movie made within the Lynch film. We realize throughout the film that there are a lot of fractal scenes.

For example, at the beginning, Camilla is trying to answer Betty’s question: What’s your name? As she is amnesiac, she doesn’t know what to say. She is facing a mirror (we are now in a typical fractal situation: if you face a mirror and there is another mirror behind you, you can see yourself watching the reflection of your reflection, etc…), which seems to give her an answer by showing her a Gilda poster featuring Rita Hayworth. So she chooses the name Rita. It is the first fractal scene and it teaches us that what we see is not inevitably true, it can be a lie. We must not take what we see for granted.

In the dream part, Betty wants to help Rita to find her life. She says "It's gonna be like in the movies. We'll pretend to be someone else" and it is exactly what she does in the dream part. It suggests that everything is played, that nothing is true.

Another fractal scene is the female singer performing. We have a close-up on her and the camera tracks out and reveals us different levels of visions: the small studio, the set, the crew, and finally we understand that she is not singing, but performing on the song. Then we realize the whole scene is perceived through Betty’s eyes. It is like a vision within a vision within a vision. And through this scene Lynch tells us that nothing is believable in the movie.

Yet another fractal scene, in the dream part, is "The Silencio sequence", which is a pivot of the film. Rita and Betty go to a theatre where, in a show, a singer is singing in Spanish "llorando por tu amor" (crying for your love). And while Betty is hearing this song, she is crying.

In the real part, during a dinner between actors, directors etc., of the movie played by Camilla (she is the principal character), Betty, who is in love with her, sees Adam, the director of the movie, kissing Camilla.

As this scene is painful for her, she cries. So we notice there is a link between these two scenes, between dream and reality.

But on another level, we can perceive another fractal: the singer falls unconscious but her love song continues, so we understand she was performing in playback. And the “master of ceremony” on the Silencio set could represent Lynch himself, giving the keys of his movie, when he says “there is no band, there is no orchestra, all is illusion!”
At that moment, reality merges into the dream.

All these scenes are very important for the overall comprehension of the movie. But among all of them, the most helpful may be the link between the kitchen rehearsal scene and Betty’s audition scene. The variation between the ways of acting the same part is very important because it gives two ways to see and analyze the same scene. Just as Betty gives interpretations of the same part, we can perceive the film differently.  

It is all about interpretation. Through these fractal scenes, we begin to understand the different levels of the film.

This page was contributed by Nouria Meziane, Grégoire Roux & Sylvain Plazy, January 2005
Proofread by BM.