Thursday, September 23, 2010

Wild At Heart.

What's it about? IMDB says, "Young lovers Sailor and Lula run from the variety of weirdos that Lula's mom has hired to kill Sailor." I suppose I need to do a better job with actually giving legitimate descriptions of the things I rant about on here instead of just peppering some pseudo film or book review with my emotional blathering, so there you go. 


I learned a lot of things from this film.

1. Just how creepy David Lynch really is. I didn't ever watch Eraserhead or The Elephant Man or Blue Velvet until I was in school for film. This, for some reason, I saw because my mother's best friend from college brought it home, probably from Honzay's in Bird Island (we had a Beta); I think I would have been in tenth grade. Yes, this is a severly inappropriate film for a fifteen-year-old, but I don't even think my mother knew I was watching it. My brother might have even seen it too, I'm not sure, but he would have been twelve. Whoops.

The first time I made it almost until Johnny Farragut met his end and then couldn't take any more. This is to say, it was too disturbing for me *BEFORE* Bobby Peru came on. I remember being severely troubled by those old codgey dudes wandering around the hotel.
Or Marietta, covered completely in red lipstick and the damned elf shoes? It seemed to be one big cluster of weirdness, and honestly, I didn't understand one bit of it.


2. About a year later, I was talking to a friend about it and she said something like, "isn't that movie, like, full of sex or something?" Until then, honestly, I hadn't even processed that YES, it was, because of all the other creepy shit that was going on. Plus I never really found Nic Cage that hot (until years later) so I had no interest in it. So we rented it on a Friday night and watched it straight through--it's quite long, actually, and it was full of sex. This time, I watched it and thought, "Wow, she's really into him. And boy, they really are having sex in many different positions WITH THE LIGHTS ON! What's she gonna do if he, you know, leaves her?" Since getting dumped was the biggest concern any girl with no self esteem could have. . .

 And what do you know? She gets pregnant, he lies to her, robs a bank with Bobby Peru, goes to jail, and leaves her standing at a railroad crossing with his son, who he had never met. I was absolutely crushed, I remember it very clearly. But he comes back. And I bawled. A lot. And then I think Wendy and I took off somewhere and got into some weird situation with Keith Paananen standing on the side of the road, hitch-hiking, maybe?


Somehow, through all of the weirdness, it's still my favorite sick little love story. And Sailor Ripley, as a character? Best. Lines. Ever. Although that screaming through the song at The Hurricane has got to go. It's almost as bad as James Hurley singing in Twin Peaks.
"I'd like to apologize to you gentlemen for referring to you all as homosexuals. You taught me a valuable lesson in life. LULA!"

3. Let's talk about Bobby Peru. Seriously, has there ever been anyone this gross? I did an image search and of course, the only ones that came up were the ridiculous TEETH when he's making his disgusting little drooling, bad-guy laugh when he reveals to Sailor that he, Bobby, has outsmarted him ("those are dummies, DUMMY!") Apparently the fitting of the teeth was a big event on the set during the filming, with Lynch gleefully telling Dafoe, "Time for your teeth, Man!"

 Ugh. I seriously almost vomit every time I see those teeth. It's almost a relief when he blows his own head off. And the whole exchange with Lula in the bedroom when Sailor's away is just horrid. The stuff that he says to her? Downright terrifying. It's disturbing to me that I find the writing of this character so impressive when the character himself is probably *the grossest* thing, ever in a film. Some dude at Blockbuster tried to argue with me once that Hopper in Blue Velvet was a more disturbing villain, and because I never argue with anyone, I let him win that one, but I really don't agree. The nitrous mask made Hopper seem a little bit more monster-ish, maybe, but nothing can compete with those goddamned TEETH! And the way Peru is all snappy and reactionary about the Tonkin Incident? Definitely waaay more unstable, but sly enough to come wandering into Lula's hotel room and orate on puke, pregnancy, and jack rabbits? What a nightmare.

4. Diane Ladd should have won the statue in 1989.

What's your favorite Lynch?

4 comments:

madamsvito said...

Favorite Lynch film... They're all so good. The film I can always just sit down and watch is Wild at Heart, but the film I'll watch when I want to really experience David Lynch's style is Lost HIghway. It's got some weirdness in the plots and some nice contrasts with Bill Pullman and Balthazar Getty's characters. Then fucking Robert Blake keeps showing up to keep you on your toes with a video camera and some weird ass suggestions.

Donald said...

I've actually never seen this one.

I'd say that my favorite Lynch film is Blue Velvet (although I have no desire to ever sit through it again), while my favorite TV project was Twin Peaks. That is to say, those are the only two things Lynch did that I don't hate.

I think he's a very talented hack. It's easy to make weird movies that make no sense, if all you want to do is make weird movies that make no sense.

Anna said...

make weird movies that make no sense that have
1. creepy old people
2. some hot blond
3. someone sticking it to the hot blond, male or female.

Donald said...

I'm going to go ahead and say something else that I hope won't be too inflammatory: Laura Dern is most definitely not hot.

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