London Film Festival 2017 report

So I’ve survived in London long enough to make it to my second Film Festival and whilst the pressure of full time work during one of the busiest times of the year was exhausting, the draw of strange new films was too enticing. In the end I saw 4 films in about a week, which really didn’t help with my lack of sleep and general weariness, but I think it was definitely worth it. There were fewer knockout hits than I saw last year, but each of these films offered their own unique pleasures.

Rift (Erlingur Thoroddsen; Iceland; 2017)

The original title of my first viewing, an eerie, chilly and compelling film called Rökkur, roughly translates from Icelandic as ‘twilight’. But as the director joked at the Q&A afterwards, that name was already taken. I think that Rift is a much better title anyway, describing not only the underlying theme of the film about the distances that can grow between those in relationships, but also the vast landscape of caverns, plains and faultlines that play an important part of the story.

Several months after a break-up, Gunnar (Björn Stefánsson) receives a call in the middle of the night from ex-boyfriend Einar (Sigurður Þór Óskarsson), sounding distressed and paranoid. Worried, Gunnar drives up to the isolated cabin (the eponymous Rökkur) to check on him. Stuck together, the two are forced to confront the issues that drove them apart as painful memories resurface. All the while, strange things happen at night – mysterious banging on the door and ghostly presences in the lava fields around them.

I went in expecting a cryptic relationship drama, a literal ghosts of relationships past sort of film. And at its core it was. The depiction of the central relationship, from the younger and more unstable and romantic Einar to the more pragmatic but troubled Gunnar, is convincing and enthralling. The actors fully realise their characters and their chemistry and interactions feels genuine. Scenes of them simply talking, discussing their feelings, or reliving the past (at one point almost in a trance-like state) are among the film’s highlights and I feel they would have worked effectively on their own. And there’s no ignoring the harsh and wild beauty of the landscape around them and that too is used effectively, handsomely shot and making clever use of abandoned buildings interacting with the local geography.

It’s the tying of this story with the horror elements and much more beside that that complicates things. A lot of the tense moments are cliche, but effectively so. The shift in the second half to more outward horror territory is gripping, with one or two genuinely chilling moments which caught me off guard, particularly one scene involving GoPro camera footage. But the film tries to juggle too many strands at once and that causes it to lose focus and coherence. I imagine it was the director’s intention to make it unclear whether the threat is real or supernatural, to ramp up the uncanniness.  But multiple themes and subplots keep being brought to the fore, and it gets a little frustrating when the film can’t decide which way to head beyond splitting in multiple directions. I respect his ambition in trying to cover so much, from depression to homophobia, self-destructive behaviour to childhood trauma, and the uniquely magical properties of this distinct landscape. It’s a shame it gets a little lost in its tussle between the real and the unreal, the outward and the inward, to the point where I don’t think the director himself really felt he could disentangle himself from the mire of ambiguity. I think this had the potential to be a truly great film, it just falls a little short. But that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it a lot, and have to admit it was the most unnerving film I had seen at the cinema for a while.

 

Mutafukaz (Shoujirou Nishimi, Guillaume ‘Run’ Renard; France/Japan; 2017)

Now this one looked fun. A French-Japanese anime, rooted in hip-hop music, the freneticism of Luc Besson and Wachowskis action films, the broad and brazen cultural stereotyping and casual violence of the GTA games, and the dense appropriation of graphic novels and comic book lore. Adapted from a French comic book series, the sheer weight of counterculture references and midnight movie thrills make this feel like a future cult classic, even if it does feel like it’s trying quite too hard to be a future cult classic. But that’s no faulting what is essentially fanboy servicing – a gleefully bombastic checklist of cheap thrills, skillfully presented to be devoured with maximum stoner cravings.

We follow Angelino, a loser pizza delivery boy crashing in a cockroach-infested squat of an apartment with his best friend and fellow down-and-outer Vinz. The fact that Angelino has a giant round black head and Vinz is a flaming skeleton just plays into the loose logic of this film. They survive in the sprawling Californian metropolis Dark Meat City, here rendered with a staggering ragged beauty, full of shitty diners, sun-drenched decay and graffiti-drenched ghettos. After Angelino cracks his cranium in a bike accident he begins to see strange visions of demon shadows. He tries to brush it off as a result of the crash, until the bulky men in black appear with even bulkier guns, determined to take him down.

