Master & Margarita meets Vertigo - bold, brilliant stuff!

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2002)

Don't call it a comeback, he's been here for years - and hopefully for many more years to come - David Lynch is truly the only remaining American director from that great 70's generation who is still capable of enthralling his audience. He knows well that they have seen everything, every imaginable plot twist, and yet he manages to surpass any and all expectations, to disregard all convention and lovingly proceed with a vision uniquely his - the trademark dreamscape with layers of sinister perversion underneath. We are pulled in, and emerge some 2+ hours later from a sensual experience more enjoyable and powerful than any intoxicant. At first, a scorching, hellish version of Los Angeles is presented, where strange, supernatural, possibly infernal characters interfere with the status quo of comically drawn Hollywood types - much like the opening chapters of the famous Bulgakov novel where the devil and his companions come to Moscow and wreak havoc in the literary circles. The local powers that be are ridiculed in a very similar fashion. But before one has time to get comfortable with the narrative's course, a torrid relationship bursts on the scene and suddenly we are in a very different place, physically and emotionally. After a hypnotic climax (Llorando will indeed make you weep), comes the equally bizzare denouement which purposefully leaves more questions than answers.
Still, the end result is enormously satisfying - various parts of the film linger for days, weeks... Exquisite style and color, old-fashioned Hitchcockian camerawork, effective use of seemingly innocent 50's pop (Sixteen Reasons never sounded creepier) as counterpoint to Lynch's dark brushstrokes all work to near-perfection. This is a shot in the arm for those who are giving up on cinema.