There are a number of people who will trawl through David Lynch's films, lauding and praising each one for their apparently daring originality, their unusual and often incoherent narratives and the general level of weirdness on display, frequently concluding that the man is a genius who remains at the forefront of greatest American film-makers. I count myself in that group.
No other modern writer/director has proved as consistently surprising and challenging as Lynch and managed to disturb and provoke in such intelligent fashion. But there are certain parameters necessary for the Lynch cocktail to work its magic. In his most successful films, there are in place certain constraints which are being pushed against, sometimes the quiet etiquette of suburban blandness, behind which all manner of desires and perversions seethe (Blue Velvet, Twin peaks, Lost Highway). Lynch has used this contrast to strong effect in other settings as well, such as the mannered hypocrisy of Victorian England (The Elephant Man) where men try to find solace and dignity or the dislocated and simple lives of Mid-West Americans 9The Straight Story) where one man's strength and determination slowly teaches them a little more about themselves. In Wild at Heart however, his most Lynchian and least effective film to date, there are no such constraints on either characters or director, so they all indulge their every whim. From the violent opening Lynch signals a ride of freewheeling excess is on the cards, but that excess is not grounded in any kind of stable centre and the overall effect is one of numb indifference.
The basic plot is anther spin on the lovers-on-the-run theme, with just-out-of-prison Ripley (Cage) and naughty-rich-girl Lula (Dern) fleeing her horrific mother, Marietta (Dern's real-life mother, the insanely Oscar nominated Diane Ladd) and the loser (Stanton) she has assigned to wipe out Ripley because of some raging sexual jealousy left over from Ripley's rejection of her years before. From here on the story becomes largely irrelevant, since this is Lynch's arena and he uses it to dredge up all manner of over-wrought set-pieces, dream sequences and "symbolism", which are largely pretentious and uninviting, such as the sex scene where we repeatedly fade to each colour of the rainbow. Of course this is in keeping with the film's endless Wizard of Oz motifs, which are purely superficial and add nothing, since Lynch provides neither a worthy homage to that film or an interesting critique of its place in American culture (although he seems to think he has done both). There are less obvious "Oz" reference points which this film deconstructs, such as the death of the all- American family and the surreal nature of the open road, but it is hard to avoid the feeling that Lynch is simply keeping up his everything-goes ethic which permeates the film (or maybe just throwing a bone to those who enjoy spotting that kind of thing).
This is not to say W.a.H. is a complete failure. Lynch is still an inventive and controlled visual director and at least some of his black humour comes off well, but these qualities lose their impact when there is a void of genuine suspense or intrigue. This is the one film which sees Lynch the film-maker pandering to "Lynch" the brand name, offering his fans all their favourite ingredients from his previous films, exploiting them to the full and removing the limitations which made those facets of his personality interesting in the first place. Ultimately, how you view Wild at Heart depends on whether you find this tedious or enthralling. Few, I imagine, will fall in-between.
No other modern writer/director has proved as consistently surprising and challenging as Lynch and managed to disturb and provoke in such intelligent fashion. But there are certain parameters necessary for the Lynch cocktail to work its magic. In his most successful films, there are in place certain constraints which are being pushed against, sometimes the quiet etiquette of suburban blandness, behind which all manner of desires and perversions seethe (Blue Velvet, Twin peaks, Lost Highway). Lynch has used this contrast to strong effect in other settings as well, such as the mannered hypocrisy of Victorian England (The Elephant Man) where men try to find solace and dignity or the dislocated and simple lives of Mid-West Americans 9The Straight Story) where one man's strength and determination slowly teaches them a little more about themselves. In Wild at Heart however, his most Lynchian and least effective film to date, there are no such constraints on either characters or director, so they all indulge their every whim. From the violent opening Lynch signals a ride of freewheeling excess is on the cards, but that excess is not grounded in any kind of stable centre and the overall effect is one of numb indifference.
The basic plot is anther spin on the lovers-on-the-run theme, with just-out-of-prison Ripley (Cage) and naughty-rich-girl Lula (Dern) fleeing her horrific mother, Marietta (Dern's real-life mother, the insanely Oscar nominated Diane Ladd) and the loser (Stanton) she has assigned to wipe out Ripley because of some raging sexual jealousy left over from Ripley's rejection of her years before. From here on the story becomes largely irrelevant, since this is Lynch's arena and he uses it to dredge up all manner of over-wrought set-pieces, dream sequences and "symbolism", which are largely pretentious and uninviting, such as the sex scene where we repeatedly fade to each colour of the rainbow. Of course this is in keeping with the film's endless Wizard of Oz motifs, which are purely superficial and add nothing, since Lynch provides neither a worthy homage to that film or an interesting critique of its place in American culture (although he seems to think he has done both). There are less obvious "Oz" reference points which this film deconstructs, such as the death of the all- American family and the surreal nature of the open road, but it is hard to avoid the feeling that Lynch is simply keeping up his everything-goes ethic which permeates the film (or maybe just throwing a bone to those who enjoy spotting that kind of thing).
This is not to say W.a.H. is a complete failure. Lynch is still an inventive and controlled visual director and at least some of his black humour comes off well, but these qualities lose their impact when there is a void of genuine suspense or intrigue. This is the one film which sees Lynch the film-maker pandering to "Lynch" the brand name, offering his fans all their favourite ingredients from his previous films, exploiting them to the full and removing the limitations which made those facets of his personality interesting in the first place. Ultimately, how you view Wild at Heart depends on whether you find this tedious or enthralling. Few, I imagine, will fall in-between.