What follows is a pretty loose, nonsensical escape adventure. We find out more about the mystery men and their plots, and this is a source of some cute jokes about their plans to change the world. But that’s not what really matters in this film – it’s all about the ride, not the destination. Like the best animes, this has a fierce eye for action and the keen focus on little details in the animation make this a hell of a good ride.

I enjoyed this a great deal whilst watching the action scenes. The rest is pure teenage boy fan-fic fantasy, including the lone female character in the entire film being no more than a foil for Angelino to be drawn to. And after leaving the screen, it hardly left much of an imprint on my mind to dwell on afterwards. But the buzz of energy this film offered was more than worth the cost of the ticket

 

Let the Corpses Tan (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani; Belgium/France; 2017)

And so came my second night in a row of Gallic pulpy thrills. The title alone gives a pretty good idea of what to expect – this is a bold, brash, confrontational film. It’s also a complete riot and a feast for the senses. This is the film that Free Fire wishes it was. Not that that film was bad, but Corpses has so much more impact, is so much more taut, and has more outlandish thrills and distinct setpieces. It’s very much a case of more is more.

Set in the harsh sun of the Mediterranean coast, an artist (Elina Löwensohn) lives in an isolated villa, inviting guests happy to be away from wider society. It just happens that her latest visitors are a gang of robbers, hiding a heist of gold bullion in their car boot. Two cops make the mistake of getting involved before a ridiculously complex shootout for survival bursts alight.

At first, the entire thing feels like it is just going to be a blatant spaghetti western pastiche, apeing Sergio Leone’s distinct style – hip-level framing of stand-offs between characters; an excessive use of extreme close-ups on eyes and hands; bursts of scuzzy colour; a sparseness of landscape that positively drips with sweat. One character even has a necklace that plays like a music box.
It’s once the action setpieces kick in that the husband and wife directing duo really hit their stride. Everything is designed to overwhelm – gunshots burst with the sound of small explosions, and the constant creasing sounds of leather jackets and gloves give this an almost fetishistic level of obsessive detail. Playfully animated camera movements give even simple conversations an ridiculous degree of animation.

Subtle it ain’t. I think your level of enjoyment with this film will depend on how patient you are willing to be with their excessive obsessions and the complete lack of anything resembling a plot or character development. It’s the directors gleefully fucking around with your sensibilities with their wonderfully crafted piece of exploitation. Sound and vision is central – the sheer level of rough sheen granted to shots of ashes billowing gracefully from a burning car, or the impact of the explosion of bloody matter from a skull tells you everything you need to know about where this film’s interests lie. I really enjoyed it – frankly just thinking about it now is making me want to see it again. I’m so glad I got to see it on a big screen.

 

Ex Libris – The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman; USA; 2017)

So what comes to mind when I tell you this is a 3 hour and 17 minute documentary about the New York Public Library? On first impressions, it seems like it could probably be one of the most dull and drawn-out things ever made. But this is the latest work from Frederick Wiseman, the living legend documentarian still going strong in his 80s. I’d been meaning to try one of his films for a long time, from his earlier work with High School and Hospital, to his recent films exploring institutions of learning, National Gallery and At Berkeley. I was lucky to get to see this at a busy screening the BFI with the man himself doing a Q&A after.

This film is peak definition of fly-on-the-wall doc. He said he and his cinematographer filmed over 150 hours over 12 weeks, and he spent nearly a year editing it down. There’s no overarching story or protagonist, no narration, no sense of mass upheaval or change. This is literally just some highlights and everyday footage of working life in the vast caverns and many buildings and spaces the library occupies across New York. We see kids classes; what members of the public are doing on their computers; talks with authors including discussions with Patti Smith and Elvis Costello; seminars about topics ranging from slavery to the history of Jewish delis; senior team meetings; afternoon concerts. The range of content is dizzying, and it gives a wonderfully vast portrait of how important an institution like this is, how much it offers to so many, and how much work goes into keeping it going.

At times dull, sometimes charmingly odd and funny, often inspirational, Ex Libris is very much a film one can get lost in. It’s a huge testament to how seamlessly it was edited together that it flows so smoothly, and that it can cut together an hour-long board meeting into a 5 minute clip that gives an immersive view on how they discuss the future of the library.

This is a film which celebrates a love of learning and curiosity, and simply portrays the unparalleled good such an institution can bring to so many. We see meetings to discuss the need to share resources more fairly with underprivileged communities; an engaging lecture about the importance of sign language; a scheme to grant poorer families their own wifi routers. It’s a heartening film, steeped so overwhelmingly with snippets of people working hard to help others, share knowledge and better themselves. I probably won’t need to see it again, but as a study of the wonderful everyday, it’s a fine piece of work.

