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In my last article, I said that you would have to look far and wide for a weirder film than True Romance (see article for 05-15-95.) David Lynch movies can top True Romance any day when it comes to being bizarre. Take this film for instance, Wild at Heart, about a love affair made in hell. What I mean is that they are true lovers, except that they have a lot of bad things going on around them. It tells the story of Sailor Ripley (Nicholas Cage) and Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern) who go on the run from Lula's psychopathic mother (played by Dern's real life mother, Diane Ladd) who wants revenge on Sailor for spurning her sexual advances.This film is full of bizarre and surreal scenes as well as the typical weirdos of Lynch movies including Willem Dafoe in a powerhouse performance as a bounty hunter sent to kill Cage and bring back Dern. It's very hard to top Blue Velvet and many fans of Lynch might be disappointed because this is not Blue Velvet. But I found a lot of things to enjoy about it, including Cage and Dern's excellent portraits of lovers on the run and Dafoe nearly one-ups Dennis Hopper's villain in Blue Velvet as pure sleaze. One more thing, when you check this out, be sure to take a look at the scene between Dern and Dafoe in the motel room. You might find that to be the best scene in the whole movie.
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Many of you might have heard a lot of things about this film. Some have seen it as nothing other than sick and diseased. Others have said that it is a masterpiece. But no matter what you hear, no other film has divided or confounded critics more than this. The story seems to be a complete mystery as Lynch delves into the underworld of small town life. Kyle Maclachlan stars as an amateur sleuth, who investigates the hidden life of a singer (Isabella Rossellini) who's husband has been kidnapped by a sadistic criminal (Dennis Hopper).I can't say if this is sick or a masterpiece. All I can say is that I think it's great film making, with some excellent technical features as well as a fantastic script and a world full of typical David Lynch weirdos. They include Rossellini in a stunning performance as the nightclub singer involved in the underworld, Dean Stockwell of Quantam Leap as a truly bizarre brothel owner and especially Hopper as probably one of the greatest and most evil villains in screen history. Pumping out sadistic punishments and cruel sleaze, this was the film that got him his comeback performance.
As for the film being just sick, I've got a few words for the people that think that. Of course it's sick! It's supposed to be sick, because it shows how awful being cruel and nasty can be. That's the beauty of it. Some might not agree about this but it does have a beauty about it in the form of Laura Dern as the voice of good in the world. Still, even if you don't think much of S&M, you must see this to see what all the controversy is all about. Then form your own ideas.
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I finally found the cult classic that many people could not find at the video stores in my neighborhood. I will not say where I found it, because you would have to go all the way to the west coast to find it. Now of course the people who live on the west coast can find it, but most people in the Midwest don't have the time or money to go all the way to the west coast to rent or buy a stupid video tape!Now for the story. The film is about a guy with a weird hairstyle (Jack Nance, a Lynch favorite) who is an average Joe with an average job. He lives in a very dark and dank apartment building with his girlfriend and their monster offspring. David Lynch took five years to finish this film and the result is a little muddled at first, but becomes a bizarre look at the underbelly of human life (not unlike "Blue Velvet" or "Twin Peaks".) One of the flaws though is that it might be slow for some who aren't tolerant of slow movies. For others, they just might want to sit back and let their minds drift.
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An excellent follow-up to Eraserhead, the film is great from start to finish. The film is based on the life of John Merrick (John Hurt in an excellent performance) who had one of the most disfigured faces ever to be seen. His life was mostly as a carnival freak, until Doctor Treves (Anthony Hopkins) found him and brought him to a special hospital where Merrick learned to read and speak with hard and laboring teachings by Treves.Many die-hard Lynch fans think that this is one of his weakest films. The reason is because this film is not pure Lynch. It seems so far away from works like Eraserhead or Blue Velvet, yet it's dramatics and acting are so good that you can overlook such small details. This is probably, second to Blue Velvet, Lynch's best film work.
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