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Click here to return to the main site. DVD Review
David Lynch, one of the most innovative auteurs in modern cinema, has always been an enigmatic creature. As a director, partially out of choice, he refuses to provide commentaries for his films, as he feels that the work should stand on its own merits, that like any other art form it will mean different things to different people. So it was surprising that he should allow a documentary crew to follow him around for two years, while he created Inland Empire (2006)... Lynch (One) (2007 - 1hr, 21 min, 45 sec) is a film edited and directed by blackANDwhite, who may or may not be lynch himself, it certainly imitates his style of film making. The film opens up a window into Lynch’s creative process, which seems as complex and impenetrable as the man himself. Although Lynch talks almost constantly throughout the piece, what you won’t get here is Lynch deconstructing his creative journey into its composite parts, which given his artistic stance would be akin to asking a painter to turn his painting back to its original tubes of colour. The film shows Lynch at work, directing Laura Dern, even manually creating pieces for scenes, now that’s hands on! It’s difficult, without knowing the man, to say whether his musings on transcendental meditation, his early years and his approach to cinema actually ends up telling us anything, apart from the advice that you should never hit a dead, bloated cow with a pickaxe. He reminded me very much of some of his great creations, including the reverse speaking dwarf in Twin Peaks which you feel is imparting some important information, but who, in fact, is more representative of the chaotic nature of human experience, which is simultaneously meaningful and meaningless. It is this general stance, that life ultimately does not make sense and that beauty often hides a rotten core, which gives Lynch’s films their dream like quality. Even with this limitation it is obvious that Lynch started Inland Empire with nothing more than a nebulous idea, the film growing as much out of the process of its making as anything else. Inland Empire, which if we are honest struggled to get released and was then pretty much ignored by the movie going audience, is at its heart an improvisational piece. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a Jackson Pollack with the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts. The disc comes with a number of extras and no we don’t get a commentary. First up is LODZ (7 min, 16 sec) which is a collection of digital stills which Lynch took of the rotting factories, set to a bleak industrial soundtrack, the effect is somewhat unsettling. This is followed by the original PILOT (11 min, 14 sec) for the film; it contains some of the unprocessed footage, so the quality is even rougher than the main feature. You're get the teaser trailer (1 min, 18 sec) once again this doesn’t contain any footage not already incorporated into the documentary. BLUE GREEN (3 min, 01 sec) which is a short that just is what it is. What I mean here is that it shows a child galloping through a disused factory, as a young woman traverses the same landscape and a few seconds of Lynch appears at the end. There is no indication it this short was made by Lynch, but it has the same meaningful/meaningless dichotomy. WORK (14 min, 03 sec) shows Lynch making and fixing stuff, there is some good footage of Lynch creating a painting and musing about remodelling a Mercedes. WHAT’S MYSPACE? (45 sec) shows Lynch painting the words ‘What’s MySpace’ on a canvas. We continue with the inexplicable meets the unexplained in FLOOR SANDER (3 min, 17 sec) has Lynch telling a story about a station wagon and a floor sander. If by this time you haven’t lost your grip on reality, the disc finishes up with teaser trailers for LYNCH2 (46 sec) and LYNCHthree (59 sec). For Lynch fans this will be an essential buy, but the documentary is unlikely to appeal to an uninitiated audience. 7 Charles Packer Buy this item online
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