 

Some personal 2015 album highlights

Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell
Whilst Sufjan Stevens is often described primarily as a folk artist, his work often has a theatrical flourish and an audacious mixture of themes and instrumental layering that takes it beyond any solid genre boundaries. No more so than his last studio album 2010’s The Age of Adz, his most enjoyably outlandish and maximalist work yet. But Carrie and Lowell strips all that back to make an album which is markedly bare, one which relies almost entirely on his softly-spoken lyrics and sparse instrumentation. Concerning the death of his mother with whom he had a troubled relationship, as well as exploring his own personal struggles, the album is almost Stevens exposing himself to the point where it could become uncomfortable. But his remarkable poeticism (his lyrics are pure poetry) create a profoundly melancholic but hopeful record, which at once engages with the sheer universality in its themes on grief and loss, whilst also making something deeply personal and unique.

 

Róisín Murphy – Hairless Toys
Listening to Hairless Toys the first time, I found it fairly impenetrable and a little distancing. But listening again a few months later, in my room, lights off and no distractions, it really grew on me. Give it the time and attention it deserves and it rewards with an inventive and deeply atmospheric and immersive listen. Murphy’s inspirations are diverse, from Nile Rodgers-esque funk to stark experimental electronica and house. Each track takes its time to build to some excellently evocative highs, filled with some playfully ironic wordplay and carefully constructed layers that reveal themselves through further listens.

The official remix is well worth checking out too.

Tame Impala – Currents
Kevin Parker is undisputedly one of the most creative and talented minds working in music today. With the gradual release of four top notch singles earlier this year, he introduced the shift on Currents largely away from the guitar-based rock of before to some gloriously psychedelic synth-infused soundscapes complete with elegant drumlines. Like previous records, this finds Parker questioning his place in life, the need for solitude and his feelings of distance from other people. But like how Currents is a record of transitions in style, so too does he address how he himself is in transition. Many have read it as a break-up album – consider how epic centrepiece ‘Eventually’ explains how change is needed to relieve pain, how “I know that I’ll be happier, and I know you will too”. The ambiguity of the lyrics and how they often contrast with the gorgeous arrangements meant I found Currents more difficult to engage with at first compared to Lonerism, but it didn’t take long to appreciate it as a lush collective album.

Ezra Furman – Perpetual Motion People
There have been so many established artists who I’ve only just gotten round to truly discovering this year. But I’m sure it was a big discovery for many listeners in the case of Ezra Furman, who I first encountered getting deserved airtime on BBC 6 Music over summer. It’s upon finding out that he’s already released several albums with various bands before that explains why this album comes feeling so confident and assured. It wears its outsider status with pride, coming from a bisexual genderfluid practising Jew, and taking loving influence from Velvet Underground distortion and 1950s doo-wop pop. It covers social and personal issues invitingly and playfully, and bristles with such a raw energy to make these disparate genres and influences feel refreshing and new. I was upset when I missed out on tickets to see him live this year, as I’m sure his live shows are a blast.

Joanna Newsom – Divers
I have to confess Joanna Newsom is another one of those artists I only got around to listening to this year but, like many more before me I suspect, I was instantly enamoured with the richness of her compositions and playful expanse of her lyrics. It was second track ‘Sapokanikan’ that got me, with the amazing vocal flourishes at the ends of the verses, when her voice is so sweet and airy as she sings “Do you love me? / Will you remember?”. Her propensity for storytelling and her dense vivid vocabulary means I’ll probably need a few more listens at least before I can really begin to appreciate the content in any depth, but I couldn’t help but immerse myself in the gorgeous precision and textures of her baroque instrumentation. None more so than the vast magnum opus of the title track, a feminist epic of longing that counts as probably my favourite song of this year.

Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
Courtney Barnett’s debut is probably the most brazenly enjoyable album I’ve heard this year. Again, I was unfamiliar with her before, but the intensely witty and personal observational storytelling of Sometimes I Sit and Think… feels wonderfully fresh and necessary. The real standout is her droll yet invitingly warm delivery of her idiosyncratic views on life in modern Australia, from her pervasive sense of ennui, her struggles with the consumerist choices of buying organic vegetables or not (amongst other things), her indifference to the fear of missing out, or her affront to the weight of expectation others place on her in ‘Pedestrian at Best’. It often feels urgent – the music sometimes struggles to keep up with her tongue-twisting rambling – but never to the point it becomes alienating.

