anti-linear

Rating: 9/10 (6 September 2004)

I appreciate Lynch's challenge to the linear narrative. This process of story-telling is not for all film viewers, but for some viewers, the challenge of unscrambling this plot is worth the time and effort. Lynch films this story so colorfully that it is hard to look away and easy to view again. I love this film and in fact have taught it in several of my English classes. Students respond in varying ways, as one might expect. A handful obsessively want to solve the puzzle, a handful think the film is useless, and most are curious to discover the film's meaning in subsequent class discussions. I think the film's message about Hollywood is important enough to study since H'wood's influence so profoundly pervades life in the US. The definitive message of MD is indeed obscured in Lynch's art, but I believe the obscurity is purposeful. The psychology of Hollywood and the people that populate it (actors, directors, wannabes, etc.)and shape its myth are complex, the identities of those people are fragmented (like the film), and the answers to the questions of its meaning are far from easily answered.