More than an Orpheus figure, the show's finale seemed to position its central hero, Agent Dale Cooper, as a Sisyphus figure, doomed to keep rolling the rock up the hill in the never-ending fight against evil. But in Chinese, the word jiao dai can be translated as "to explain" or "make clear." As Peaks TV podcast co-host Joanna Robinson and Twitter user Rob Carmack have pointed out, this could be an in-joke meaning that the main antagonist of Twin Peaks the whole time was "the concept of explanation and clarity." Here it merits mention that the end of Lynch's recent television odyssey, Twin Peaks: The Return, seemed to reposition an entity named Judy, or Jowday, as the new mother of all evil behind everything in the series. With a laugh, Lynch replied, "No, I won't." "Elaborate on that," the interviewer said. "Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film." But it's something that all audiences must grapple with when they first make the plunge. Lynch fans can (and will) argue differently, or that this is the point of his work. That is all well and good, but sometimes it really does seem like this director has made it his mission to flout convention at the cost of coherence. In a way, some of his films are more like tone poems than straightforward narratives. Often, he seems more interested in just striking a certain tone, conveying mood over clear meaning. Though he made an Oscar-nominated film called The Straight Story (whose plot more or less lives up to the title), it has become obvious that Lynch isn't much interested in telling that kind of story. Lynch likes to tell surreal, sprawling stories with an ensemble cast, but there is a sense that his fondness for fresh faces and messy dream logic leads to a build-up of narrative dead-ends. I think most people can probably relate, on some level, to how the idealized version of their life is often at odds with the terrible truth of reality.įor much of Mulholland Drive's running time, the diner scene would seem to be entirely disconnected from the main story. Now I come away feeling like it really is the masterpiece all those critics make it out to be. Apologists love to trot out this line, but I think Mulholland Drive really is one of those instances where it is true that the genius of the film cannot always be appreciated on a first viewing. The dream theory (which we'll discuss below) is what gives this film such profound emotional heft for me. Mulholland Drive is a film that I initially found confusing - until I realized what was maybe going on, and it took on a whole new weight. As I sit here in my own Anton Ego pose, my feelings on Lynch teeter between begrudging respect and full-blown adulation. Some people might be inclined to say, "I smell a rat," when they bite into one of his specially prepared dishes. In my own (admittedly offbeat) head, I sort of equate Lynch with Remy the rat in the Pixar film Ratatouille.
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