John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
I had no idea John Grant was back with new material until I unexpectedly saw him performing on Jools Holland a few months ago. He’s continuing his string of excellent self-examining albums with his third solo effort which sees him approaching middle age and coming to terms with his HIV positive status. As before, his genuine confessional takes on his personal life comes with his trademark wry wit and offbeat humour, like his coming to terms with his health by proclaiming “there are children who have cancer / and so all bets are off / cos I can’t compete with that.”

Extra mentions: LA Priest – Inji; Alabama Shakes – Sound and Color; C Duncan – Architect; Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear; Jamie xx – In Colour; Grimes – Art Angels; Slaves – Are You Satisfied?; New Order – Music Complete; Matthew E White – Fresh Blood

“It’s a strange world” – Delving into the dreams of David Lynch

Finally, my first original blog post! In a long time, admittedly. And I’m not making things easy for myself by deciding to attempt to decypher the films of David Lynch. This has all come about because part of my summer viewing, trying to fill the post-uni void, has been the two series of Twin Peaks (1990-1991). I’ve been wanting to watch it for a while but simply kept forgetting about it, especially when I have so many other shows on the go. But I’ve finally started, and am currently making my way through season two, and I’m so glad. It’s really something special!

For a show that’s over 20 years old, it still feels remarkably fresh. Daring even, with many of the show’s plot twists, stylistic flourishes, strong directing, bold (and quite large) cast of characters, and surrealist elements coming across as pretty radical even now. Which makes it all the more remarkable considering this preceded the rise of the supposed third golden age of quality television, usually signalled as beginning with The Sopranos (1999-2007). Twin Peaks has a distinctly cinematic feel to it which I can’t help feeling has been a huge influence on later shows (someone please tell me if there are other more important examples!), such as its careful and expressive use of lighting and framing, and the importance of visions and dream sequences.

The show is centred around the investigation into the murder of Laura Palmer, a popular schoolgirl and homecoming queen from the small rural town of Twin Peaks in Washington state, near the Canadian border. Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) of the FBI is brought in to investiagate. However, the murder mystery actually only makes up a small part of the show, which is more concerned with the lives and stories of the eccentric townspeople including Laura’s boyfriend Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), her secret lover James (James Marshall), her best friend Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), her grieving parents (Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie) as well as the insidious goings-on of wealthy businessman Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and his sultry daughter Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn). For me, Agent Cooper is fast becoming one of my favourite characters ever – both immensely practical and infectiously positive, he’s a joy to watch.

What I admire most about this show, and indeed all of Lynch’s work, is its sense of tone. The show has the cold seriousness of a mystery investigation, but also contains many melodramatic elements of a soap opera when focused on the other characters. Many scenes even have a weird sense of humour to them which can be genuinely and unexpectedly funny. The first season even parodies its soapy roots, by having many plot elements run parallel to those of an in-show daytime soap called ‘Invitation to Love’. Finally, there is a supernatural undercurrent which blurs and layers the show, giving it added depth and making it more mystifying and unique. What I really respect is how even within scenes, this tone can veer from deeply creepy and unnerving, to sublimely ridiculous without it feeling forced or off. This is partly helped by Angelo Badalamenti’s near-omnipresent soundtrack, which can be both jazzy and atmospheric. A lot of it comes down to the consistency of the show’s writing and directing though.

This all got me thinking about David Lynch, and how, from the few films I’ve seen so far, his work seems so distinctly… well, Lynchian. He has the most impressive control of atmosphere, and puts a real importance on sound design and iconography. So I decided to go on a bit of a mini-Lynch marathon and see how some of his films compare to Twin Peaks, which I’ve found so inspiring.

Wild at Heart (1990)

“You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt”

I think this was quite a weird film to start with, because Wild at Heart seems fairly different to the films I’d seen before. Much of the darkness and disturbing dream logic isn’t present. Instead this is a pulpy thriller, one with a broad and pretty crass sense of humour which you aren’t supposed to take too seriously. I really wanted to like this film, and the first half hour or so seemed promising. A young lovers on the run tale, it follows the road trip of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern). Sailor had been imprisoned and separated from Lula for killing a man who had attacked him with a knife, but he’s done his time and now they escape together, much to the chagrin of Lula’s deranged mother Marietta (Diane Ladd). Maddened by jealousy and the thought of her daughter with a criminal, she sends both a private detective and a hitman after them.

