Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted

Ever wondered what it would be like if David Lynch put on a musical stage show with Julee Cruise? Look no further! Industrial Symphony is a supremely strange show put together by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti for the annual Brooklyn Academy of Music. They only had two weeks to prepare for the show, and so the result is rather remarkable.

It opens with Sailor and Lula from Wild at Heart on the phone, with Sailor leaving Lula. The rest of the film is an extended fever dream set on stage. It reminded me of a concert, only this is a concert by David Lynch so there's awful blonde wigs, half naked women gyrating on cars and dwarfs sawing logs. I found it rather fabulous.

Julee's vocals are incredibly haunting and hypnotic. Match this with the visuals David presents us and it feels incredibly nightmarish. There's a moment where Julee stops and screams mid-song and falls from the rope suspending her from the ceiling. It's so jarring and it actually scared me a little bit. It doesn't help that she turns into some 30ft skinned papier-mâché deer either.

The whole thing wouldn't have felt out of place if it appeared as a scene in Inland Empire, so that gives you an idea of its mesmerising weirdness. For Lynch fans, it's unmissable. For everyone else, it isn't.

In a celebrated career most recognized for film and television productions, David Lynch nevertheless explored other mediums over time, including music, art, and even comics. With his propensity for oddball surrealism and offbeat humor there was hardly any telling in general what we'd get from one project to another - so what about an endeavor which combined visual art, film, live stage performance, dance, and music in front of a live audience? Even as this, recorded for posterity, features contributions from Nicolas Cage ('Wild at heart'), and notable ongoing collaborators including Angelo Badalamenti, Laura Dern, Julee Cruise, and Michael J. Anderson, 'Industrial symphony No. 1' has in subsequent years gone rather unremarked among Lynch's more famous productions. I can understand why insofar as the amalgamation is primed for a more niche audience even on paper. And once one begins watching, well, it definitely fits in quite well alongside the man's other pieces, which depending on one's perspective either makes it a treasure or a pestilence.

For my part, I plainly think it's a treasure, and an underappreciated one. Given Lynch's vision, the familiar names and faces involved, and the ardor and imagination of the production, this absolutely feels kith and kin with the most far-out, head-scratching portions of 'Twin Peaks' (pick your iteration), 'Mulholland Drive,' 'Lost highway,' or 'Inland Empire'; especially given Cruise's role, maybe reference to 'Eraserhead' and the Lady in the Radiator is just as appropriate. The opening sequence, seemingly inspired by Lula and Sailor from 'Wild at heart,' is the most ordinary that this performance gets as the presentation subsequently melts into an enigmatic, nightmarish dreamscape of music, sounds, and imagery. Clamorous sound effects, flicking atmospheric lighting, industrial set dressing (metal girders; a burned-out car), actors on ropes, and dancers among it all mix together with a slurry of music ranging from ethereal pop, and jazz-like musings to haunting synth-driven soundscapes, harsh industrial noise, and various other instrumentation both conventional and atypical.

Oh yes, it's very strange. This is Art of the variety that, more than anything else, invites the audience to feel what they will, and read into and take away from it what they will, and perhaps above all to simply relish in the wonder of it all. There IS a very broad sense of cohesion and an even looser sense of "story" as the odyssey is conceived as the dreams of a woman whose lover just left her - hence the alternate name, 'Dream of the broken hearted' - and to some extent also in the familiar comfort of those songs for which Cruise sings. That smattering of unity is handily outpaced, however, by the sheer whimsy of what greets us. Exactly how much one appreciates 'Industrial symphony No. 1' will depend on how well one can get on board performance art of such an avant-garde, experimental nature. And still, be all that as it may, even as I personally love it, I don't think there's any arguing that it's very well done in and of itself. The stage direction is terrific as all the many disparate parts are woven together very well, including the acting, dance choreography, stunts, effects, choice lighting, and more. I certainly admire John Schwartzman's cinematography that adeptly, tastefully captures everything on film for us, and to the same point, Mary Sweeney and Bob Jenkis' editing is as bright and flavorful as everything else. And that's to say nothing of the sound effects, or the music, which even at their most cacophonous are a rich, integral component of the viewing experience.

Existing as this does on the outer fringes of creativity and its respective art forms, it's difficult to entirely grasp the whole, let alone to try to compare it to anything else. Those who are receptive to the weirder side of theater are most likely to find this to their appeal, right alongside those who are already enamored of Lynch and his one of a kind brilliance. For as curious as it is, though, the sum total is deeply entrancing, to the point that it really does feel like we've stumbled into a dream - and maybe that is the surest sign of success. One should know that this is well removed from any easy frame of reference, but for those open to all that film, television, theater, music, and art have to offer, 'Industrial symphony No. 1' is a delight that pleases from beginning to end, and I'm happy to give it my hearty recommendation.

