Happy Birthday David Lynch!

I stopped trying to make sense of David Lynch films in the moment I realized that a woman with chubby cheeks was dancing inside of a radiator. While ERASERHEAD rests comfortably in the realm of great film making, I have barely met one person that is confident of its true meaning. David Lynch is one of those infuriating director’s that keeps most of the deeper meanings of his films to himself. This is why I’ve resigned myself to believe that David Lynch composes the bulk of his films with the aid of a gigantic wheel depicting several random and seemingly unrelated phrases. The wheel is spun until Lynch arrives at the strangest imaginable description of something and then he writes the scene literally.

Ignore the misspelt Nitrous

Here are some possible results of the wheel of ridiculousness.

Old people, paper bag, smiling, purgatory, dumpster, monster.

Swollen cheeks, radiator, weird dance, uncomfortable, worms, squish.

Nitrous Oxide, humping, daddy, closet, velvet.

See? It makes perfect sense. This is why he never tells anyone what the hell his movies are supposed to mean. They mean nothing.

Of course there is another possibility. I suppose what really happens is that David Lynch is a genius. A man who thinks of things few of us will ever be able to experience. A man who probably thinks in terms of algebraic functions, or worse---knows what they mean. Yes, that must be it. The very thought that someone out there conceived of a notion where the sounds of a radiator turn into a scary woman dancing on a stage and squishing worms is enough to make my head explode. It makes me want to find a secret door and enter into his head, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH style. Would I find the inner workings of a factory, churning out Kafka ideals and existential thoughts? Or would I find a chaotic palette of random ideas and themes meshed together like one grotesque blob?

Aside from the fact that most of us have no idea what these films mean, we tend to love them regardless. While I admit to needing some time to get warmed up, I believe I have finally reached a point in my life where my acceptance swells with a bright feeling of joy. Yesterday I found myself craving the need to watch MULHOLLAND DRIVE again, and before that I was immersed in the land of DUNE—hypnotized by Kyle MacLachlan’s odd inner monologue about the spice. This is a step above where I was previously. Before this I found that I had to be in a very specific mood in order to even pay attention to a film as surreal and oddly moving as one of Lynch’s. It took me two tries to watch BLUE VELVET and I only watched half of ERASERHEAD before being so strangely disturbed that I had to take a break of 6 months before a second attempt.

This brings me to a question that has been plaguing me for a while now. What is it about David Lynch and his films that often leaves them on lists of disturbed films? Having just watched IRREVERSIBLE, I was combing through lists of what others had deemed the most shocking and disturbing films. I’m always a bit surprised however to find that ERASERHEAD almost always appears somewhere in the top five. Can I really agree that ERASERHEAD is more disturbing than a film like IRREVERSIBLE or even CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST? Strangely, I think I can. After all, I was able to watch CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST in one viewing but ERASERHEAD for whatever reason had me tripped up. If trying to figure out what David Lynch’s films really mean is impossible, then trying to come to a conclusion of what makes them particularly disturbing must be equally hopeless.

As far as I can tell, ERASERHEAD employs the Lynchian method of trapping the viewer inside a tiny bubble of confusion, keeping them cut off from oxygen and only supplying them with strange images and themes. We are kept in the dark, away from civilization and we are instead forced to watch a world in which deformed cackling cow fetuses laugh at men with fuzzy hair and where a line of pencils comes dangerously close to becoming the world’s most beautiful shot in the world. I’m serious. When I think of how uniquely perfect that shot of all the pencils is, I start slowly placing it over CITIZEN KANE inside my head. Pencils. Pencils!!!

When I’m watching ERASERHEAD I feel like I’m trapped in the bowels of a nightmare. I get worried that if I watch it for too long my head will be trapped inside of that world and that I’ll develop an eraserhead too.