I’m not sure whether this differing tone is perhaps due to this being the only one of Lynch’s films I’ve seen which is an adaptation, being based on a pulp novel by Barry Gifford (I haven’t seen Dune (1984) yet). The problems I found with this film is firstly that I began to find it boring towards the middle, as the story became more self-indulgent and plodding. A lot of the plot involves various flashbacks as characters describe events or reminisce, which I found messy storytelling. Indeed, I couldn’t help feeling Lynch in this case was far too interested in iconography and deranged excess, that it comes at the expense of proper context and characters.

I do really like Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in this; they give it their all despite the limited development of their characters, like his Elvis-style drawl and awesome snakeskin jacket (“a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom”), to her high-school wild charm. An early scene where Sailor wins a fight in a club, then leads the band in a rendition of an Elvis Presley track is pretty cool. A lot of the dialogue is snappy and quotable. But many of the characters are pushed to the point of cartoonishness, from Marietta’s screaming and smearing lipstick all over her face, to Willem Dafoe’s slimy bad-toothed gangster. A scene where he sexually threatens Lula leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, coming across like the film is almost sneering at Lula’s abuse. Yet even the two leads are barely drawn more than pop culture cliches. It all begins to undermine the seriousness of the storyline. On top of that, the film’s frequent references to The Wizard of Oz as an attempt to comment on the plot begin to feel heavy-handed after a few mentions. Some of Lynch’s surreal twists are here, but they feel out of place with the rest of the film which ends up a mess for me.

Blue Velvet (1986)

“I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert…”

It was a few years since I’d seen this, and what surprised me on both viewings is how straightforward I found Blue Velvet. Not to say that it’s simple, it’s still a weird and psychologically complex film about destructive sexuality and voyeurism. But more that the storyline is surprisingly grounded and driven – it has a definitive beginning, middle and end. College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle Maclachlan) returns home to the quaint suburbs of Lumberton to visit his father who has been hospitalised. One day when walking through a field, Jeffrey finds a severed ear, which he takes to the police. Through this, he begins a friendship with a detective’s daughter Sandy (Laura Dern), and through her learns how the ear may be linked to investigations into a nightclub singer called Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). His curiosity piqued, Jeffrey begins investigating Dorothy himself, which takes him into a seedy world of crime.

What’s so great about Blue Velvet, similar to Twin Peaks, is its hybridity of tone and genre. Blue Velvet plays out like a neo-noir detective story, but also contains elements of horror, erotic thrillers and teen films. It’s this combination of teen drama, and the innate curiosity and innocence of its protagonists, as contrasted to the darker elements of the story, which I find so interesting. As many have pointed out, this film is about the sinister underbelly of everyday America, the disturbing events hidden beneath the ordinary surface, often symbolised through images of insects such as in the iconic opening scene. This is a major theme in Twin Peaks too, and watching this back, I can see how this theme had such a big influence on later films like Donnie Darko (2001) and Brick (2005). For me, this film also has some of Lynch’s most well-developed and interesting characters. From Jeffrey and Sandy’s natural awkward teen dialogue and 1950s throwback style, but especially with Dorothy’s vulnerable and tortured sexuality and Dennis Hopper’s foul-mouthed character Frank Booth, with his iconic gas mask and disturbing recession into violent sexuality which is almost childlike.

I can’t recommend Blue Velvet highly enough, it really is terrific. Dealing with fairly disturbing subject matters, it nonetheless still has a human soul beneath all the extreme events, and this comes down to the strength of the script and characters. It’s easy to see how this is Lynch’s most personal film, from the small-town American setting to the deliberate evocation of 1950s pop culture and music. And that really shows through with the overall essence of the film.

Lost Highway (1997)

“Dick Laurent is dead”

These are the words that start the bizarre and hyperstylised madness of Lost Highway. I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film, not all of it made sense to me. I doubt it’s even meant to make sense or have broader meaning, or it simply probably does only in Lynch’s head. Fred Madison (Bill Paxton), a nightclub saxophonist, lives with his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) in their angular minimalist house in Los Angeles. They begin to receive packages containing videotapes of their home being filmed. These tapes become increasingly intrusive, going on to filming the inside and even the couple as they sleep. The police can’t help. Fred later meets a mysterious man at a party, who informs him that they’ve met before. And after this, well, it’s hard to explain. Not without giving away too much. However, my overall reading of the film seems to be that Fred, through a combination of jealousy and grief, tries to transform himself, to mask the terrible things he’s done even from himself.

