Fabulous Visuals, Byzantine Plot

Rating: Null/10 (23 October 2001)

This film is visually arresting. It also is a challenge. Just to give you a hint, as I was leaving the theater, people were actually yelling across the parking lot, "But I don't even know what it was about!" Make no mistake, this is an intricate film.
Before I get to my interpretation of the plot, a few general comments. There are some shots that are extremely colorful and fun, including the title sequence of swing dancers (which has nothing to do with the rest of the film), a gorgeous scene of singers in a film-within-a-film, and an eerie nightclub rendition of Roy Orbison's "Crying" in Spanish ("Llorando"). There are the usual Lynch signature elements, such as mysterious strangers, expressionless cops, and over-the-top scenes involving humorous violence (an inept hit-man) and unnatural responses to events (such as an odd, but strangely true, line delivered by a pool man found to be bedding a leading character's wife.) You may wind up remembering this film from one or two truly striking scenes. That is not a trifling accomplishment, many films are completely forgettable.
The actors are really put through their paces. They certainly look good. Some are over-taxed by the eccentric script. I'll never understand why Mr. Lynch feels he has to put leaden 1940s-style dialogue into the mouths of his characters ("If you do good, I will see you one more time. If you do bad, I will see you two more times."). It works on a cerebral level, given certain plot elements, but makes some actors look like mere line-readers. Which may be the point. But what point is that exactly, pray tell? It works for me, in a goofy sort of way. But is Mr. Lynch trying to be goofy, or simply obscure? Inquiring minds want to know.
Anyway, we are on familiar Lynch territory (I even found the female leads vaguely reminiscent of Laura Dern and Isabella Rossellini). Beautiful moments, odd juxtapositions, eccentric dialogue. Mr. Lynch really should try his hand at music videos.
But what about the plot? Ah, the plot. Clearly, part of the action is meant to reflect "reality," while the remainder is "fantasy." But which is which? Perhaps it doesn't matter, since, as the Spanish say, "La vida es sueno, y los suenos, suenos son" ("All of life is but a dream"). But since we are trying to understand this particular dream, let me give it a shot.

My interpretation is that the entire film takes place, non-chronologically, immediately preceding and following a failed actress' suicide. Much of it takes place in the seconds immediately before and after, though some scenes occur long before and after (she even visualizes her own decayed carcass long after her death). Toward the beginning of the film, in what I take to be the actress' final thoughts, there is a romanticized depiction of her naive introduction to Hollywood, fantasies of how it could it all have turned out well for her if only she had had all-powerful guardians forcing various Hollywood losers to recognize her genius, and nightmares and guilt about having let down her adoring small-town parents (the "little people" who terrorize her with cackling laughter and seem to be the main impetus for her pulling the trigger.) The last part of the film focuses, retrospectively, on what really happened, shorn of fantasy, where the major problem is revealed to be the actress' use and discarding by a powerful lesbian lover, on whom she took bitter revenge.
Throughout, there are quick switches back and forth between the fantasy/dream/nightmare and the reality. Various jabs are made about the Hollywood casting process, boorish actors, and the dissonance between the artificialities projected on the silver screen and the hard realities of the people creating them (Silencio! It is all on tape!). In fact, the main plot could be seen as an extended meditation on that dissonance.

You will enjoy the film if you like colorful, European-style cinema that is confusing and which strains a bit to be opaque, but which forces you to piece together the jigsaw puzzle yourself (if you have the inclination and patience). If you want mindless entertainment with a happy ending, consider seeing "Bandits" instead.