Almodovar and Lynch

Day 10 at the New York Film Festival and I'm all set to see films from two of my favorite directors ...

VOLVER
Director: Pedro Almodóvar, Country: Spain, Release: 2006, Runtime: 120 min., Spanish with English subtitles
High Heels gets less Nervous

All the women from the village are at the cemetery dusting off the graves of their loved ones. Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas) stop in on their aunt who is in bad health. Sole feels as if she can smell and feel the presence of their deceased mother (Carmen Maura). On their way out, they stop by to see neighbor, Agustina (Blanca Portillo) and ask if she can look in on their aunt. They head back to Madrid, Raimunda to her husband and daughter, Sole to her hairdressing business. But things get complicated when thier aunt dies, a dead body needs disposing, the ghost of mom returns to help Sole wash hair, and Raimunda takes over her neighbor's restaurant to serve a local film crew Almodóvar ads humor to the secretive habits of rural Spaniards, and the secrets and lies even follow the sisters to Madrid. Trash TV is mocked for it's exploitive intrusion on peoples lives. But the actual lies of the people are somehow forgiven when they atone for their past. In an interesting scene, mom is watching Bellissima, the scene where the father is about to tell the children the story of Pinocchio off screen while the mother sits in her room, removed from the family by her own secrets. At its core, this film is about women reconnecting as a family. Not since the gender drag days of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis has a director enjoyed playing with so many female forms as Almodóvar. He has Raimunda dress her sexy best, her daughter is a fteenagerger, Sole is more librarian, Agustina could easily be mistaken for a man with her shaved head and flat clothing. The men are mere props in this film. Almodóvar loves women and every detail, from their hair to the pattern of their clothes, is carefully selected. In fact, watch for those fabric patterns reappearear in the beautiful closing credits. This is squarely not Almodóvar's best or complex work, but it is a fun and humorous story of Spanish women and the black veil of superstitions that makes the community both lovable and naive.

DISH: The audience was decidedly a mix of women and gay men - typical Almodovar fans. In a frustrating turn of events, Almodovar was not there at the Q&A for the second showing. He was there the previous night but had to return to Spain for some art award given by the King. The four women in the film were there to answer questions but this forced the discussion to acting, the preparation process, and their opinions about working together and with Almodovar. I could care less about these topics. In a bit of irony, Carmen Maura talked quite glowingly of how she and Almodovar work so well together because they connect, even after such a long gap in time since they last worked together (1988). Overhearing two guys leaving the theater discuss this, I learned that diva Maura hadn't talked or communicated at all with Almodovar for 17 years. Rumor was she was furious that he took a drag queen to an awards event for Women of the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown instead of her. Seems like the reality of Maura is similar to the fiction of her character in Volver, better to hide difficult things.

INLAND EMPIRE
Director: David Lynch, Country: France/USA, Release: 2006, Runtime: 168 min.
Mulholland Dr. drives off a Lost Highway

Welcome to the mind of David Lynch. It is a strange and weird place; most folks will feel uncomfortable there. This film has almost all of his signature elements - table lamps, red light, ringing telephones, alleys, a log, white noise, dual identities, homeless people, reflections, living rooms, and a red curtain, but no midget or talking backwards. Instead he adds Polish, a rabbit-headed sitcom family, a train whistle, back-up whore dancers, and AXX oN iN. All the strange and loopy images are tied around Nikki (Laura Dern) as she works on the role of Sue in a film The Blues Skies of Tomorrows. The title may be slightly off but versions of it show up in other places in the film as when an oracle of sorts comforts with the line, "No more Blue Tomorrows". The director of the film (Jeremy Irons) learns from his assistant (the fabulous Harry Dean Stanton) that the film is a remake of a Polish script 47 which was never completed after the actors were murdered. This harks back to an early scene where a Polish neighbor (cheeky Grace Zabriskie) looks into Nikki's tomorrow. Devon/Billy (Justin Theroux) is her leading man but he serves to feed the jealous, sexual side of Nikki/Sue's longings. The film is squarely focused on Nikki and how trauma and choices she's made in her life have affected her and her family. Through the puzzling images and hazy links, one can figure out the gist of her story even if every images can't be explained. Lynch repeats themes of contrast - wealthy and poverty, light and dark, color and black & white, pop dance tunes (Locomotion) and abstract sound. He also returns to the illusionist aspects of film, television, and lip-synching. The reflective properties these have on our lives and our interpretation of what is real is presented very literally. Some say that directors with a signature style are more prone to repeating themselves, giving us basically the same film again and again. If left to his own devices, Lynch has a tendency to do this. This is truly the case with Inland Empire - it started shooting without a script. Lynch would just write each scene as it came to him. The results are too similar to Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Dr.. Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. work much better than this loosely woven saga which lasts over 3 hours. With editing, this film could have been tighter and much more intriguing and entertaining. With all the repetition, Inland Empire tends to get redunant in places. This is not a surprise given Lynch's love of dreams. Many ideas are repeated in dreams with shifting objects and forms working their way into the idea the brain is trying to shape. Lynch does the same image shifting in this film but after the third or fourth version, it becomes excessive. No doubt there are strong scenes only a master director can pull off. Some great moments are when the veiled worlds of Nikki/Sue/other? intertwine with time/world shifts viewed through things like a hole burned through silk or a smeared living-room window. Worlds can shift by just walking through a door. A death on the streets of Hollywood is one of the most emotional and engaging scenes Lynch brings to the story. But after the upteenth 'reveal', I was tired. Lynch keeps pulling the rug out from under the audience screaming, "Ah-Ha! You thought that was the reality? You don't know anything." I got tired and bored, like watching a magician do a trick one too many times until the surprise is gone. But Lynch does deliver an interesting ending: one vision seems to give a happy conclusion but seconds later, a cavalcade of characters returns, perhaps alluding to more charades. Lynch groupies will surely like this and drool over every word and image but most would be better off staying on Mulholland Dr.. I'm just hoping someone will give Lynch a script not born from his crowded brain. Perhaps we will then have another chance to get a film as beautiful and poignant as The Elephant Man or The Straight Story.

DISH: Lynch opened the film with a quote I can't find that goes something like this, "We are like the spider. We weave our life like a web and then we move within it. We are like our dreams, moving and shaping ourselves within them." No doubt Lynch has a more interesting dream life than most. Post-film discussion was so interesting mainly due to Lynch's ability to avoid answering most questions outside the technical process. One Lynch-o-phile went on and on about his use of light, images, on and on, but finally after his pontificating for a minute or more, asked a question about the hand drawn flames he added to the clock in the Rabbits scene. "Was that the only shot he used that in?" Lynch's reply was a short, "You're almost correct." One question was related to using digital on this film. Lynch said it was very freeing and enjoyable as it allowed him much more flexibility. Personally I had trouble with the digital quality in places but the majority of the footage looked great. Some shots you can see a Panavision 35mm camera so I wonder if some footage wasn't shot on film. Laura Dern and Justin Theroux seemed to love working with Lynch but it was clear they were left in the dark as to the story's meaning. Justin Theroux was the only one to graciously sign my program after the Q&A. Super nice guy. I had to stalk/wait for Laura Dern and David Lynch outside the hall but both appeared and signed my program :) This is the first time I've tried waiting at the door and it was a strange crowd. I was the only 'girl' and all the other guys looked like guys you'd picture at their computers jacking off to teen porn or participating in role-playing games. Some clearly were there for the money, getting signatures on a plethora of photos, DVDs, and other paraphernalia. I don't think I'll ever be in that sort of scene again .... but that leads to a good question of who else I would stalk for a celebrity signature. Clive Owen, perhaps?