Mulholland Dr. (2001)

A young woman (Naomi Watts) who has just arrived in Hollywood with dreams of stardom meets a mysterious woman with amnesia (Laura Elena Harring). All of this is somehow connected to a film director (Justin Theroux) who is being strong-armed and of course the eponymous street - Mulholland Drive.

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In his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditaion, Consciousness, and Creativity, director David Lynch attempts to describe his creative process:

It would be great if the entire film came all at once. But it comes, for me, in fragments. That first fragment is like the Rosetta Stone. It's the piece of the puzzle that indicates the rest. It's a hopeful puzzle piece...You fall in love with the first idea, that little tiny piece. And once you've got it, the rest will come.

Though I cannot say for certain what that "first fragment" was for Mulholland Dr., I think it might have been simply the desire to depict Los Angeles as he sees it:

I love Los Angeles. I know a lot of people go there and they see just a huge sprawl of sameness. But when you're there for a while, you realize that each section has its own mood. The golden age of cinema is still alive there, in the smell of jasmine at night and the beautiful weather.

While L.A. Confidential is easily my favorite Los Angeles film, I think Lynch was successful in making  Mulholland Dr. the definitive cinematic depiction of this city of angels. Watching the film feels like taking a drive around the city. It's all there: The beauty, the ugliness, the diners, the nightclubs, the palm trees, the light, the darkness, the hills, the bungalows, the wealthy, the poor, stars on the rise, stars on the decline, the present, the past, movie magic, etc. It all exists simultaneously in one large sprawling, living mass.