The Adventures of Alan R.

Of course, this tiny building block, which at first glance seems completely meaningless, self-serving, and infantile, may make sense in 50, 100, or 1000 years, placed in context, and then we will be amazed at the genius of the creator who made us some grandiose and overwhelming masterpieces out of tiny mosaic cubes. It may be so. I will not rule out this possibility. Until then, however, I will keep my reverence for myself, for I do not like to be enthusiastic without an actual reason to be enthusiastic. And when someone builds the significant part of his career essentially on the fact that your deifying fans will project some meaning into a plethora of foggy references and inadequate handrails, I think that's the right attitude.

On the other hand, I don't deny that I'd be happy to see the many little puzzle pieces finally come together into a huge, held-up middle finger that scoffs the many salivating hypocrites who glorify these audiovisual jokes, but unfortunately my life span is probably too short to wait for an artificial intelligence to waste its precious time solving such nonsense.

Whatever those adventures were - if real or imagined, conscious or subconcious or not visible, as usual with David Lynch - I liked it. I know I won't hit Lynch's exact ideas and we can all have different interprations for the work (it's all valid he says) but my take on Alan R's adventures is one of uncertainty about the things of life with this strange head repeating and affirming that he's not gonna fish today. That might be true, after all the face can't move at all except for the mouth and there's another character on the side who doesn't respond to him. Maybe Alan is the one waiting to be fished this time, I mean he stuck there doing his insane act, fighting for certainty, all is well and good but to be certain of one act alone isn't an affirmation at all if one does not act upon it. Wait...I was supposed to help guys and gals.

So, that was just one take from this very good filmed art by the genius creator of "Eraserhead" and "Blue Velvet" - just to name a few - and whenever Lynch breaks a little from the "normal" path of movie characters, always coming to deliver an experience that is more about to think first and feel later, he can generate confusion, hatred, amazement or enlightnement. As with life, it's tough to understand but we keep insisting; his films may never explain anything but the toughest of us keep on insisting too. Why? There's always something there to be explored, analyzed, looked at in a different way and the more you exercise your mind and heart to it the less frustrated you get and the more in love for the experience. I could be putting those thoughts in any of his movies and it'd apply (not so much for "The Elephant Man" or "The Straight Story" since they're on a more natural level. It's for all audiences, world cinema at its best). And don't forget: with time, you can't always look back at what you didn't understood when younger and with life, films, books and other experiences you can get a little closer to Lynch's puzzle. It's all there for us to fix it, put it together and imagine what the final image will be like.

What makes this short a little strange and lacking in appeal is the time. Sure, for those being introduced to his films it's a great to get a minor comprehension of the artist, to create an impression and then move on to his longer films. I felt a sense of greatness and enjoyment while watching but when it came to time to rationalize it, or feel it more intensively it got something lost. What was funny wasn't later on but that's just me.

It was an adventure though not in the traditional sense. After all, if Alan R. can have fulfillment just by lying there without a body and repeating what he won't do and the figure next to him doesn't complain or support him (just staying silent), I guess we as audiences can't judge much what the other side is expressing. It's all valid and we try not to be so severe or critical of things. It's complex, difficult but it's worth the challenge, the headaches for some. Lynch always makes me come back even when the experiences isn't all that great or memorable. Maybe 10 years later I'll understand what this was about. Check it out! 8/10