dream on awakening

Rating: 10/10 (3 May 2010)

This is one of those films that, to me, is seminal with regards to the definition of a feeling. What "actually happened" and who each character is or what each scene "means" is unimportant. (I also think that the plot is not at all complicated -- there's really a canonical explanation for it already.) The scene with the strange man on the throne, who is he? Well, he's the strange man on the throne who is there to be strange, to induce the feeling of strangeness and uncertainty and fear. That man doesn't have to be anything more; Lynch has no obligation to spin each character into something the viewer can safely understand.
And the feeling that comes out of this movie is incredible. There are very few films that so purely and honestly convey a feeling -- I would include "The Piano" and "Crouching Tiger." Lynch doesn't get as good as this -- I consider his latest effort, "Inland Empire," as a rocket that never got launched. But here, all the pieces come together: the camera movements that aren't only original and breathtaking, but weighted with an intent that is rivaled only by Tarkovsky's; the performances that seem completely natural; and the beautiful soundtrack with those achingly long sustained chords.