165. Wild at Heart

Song - Me And Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin)

Movie: Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990)

Some two years ago I started watching Twin Peaks. I stopped doing so after the "It's Happening Again" episode in season 2, which I felt was a perfect encapsulation of everything the show was about. I didn't see how Lynch could possibly improve or move on from that - the extended scene in the bar in particular is one of the greatest things ever filmed. Wild at Heart never stood a chance against Twin Peaks' episode 14 (and can't measure up to the rest of Twin Peaks either), but it is quite entertaining, sometimes funny, sometimes tense and unsettling, and in the end even endearingly romantic. Unexpectedly you do root for Cage as he steps over all those cars to get back to his Lula (Laura Dern).

I will at some point restart Twin Peaks, as I am especially curious about Season 3. Besides, it is just aesthetically pleasing to watch, and what I liked most about Wild at Heart is how much it shares with Twin Peaks. For example, how everytime someone in the film lights a match, it is accompanied by ominous sounds and images of burning and fire. Or Angelo Badalamenti's score, which is somehow both haunting and comforting. Haunting, because it is often used to accentuate something mysterious and potentially evil, but also comforting because there is a softness to it. It's pleasant to listen to it. The same can be said for Lynch's imagery, that's full of warmth and bright colors. And he clearly loves the characters he creates and the actors he works with, giving them freedom to go into all kinds of unexpected directions. It's also fun to see here some of the core cast of Twin Peaks show up in small roles. I also liked that the most Twin Peaks-like performance comes from J.E. Freeman, the actor playing hitman Santos, who does not actually appear on the show, and was amused that Sheryl Lee keeps only appearing as a spectral presence. 

I find the relationship between Lynch's concerns and his style quite interesting and appealing. It may feel quite counter-intuitive to make pleasantly watchable films about the great darkness of the world, but if you believe (and repeatedly point out throughout your work) that there is great uncontrollable and unknowable evil in the world lurking in many corners, shapes and forms, it would make sense for your art to go out of its way to show that it itself is not evil, and in fact, rather comfortingly enjoyable. That's a big 'if', it's worth noting. The absurdity in Twin Peaks is much more part of a coherent worldview than in Wild at Heart where at times you have to wonder whether you are watching a prankster throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Much does though, and even if some of that is rather stupid, it does lead to stuff you won't readily see in other directors' work. 

I did sometimes wish that Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe and Diane Ladd chilled out a bit (Cage is great), but even that makes some sense as it taps into the world view of angsty and exhilarated teenagers with heightened emotions and big feelings. The car accident scene is another great example of that. It's morbidly funny and uncomfortable, but also a rather great expression of the fear of an insecure teenager that losing some important documents will be the end of the world.  Finally, as an aside. I already thought that the John Wick films would age rather badly (their fights become kind of repetitive and follow the same patterns) before finding out that their world building is pretty much ripped off from this film. 

164. Kes

Song - Blackbird (The Beatles)

Movie: Kes (Ken Loach, 1969)

You don't often see Ken Loach be compared to Scorsese or Tarantino, which is why the best scene in this film took me by surprise. It involves a football training at PE class, and Mr. Sugden, pretending to be Bobby Charlton. Mr. Sugden is the teacher of the class, the 'captain' of one of the teams, and the referee of the game. He makes a show of being better than his 12/13-year old pupils, fouls with impunity, awards himself a penalty, decides that the keeper moved to early when missing the penalty, and wildly celebrates when he hits the retaken penalty. He glorifies his own talent, trash talks his students' skills and mistakes, and after the game turns the water cold when his keeper Billy is showering, to punish him for not saving the decisive goal, letting 'Tottenham Hotspur' beat 'Manchester United'. 

The whole sequence could come straight out of Mean Streets, especially because Mr. Sugden and Brian Glover's performance is the driving force of the scene. Moreover, Loach consistently highlights the difference in strength, physicality, skill, and aggression between Mr. Sugden and his pupils and lets the scene continue for much longer than needed, highlighting the laughable absurdity of it all. Whenever a team scores, he starts filming in the style of a TV coverage of an actual live football match, complete with a text at the bottom of the screen informing us that it's 'Manchester United 1 - 1 Tottenham Hotspur'. The sequence is unquestionably an indictment of the teacher's abuse, but it also the teacher's abusive behavior that is the source of the sequence' cinematic qualities and pleasures. Who knew that Ken Loach influenced Fight Club? 

I am a bit flippant, but it's a genuinely interesting choice Loach makes there. Kes is, among other things, an indictment of the British school system, showing how it uses (physical, emotional, and verbal) violence to beat the individuality out of the students and train them to become cogs in the machine. Billy's care for his falcon Kes is one of the few things that he gets to do in the film that allows him to assert his individuality and to do something that goes against the plans society has for him.  Billy is lonely and has few friends, and Kes does alleviate his loneliness, but this is not the kind of gooey film, believing that his relationship with Kes is a genuine alternative to real friendships. Rather, it shows that through the care for his falcon, Billy gets to express himself and form more meaningful relationships with his classmates and teachers. That in itself is a triumph. The film's view is that it's hard to express who you are in such a conformist environment. The only other person who attempts to do so, is Mr. Sugden in the aforementioned football match, but he can only do so by imagining he is Bobby Charlton, Safe to say, that this doesn't lead to a more meaningful relationship with his students.