Cuore selvaggio

A real stimulatingly offbeat exhibition from Lynch is the dark and wild backdrop of a romantically engaged traveling pair: "Sailor" who is on parole after committing a brutal murder, and "Lula" whose mother demands her to return from a spoiled trip to Texas with help from a detective. It's a twisted, artsy journey that is often repulsive and long to boot (and certainly not for the squeamish!), but fares inventive at a certain degree and boasts some of the strongest performances ever worked on a Lynch film, perhaps even in 1990. Cage's concert act and the magically rendered semi-ending are two classic acclaims put together in this moving cinematic collage.

RATING: * * *

The most creative and controversial director in cinema is back with a road-movie! Wild at Heart is one rough roller coaster ride and a typical Lynch-cocktail of violence, sex and of course…bizarre characters. I challenge you to find one personality in this film that could be referred to as a ‘normal human being'. As usually, Lynch introduces a bunch of wicked individuals in his film who're all messed up in the head pretty bad. Yet, I feel like Wild at Heart might be Lynch's most accessible film (outside The Elephant Man and The Straight Story). The structure remains chronological and quite easy to follow. Unlike the previous Blue Velvet, I feel like the plot and development of Wild at Heart is a bit inferior to the wonderful photography. The greatest aspects in the screenplay are in fact the delicious side-chapters that are told without absolute necessity. Like the story about Lula's cousin Dell (Crispin Glover), the torture of Harry Dean Stanton's character and the nasty and disturbing images of a car accident the protagonists come across. These are the little sequences that truly prove Lynch's talent as a storyteller. Overall and simply put: this movie is COOL! It's a joy to watch and you really hate to love some of the offensive characters. Willem Dafoe takes the cake as Bobby Peru. His portrayal is a neat follow-up to Blue Velvet's Frank Booth. Peru is a filthy and despicable pervert with itchy-trigger-fingers! It's a damn shame he hasn't got any more screen time. Wild at Heart surely isn't the greatest masterpiece out there, but you should love it for what it is: an absurd and entertaining adventure with a couple of thought-provoking values and an extraordinary love-lesson.

Almost two years after beating a man to death in a fight, Sailor is released from prison and restarts his relationship with Lula - much to the disapproval of Lula's mother. When Sailor and Lula break parole and head for California, she hires a hitman after them to kill Sailor. Unaware of this, Sailor and Lula continue west, encountering all manner of weird and wonderful people on their way.

I first tried to watch this when it first came on television, but I was watching it with family and felt uncomfortable with the nudity and turned it off. Years later I have seen many other Lynch films, have loved Twin Peaks and looked forward to a chance to watch it. I sat to watch it aware of the basic plot and that it was to be full of references to Wizard of Oz, but I wasn't prepared for the biggest surprise - that it just wasn't that good a film. I am not adverse to Lynch's universe of weird characters but I don't like it when I get the feeling that he is simply being weird for the sake of it.

Certainly that seemed to be the case here: the plot is so loose and meaningless to almost be pointless even as a frame for weirdness - which is what it really is. The references to Wizard of Oz are all there but, rather than being part of the film, they are stuck in with clumsiness all the way - they seem like a gimmicky afterthought rather than a carefully scripted part of the film. The plot is more a collected of the usual Lynchian weirdness and gore. Sometimes this works really well when it is framed within an engaging film, but here the characters, images and action are all just left drifting in a relatively empty film. It's a shame because I really like many of Lynch's films and was looking forward to this, but even I am forced to admit that this film just isn't that good.

The cast features many of Lynch regulars, but many seem to be lost due to the fact that they haven't got the material to do their stuff within. Cage is really quite good despite his simple character. Dern is given more to do but comes across rather hammy with it - her character should have had the emotional buy in to the film but she can't deliver it. Turns from Dafoe, Stanton, Rossellini, Fenn, Glover and others are all good but they exist as free floating weird characters rather than part of the film in the way I would have liked.

Overall this is a typical Lynchian film in it's imagery, weird characters, strange story and violent/sexual content. Usually these would be good things in this context but here they aren't put together very well creating a film that, although worth seeing and weirdly fascinating, is not actually that good a film.

I feel like "Wild at Heart" is one of Lynch's forgotten films, and I can sort of see why. Though I enjoyed my time with Sailor (Nicolas Cage, "Leaving Las Vegas"), Lula (Laura Dern, "Marriage Story"), and all the other various other bizarre characters that populate this weird romantic tale, I can honestly say that this is one of my least favorite Lynch movies. It's not bad, it just doesn't do a whole lot for me, especially when compared to Lynch's masterpieces (Twin Peaks TV show, "Eraserhead", "Mulholland Drive", "Inland Empire"). When Lynch is at the peak of his directing powers, his films can prompt me to question and meditate upon the very nature of our reality; "Wild at Heart" is just a decent road trip movie with a few really quirky moments and a whole lot of wackos.

As a side note: it blows my mind that this won the Palme d'Or in 1990. According to IMDb's trivia section on this film, Roger Ebert, who seemed to have a distaste for Lynch (check out his "Blue Velvet" review), booed so loudly that it almost drowned out the cheers when the award was announced. Though I honestly don't think this film deserves to stand beside the likes of other winners like "Parasite", "Shoplifters", "Blue is the Warmest Color", or "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", I also can't ever imagine being so upset over a film award that I'd boo the recipient... but hey, that's just me.

Wild at Heart is not David Lynch at his best, personally much prefer Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Mulholland Drive and The Straight Story and is definitely not going to be everybody's cup of tea. But while it has its flaws Wild at Heart still impresses and fascinates in many ways, also don't think that it's his worst like some people I know in the past have said(that'd be Dune). The story does feel very randomly structured at times, especially true with Crispin Glover, and some of the pacing slackens; the film could have done with being shorter as some scenes did feel too padded and underdeveloped, and the script can be a confused jumble and not always easy to understand completely(though admittedly there are some quotable lines). There are many great things with Wild at Heart however because the cinematography is stunning, the scenery is bursting with vivid colour and there are plenty of bold colours and lighting with some of the visuals being wonderfully deranged. There is also a hypnotic soundtrack that adds so much to the feel of the film, the music choices being also quite interesting, while Lynch's direction while not the best he's ever done(tied between Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive) but it is very adept and has his unique style all over. The story is not the best but the atmosphere is just great, just loved the campiness, the eroticism and haunting weirdness, it's hardly uneventful and there are some memorable moments like the incredibly chilling robbery sequence and the ending. The Wizard of Oz references while a little over-used are fun. The characters are not likable at all, in fact in the cases of Marietta and Bobby a few of them could be seen as loathsome, but considering the atmosphere and viciously violent but also sexy content of the film it is clear that they weren't intended to be. The performances are fine, Nicholas Cage will induce polarising opinions but while he was wooden to start with he was charming and entertaining once he warmed up. Laura Dern is alluring with the two working comfortably together, while Diana Ladd manages to be both hilarious and scary and Willem Dafoe is unforgettably creepy. The cameos acquit themselves well too. All in all, incredibly strange and not without flaws but also fascinating. 7/10 Bethany Cox