Lost Highway saw the revisiting of some of Lynch’s most prominent themes. The darker, seedier side of American life is here foregrounded however by the LA underbelly setting. It’s still undeniably creepy, from the home invasion-horror vibes at the start, to Robert Blake’s chilling pale faced man. The hybridity of genres continues, borrowing from film noir to psychological horror. But I feel it lacks some of the subtlety of Lynch’s best work. Full of brash visuals, an overabundance of sex (Patricia Arquette seems to spend a great deal of the film naked and/or screwing), bursts of pounding Rammstein songs – this attempt to depict a decent into madness tends to work best in the quieter moments, those that build a sense of dread. Overall though much onscreen seems designed primarily to shock.

Looking back now, it can be seen that a lot of Lost Highway seems to build towards the completeness of Mulholland Drive. Both films share similar themes: storylines in roughly two parts, characters/actors playing dual roles, violently jealous lovers, LA settings, mystery men secretly pulling the strings.  As a result, this can’t help Lost Highway seeming like the lesser film. There’s much to admire, especially in the more enigmatic and atmospheric moments. But the patient pacing, sudden shifts in content and focus on such unlikeable and often impenetrable characters made this hard for me to like.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

“Hey pretty girl, time to wake up.”

Mulholland Drive has certainly developed a formidable reputation for itself. One of the most critically adored films of the 21st century, but also one of the more divisive and challenging films. Watching this again now, I certainly agree. This film is so incredibly rich – in ideas, in depth, and in quality of production.

Like Lost Highway, I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film. Many questions are left ambiguously answered, and lot of theories abound online attempting to answer them: what is it about? which parts, if any, are dreams? who is dreaming? (This theory I stumbled on is one of my favourites, and definitely one of the more entertaining ones). I’m not going to attempt to explain what I think it’s about, I don’t think that’s the point of this film. And frankly that sort of writing and analysis deserves a post to itself. Hopefully I can attempt one in the future, definitely after another viewing.

Featuring a collection of seemingly disparate vignettes, the story focuses on Betty (Naomi Watts), a naive and eager small-town girl who arrives in Los Angeles in the hope of having a career as an actress. As she moves into her aunt’s apartment, she finds a woman (Laura Harring) hiding there, scared and lost after losing her memory in a car accident. The woman takes on the name Rita after seeing a poster for Gilda starring Rita Hayworth. Whilst preparing for Betty’s first audition, the two women investigate Rita’s past. Meanwhile, a Hollywood director (Justin Theroux) finds his latest project being sabotaged by gangsters, demanding he give his lead role to an unknown actress called Diane Selywn.

Watching this again, I enjoyed and appreciated it a lot more. I think the first time I was so caught up in trying to understand it all that I got lost. This time, like with Lynch’s other films, I got caught up in the atmosphere, the mood of it. Many parts of this film are disturbing in ways I can’t really put my finger on. Shamelessly calling back to my degree, this brings to mind Susan Sontag’s belief that the overinterpretation of artworks reduces the affective power of the work by attempting to shoebox it in to pre-existing interpetative ideas and theories. She calls for an increased focus on form over content, to regard more how a film affects us on an emotional and sensorial level, rather than attempting to force supposedly hidden meanings upon it. Lynch’s films I feel are appreciated best when viewed in this way. They are studies in mood, time and place. Whilst the complex story is certainly impressive, I personally didn’t feel the need to fully break it apart. The way Mulholland Drive made me feel told me everything I needed to know about what it wanted to convey.

The quality of this film really comes to the strength of the directing, which expertly conveys the feelings of the characters at different points of the film, which are often radically contrasting. The very careful focus on often small details – the distorted features of a gangster behind a glass screen, the relay of phone calls between criminals, the appearances of lamps and keys at vital scenes – all creates a sense of both dread and curious anticipation. Similarly, by having the main characters both naive and, in Rita’s case characterless, they become blank slates for the audience. They discover clues as we do, and we can see their development as the malevolent forces within the diegesis begin to affect them. The very self-conscious referencing of film noir cliches, but tinged with an almost supernatural twist, turns this into a scathing critique of the Hollywood system, one where creative freedom is restricted and skewed.

Finally, I have to mention Angelo Badalamenti’s score, which is simultaneously both his darkest but also his most romantic. It gives real presence and depth, and displays the contrasting feelings within the film, as well as genuine affections between characters.

I decided to focus on the films which I felt were more obviously within the same vain as each other. I’ve seen Eraserhead, but don’t really fancy watching that again! I’ll hopefully watch The Elephant Man, The Straight Story and Inland Empire soon when I find the time.