David Lynch and pulling chairs out from underneath people

“What’s a good plate with nothing on it?” So asks Jay in Clerks ^[1], a movie that despite its numerous flaws still managed to be charming. I can now definitively state that a good plate with nothing on it is Mulholland Drive ^[2], which I watched last night for the first time instead of rewatching Rob Roy ^[3]. “I think I liked Wild Hogs ^[4]better than this,” was my girlfriend’s response to the movie, and while I can’t commit to damning Mulholland Drive with that particular faint praise, I definitely would have enjoyed my fourth or fifth viewing of Rob Roy ^[3]quite a bit more.

Like the smart hellraiser in class, perhaps the most disappointing thing about this movie was how it didn’t fulfill its prodigious potential. There were moments that were definitely evocative, most notably the sequence at Teatro Silencio (I could not find a link that included the entire sequence, but here ^[5] is its opening and here ^[6] is its close), but these evocative moments are evocative on their own merits, not because of their relation to what could be laughingly called the narrative arc.

It’s possible to flout storytelling conventions and still tell an effective story: Tarantino did it well in Pulp Fiction ^[7] and less well in Reservoir Dogs ^[8]; Nolan did it in Memento ^[9]; the movie Twenty Bucks ^[10] can even be somewhat instructive in this regard. Each of those films consisted of vignettes that were tied back together in some kind of narrative structure. The storytellers allowed us to understand the world they were constructing and the rules by which the world functioned. Mulholland doesn’t seem to want to let us in on the joke, the vignettes periodically advance a narrative of sorts and then devolve into surrealist navel-gazing. It reminded me of Slacker ^[11], where I kept waiting for a narrative payoff that never came. I would say that watching a movie like this is like getting a handjob and having the woman walk off in the middle of the act, but, truthfully, it’s more like getting a handjob and having the woman walk off in the middle of the act, put on a clown nose and bunny ears, and then dump a gallon of heavy cream over her head. The first scenario is unfulfilling, the second is unfulfilling and puzzling, besides.

Pulling a chair from underneath someone is never funny to the person who ends up on the ground, only to the person that put them there. I think that’s what Lynch does here, and I’m sure he had a great time putting together a series of truly memorable scenes that really showcase his artistic eye. But I feel like I’m the one scowling up at him from the floor, rubbing my ass. To those who appreciate the surrealist oeuvre, maybe I’m one of those that just “doesn’t get it.” But at least in surrealist films Eternal Sunshine ^[12] and Being John Malkovich ^[13] when we get to the end of the rainbow there is more than a note reading “there’s no gold here.”

Rob Roy ^[3] is a simple movie. A man has his money and honor stolen. He goes on a journey. Along the way, against great odds, he recovers both his money and reputation, finally slaying the story’s embodiment of evil and injustice in a thoroughly satisfying way ^[14].  Mulholland, on the other hand, is emphatically not a simple movie.  A woman suffers amnesia and enlists the aid of a good Samaritan to find out who she is.  A cowboy confronts a director ^[15].  Two hot chicks make out.  A woman puts out a hit on her lesbian lover (and then, maybe, puts on a clown nose and bunny ears and dumps a gallon of heavy cream over her head, I’m not sure, I was in the bathroom at that point). In many of the ways that are most important to me, the first story is more compelling. We turn to stories to bring order to a disordered world, and the complexities of life make the traditional plot arc, as a stylized and impressionistic convention, satisfying because of our desire for order and resolution.  We want to see a fundamental change in a character, that closure of the arc, not because a tradition-bound culture has told us that this is good, but because Jules’ change at the close of Pulp Fiction is cathartic and redemptive ^[16] or because, in a sometimes evil and disordered world, it gladdens our hearts when a bad guy gets blown the fuck up ^[17].

Don’t get me wrong: storytellers should push the boundaries of how stories can be told, like the charming eccentricities of Big Fish ^[18] or Twenty-two Stories About Springfield ^[19].  If Spike Jonze and Lars van Trier and David Lynch were replaced by Michael Bay clones, the world would be a sadder place. 2012 ^[20] sticks to the well-worn paths of traditional storytelling and it sucks ass.  Ultimately, though, I think this movie tried too hard to break the mold.

Seriously, though, fuck Michael Bay.