David Lynch

Hello, hello all. It's time for a good old fashioned discussion of one of the darlings of the people-who-think-they-know-everything-about-movies world: Mr. David Lynch.

Last night, as my wife and I were sitting around on a rather uneventful pre-Columbus day Sunday night, I had the bright idea to watch Mulholland Drive, a movie I've been meaning to get to since my high school years. High school was when I really started getting into film, and I remember that I started watching all the "trippy" movies first. You know the movies I'm talking about- the ones that the the weird movie kid always talked about- Donnie Darko, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Se7en- basically anything that was confusing, had a weird plot twist, or was one of those "OMG THERE'S TEN SEEMINGLY UNRELATED STORIES AND THEY'VE ALL TIED TOGETHER!" deals. I remember someone recommended that I see Mulholland Drive, and I always wanted to watch it, but just never did. It's a good thing I waited- I think my untrained Junior-in-high school mind would have exploded in a grey, stop motion mess that Lynch himself would be proud of.

I can honestly say that David Lynch movies are the only films that truly frighten me. Horror movies just don't freak me out- I went and saw Paranormal Activity on Halloween night last year, and I slept like a baby that night (except for the door opening and closing a million times in my room. What was with that?). But when I watched Blue Velvet, I couldn't get it out of my head. Blue Velvet was the first Lynch movie I ever saw, and I was totally unprepared for it. I had a burned copy of the movie that my friend had given me, and I popped it in to my dvd player on a hot June night at 1 in the morning as one of those "oh well, there's nothing else to do" activities. I was not prepared to meet one of the most evil characters I have ever seen in cinema: the terrifying Frank Booth, a psychopathic criminal whose frightening machinations cannot be described adequately without spoiling the movie.

Eraserhead, Lynch's first feature-film, is another one that left me unsettled and haunted. The plot of the film is extremely surreal, so you'll just have to watch it. Look forward to very strange images and an overall sense of dread while viewing the film. The entire setting of the movie takes place in a dystopian, decaying city, and it's filmed in black and white in a noir style. Again, I don't want to post pictures of any images from the movie, as it'll take away from its effect.

Mulholland Drive takes the cake though for that haunting, can't stop thinking about it quality that Lynch films induce in me. The plot, boiled down to it's simplest form, is this: A woman loses her memory and tries to retrace the series of the events with the help of a young actress. But it's much more than that- the entire film is non-linear, some plots are never resolved and has this strange, waking from a dream feeling as you watch it. The sense of suspense and uncertainty pervades throughout the whole film, which fills the viewer with fear. Even in traditional horror films, there is still the refuge the viewer has in the existing plot or conflict. Mulholland Drive keeps you guessing, and you begin to freak out realizing that Lynch is fooling you, constantly leaving you with questions that are never answered.

Enormous thesis length stuff has been written on David Lynch films, and this little blog post doesn't do him enough justice. If you like movies that make you think, or movies that make you make sure the fabric of the universe is collapsing in front of you, watch one of his works.