It surely is one of those nightmares that you can’t wake up from. Sure, no one gets raped-- but cow fetuses get stabbed and weird shit happens. Like really weird shit. ERASERHEAD with all of its oddities then is something of a mind fuck and is a film that impairs some portion of your daily thought processes. It is perhaps one of the most disturbing films that I’ve ever seen. It’s unexplainable aura of dread and its nightmarish landscape of industrial waste is in fact something that sticks with its viewer until long after they watch it. Even still to this day, when I lay on my bed and hear those sizzling obscenities emanating from the radiator, I envision—hell.

No Hay Banda

I have a bad problem with cravings. Not drug cravings unfortunately, just food, cat and movie cravings. Cravings that are so bad, they wake me up in the middle of the night and whisper evil things into my ear. Alright well maybe not--but in cravings' defense they probably try to whisper evil things in my ear but I love my bed so much that I'm dead to the world. By the way when I say "cat cravings" I don't mean that I want to eat cats. That is gross and wildly inappropriate. I just mean that I have a craving to kiss them a lot.

Lately I've being fending off an insatiable need to watch a ton of David Lynch films. Not that that's such a bad thing---why fight off pure, unadulterated awesome right? Mainly my problem is that Netflix doesn't offer many on Instant Watch which sours my cravings. It's kind of like when you really want a delicious sandwich but they are closed. That is what it was like anyways until I remembered that I have MONEY and can rent movies on Amazon and/or ITunes for the low price of 3 dollars. That is how I ended up at 10:30PM last night, watching Mulholland Drive in my bed, eating 4 dollar cookies from Trader Joes and having my head explode for the 2nd time.

Truth be told, I've been wanting to re-watch Mulholland Drive for the better part of the year. There's something about not knowing what a movie means yet being so inexplicably infatuated with it that really speaks to me. Curse you David Lynch and your tight lipped explanations of what your films are really about.

It's no matter though, because last night I realized quite simply that the key to understanding Mulholland Drive and LIFE, is Club Silencio.

No hay banda. There is no band. Yet, we think there is because we fall in love with the illusion of there being one. Is it possible that David Lynch is trying to speak to us through Club Silencio? Is it possible that David Lynch is saying...NO HAY BANDA in regards to the labyrinth of possible explanations surrounding the film?

To me, 'No hay banda' has a double meaning. The on surface easily attainable meaning of there being no band in Club Silencio, and the idea of there being no real explanation or overall "meaning" to Mulholland Drive. Well, sure there's meaning alright but I'm talking more in that burning desire to shake David Lunch and yell, "WHAT DOES IT MEAN" kind of way. It goes back to that whole idea of our human nature always wanting things explained. Why? Why do we have to dissect what is medically accurate and what is not in regards to The Human Centipede? Why does the improbability of Jason's life and human existence have to do with how much we enjoy Friday the 13th? Why does everything need to have an answer?

According to Club Silencio...it doesn't. That's the beauty of a David Lynch film and perhaps the main reason why so many people fail to really latch onto and be sucked into them. There doesn't need to be an explanation. All you need to do is sit in a darkened theater and cry.

Cry while you watch a woman lip sync a beautiful song and then collapse. Cry while you realize that there is a creepy woman (man?) in a blue wig in the balcony. Cry when you realize that the key to everything has been in your purse the entire time. Don't think---just watch and be sucked into that illusion.

You could spend hours and hours dissecting every single scene and drawing diagrams and connecting this to that and that to this---and for what? Is that really what Lynch was trying to achieve with Mulholland Drive? To force us to cry with painful exhaustion of not knowing? I don't think so.Because what is David Lynch's overall message to us by the film's end?

SILENCIO.

Be quiet. Shut up. And just watch and be affected by this 2 hours and 30 minutes of beauty, confusion and awesome. No hay banda.

Twin Peaks: Joining the Cool Kids

I'm so glad that I can finally sit with the cool kids at the lunch table. No more of this, "Who is Laura Palmer?" embarrassment or pretending that I know who BOB is. Yes, you can all welcome me into the group because I've experienced Twin Peaks for myself. After watching the series in only a few short weeks and finally ending today with Fire Walk With Me, I'm ready to talk.