How to describe Industrial Symphony? Well, it almost defies description, in conventional terms, except that it's a story of broken love, and of a sort of floating angel (dream-self) singing of the inner-most feelings of love and happiness that are always out of reach. That's the basic description, I suppose, but what if I were to add that includes a dwarf sawing a log, or that the said angel gets "killed" (killed in quotes cause I don't know for sure, and I don't want to) and dumped in the trunk of an old 50s car, or that there's a big elk zombie at one point, or baby dolls that come down slowly with masks over their heads? That's just some of what makes up one of David Lynch's most under-seen efforts, where he experiments yet again by filming a live stage show- occasionally in 80's style slow-motion and dissolves like in a live music video of the period- and in using lighting effects and methods of 'storytelling' that are completely abstracted from anything you think you've seen before.

First off, there is no "4th wall" in this world of the Industrial Symphony, far from it. As in Inland Empire, to which this shares a kinship in terms of how the lighting and production design goes, there's only a reality, and then an un-reality, and then the two possibly blended into another un-reality, or something like it. So it's, for lack of a simpler description, a dream-land where the peaks and terrors of love are meant to be taken in emotionally, not intellectually. And he provides us with a very talented singer, Julee Cruise, who would also appear on a couple of episodes of Twin Peaks. She helps put into some kind of context the story of Heartbroken Man (Nicolas Cage) and Heartbroken Woman (Laura Dern) after their break-up over the phone. Lynch then throws in these extra images, of destruction, death, of as naked woman writing on a car, a dwarf going busy sawing a log (as well as repeating in full accentuations the conversation that opens this special), and the dream-self singing from the trunk of a car into a TV camera. Finally, the last song is played over a rendition of the Twin Peaks theme, and it closes like any dream should, on the precipice of pure emotional catharsis.

What this catharsis will do for some instead of others I can't say, but overall it marks as something to behold not just from Lynch who makes a great leap into theater direction and staging and using it as a crazy opera, but for Badalamenti who gets to spread his own creative ideas and melodies that stick in one's head long after it's done. My favorite was "I wan't you rockin' back into my heart", and the finale Twin Peaks theme, but the mid-segments that played, like the music over the sawing or the elk-zombie's uprising, plays like it's a cross between new-age sap and the most haunting 40's noir music around (and, perhaps, like music one would think is played over a tender sex scene in Twin Peaks). So, if you're a die-hard Lynch fan, track it down, and enter into what's described on the original pamphlet as a "triple-exposure dream." Whatever it is, it's a delirious, sumptuous testament to the heart, as corny as that sounds. Goofy at times, sure, but the humor there-in is outweighed by the grand theatrics of it all.

A description of this project can only be, like descriptions of Lynch's other more obtuse works ("Inland Empire," "Lost Highway," "Fire Walk With Me" "Rabbits") a description of "what happens" during the running time, which is more or less a useless venture. Try to describe what you dreamed last night to a friend and watch his eyes glaze over. One would hope that someone watching this video has a vague idea what to expect...you don't go for a viewing of something by Lynch hoping for "Singing In The Rain" at the least.

This project is definitely "out there," and like the other films mentioned is more or less non-narrative, more like a tone poem...what "meaning" there is to be found is probably up to the individual viewer. As I've said before about Lynch, only the dreamer of the dream can really guess accurately what any of it "means" to him, our experience can only be what the artist has filtered through. So what do we have? First and foremost, this recording, culled from two live performances Lynch was apparently commissioned to do, contains some of the wonderful, spooky songs written for and recorded by the ethereal Julee Cruise. The pyrotechnics, flashes of lighting, metal-on-metal surroundings, frustrated sexuality and typically Lynchian sound effects evoke an "industrial" dread that pre-sages Cronenberg's "Crash" a few years later. It is by turns perversely sexual, horrifically surreal, sweetly sentimental and slightly dull, and all within 50 minutes. The possible highlight is a song that plays like a sad lament for a lost era of 50's doo-wop, with two blasé prom-dressed girls and a chorus of vivacious Vegas showgirls.

This is "Lynch-land," and if you like Lynch you'll probably enjoy it, if not you would probably find it pure torture...it looks a bit "90's" by today's standards, it is relentlessly dark and slow at times and I question how much forethought actually went into it (Lynch himself claims it was put together pretty fast) but it is inherently memorable...one is unlikely to forget some of the strong images, or the plaintive sighing of Julee as she floats through the air, the embodiment of an innocent heart broken, but not destroyed.

For some reason I tend to start disliking Lynch because I like his work so much. I went into this quite critical, as I didn't really expect much. But still.... Lynch just continues to enchant me as an artist.

To explain what this is: Its a musical and a play, and its about a woman being brokenhearted as she's been left. The strength of the whole thing is the atmosphere. Really gripping and wonderful. There's fog all over the stage, and the haunting music is simply perfect. And of course the imagery.. and the lyrics. Its shocking, but attractive. You never really get whats going on though, its really dreamy. People floating in the air... and at one point there's a huge devil walking around on stage. When the haunting scene with the millions of dolls was strung down on the scene with creepy music alongside it was the point I personally was convinced that this is a masterpiece.

I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys the further-out side of Lynch's work. The atmosphere in this one is just gripping.