Change Your Image
claus_horn
Reviews
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
frustrating vagueness
I like David Lynch's work a lot: I've been fascinated by Eraserhead, shocked by Blue Velvet, and deeply impressed by Wild at Heart. And I enjoyed Twin Peaks years ago. However, I don't know what to do with Mulholland Drive: To me, the structure of the story remains unclear, and there's no solution to the questions it poses. And, for my taste, it takes a minimum of structure to make a film worth seeing it. This kind of vagueness is well known from Twin Peaks. However, being vague was one of the substantial characteristics of the sequel - it was even necessary to keep the story open, thus creating a never ending desire to see more and more of it. But that's not the way movies work... I don't have a problem with open-endedness. But I do have problems with a film which seems to end without any motivation, just as if the director would say something like "OK folks, this should be enough for this time. Thanks and goodbye." Besides that, I don't like those comic elements in a film announced as a thriller, such as when director Adam Kesher demolishes the car of the studio bosses just like an angry schoolboy, or the killer who eventually shoots 3 persons dead just because he's too foolish to get his job done properly, or the bodyguard who smashes Kesher's wife's friend first, then the wife. You may find some deconstructing irony in these scenes if you can. I can't. And I don't like trivial imitations like Kesher being designed as a parody of German director Wim Wenders, or the pseudo-diabolic old couple resembling the frightening neighbours from Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. No friends, I'll sit back in my seat and wait for the next Lynch to come. This one was a waste of time for me.
Mein langsames Leben (2001)
a movie about inner feelings instead of action
A film about several persons shown in different constellations talking to each other about their inner feelings, relationship problems, future plans, and so on. As the original title ("My slow life") indicates, it is a very slow film with hardly any action at all, more a sequence of still photographs than a movie - even the camera hardly ever moves. Rather, the camera looks for, and finds, beautiful views of silence and peace, thus reflecting what the persons shown are looking for. A very homogeneous, credible film, without any hectic or loud moments. A film for the late evening, with a glass of whisky in your hand.