Let it be known that I had certain expectations going into Twin Peaks. I expected scene after scene of oddity and visions of scary things that would have surely put me into a coma had I seen them when I was little. I expected an intriguing mystery and the signature style of David Lynch echoing off every wall in the room. Mostly however I expected the creepy--and I got it, sort of.

Here is what I think about Twin Peaks:

If I could play both Cooper's dream and the ending scene in the Black Lodge repeatedly throughout my day, I would be simultaneously happy and terrified.

I LOVE these parts--a little too much to be frank. I find myself alone in my bedroom trying to mimic the strange dance steps of the midget in the red suit.

I practice speaking backwards when I'm trying to fall asleep late at night. These scenes are the ones that slap you in the face and yell really loudly---LYNCH! I knew he was hiding somewhere.

To be honest even though it pains me a little to say this--I can really only say that I like Twin Peaks.

Like, I LIKE you Twin Peaks. (Yes that is a Pee-Wee's Big Adventure Quote, thank you very much)

But. And a big but, I love the episodes that David Lynch directs.

Anything else feels like a lack luster detective series in a sleepy town--which is exactly what Twin Peaks is. The difference is that when David Lynch is calling the shots, the lack luster detective series gets sprinkled with some very exciting and exotic spices. Don't hate on me. I can tell you're hating on me and it's fine. As with most things I experience, I'm late to the party so all the purists have a small right to call me out.

Here's the thing though. I have an outside point of view at all of this. I'm watching the entire series in a consecutive line and finishing with the film. There is some good and bad news because of this. The good news is that all those people crying that Fire Walk With Me is completely different from the TV show are wrong (it's exactly like it only with boobs) and the bad news is that I can understand why it got cancelled prematurely.

The fact is--the show felt just as I explained it above. Really amazing and awesome in some parts and episodes, and terribly boring and pointless in others. There feels like something was missing in Twin Peaks short running. The characters were there and they were great. The story however felt much too pulled in different directions--with only one story being very interesting and important to the ultimate question.

It IS the death of Laura Palmer that excites people the most after all.

It's that supernatural element that gets people amped up and curious about how things will unfold. Even when Laura's killer is revealed prematurely--we still crave what happens because we know that BOB is not finished yet. He didn't die--the idea of him and the vision of his face still exists. The Black Lodge still exists. So maybe that is what Twin Peaks needed in the end-- a little focus.

Still though, one cannot deny that I do love several aspects of both the show and the film. I love the quirkiness. The oddball aspect. I love Kyle Maclachlan

and the camaraderie happening between he and his police boys. I love the terrifying visions of BOB, lurking either just out of sight or completely in your face.

I love the little things---like those subtle David Lynch trademarks; a singer or performer in a bar, clueless detectives, and driving on long highways. I love the Log Lady with a deep and confusing passion.

Fire Walk With Me additionally paints a stunning portrait of Laura Palmer's last days. This film although received coldly by most--was the perfect thing to do with leftover Twin Peaks scraps. Like I said earlier, we all (probably) only cared about Laura Palmer. And even though Sheryl Lee is a terrible over-acter, her entire story and the eventual collapse of her mind and body is both horrifying and depressing. Plus, it brings back the creepy with the midget in the red suit and BOB and Mike. Plus there is cocaine and boobs. And a really, really scary "nightclub" that makes me cry.

So please do not take my thoughts as attacks against Twin Peaks. I do love it and I love this whole world that Lynch and Frost created. It gave me something to come home to at least, something to look forward to. Sure, it may not have lived up to my expectations, but in the end---I can go dancing with the midget in the red suit all I want.

That is all I really need after all.

I'll talk about Twin Peaks again and one of these days we can get together and swap theories and play truth or dare. Because there is A LOT to discuss obviously....and so much I still don't understand. Sigh.

Also, the next time someone makes me angry I'm going to be wishing that a BOB comes into your bedroom late at night. So be careful what you say.