DumbLand

Since September of last year, I have been borrowing four to six films each week from the Harold Washington Library, which boasts an impressive DVD collection. (The HWL truly is a circulating library: three-quarters of its films are out at any given time!) Recently, I was thrilled to find The Short Films of David Lynch. Yesterday, knowing little about the animated series, I picked up Dumbland. I'm here to report that, for David Lynch fans, watching the eight episodes is half an hour well-spent.

The most remarkable feature of these brief pieces are their soundtracks. Each episode has its own rhythm. Respiratory and digestive systems provide percussion. Outrageous voices accent pauses' ends. Physical violence supplies the beats. Chirping birds and buzzing sockets brush along the edges. Many other elements fill out the orchestra. The pacing of the crude animation often keeps in sync with the sound, but the soundtrack itself struck me as Lynch's primary interest in creating and disseminating this work. In a way, these eight shorts are unique Lynchian rhythms.

That said, the situations are odd, ugly, profound, dumb and funny as hell. And there's enough space within them to reflect on how absurd we humans can be. I can't say that I'll watch the collection again, but for anyone who revelled in the movements that is the suite Inland Empire, Dumbland is worth half an hour of your time.

This is a bit of a puzzle for a lot of the artsy Lynch crowd. They tend to try to write this off as some kind of meaningless, crude, side project of Lynch's. Like this is Lynch passing gas between his real pieces of film art. Well it may be a fart, but its one of those intriguing farts that you catch of a whiff of and are embarrassed to admit you enjoy.

Dumbland distilled down beyond this is art. What can you do with aspects of modern life but laugh at it. If you took it seriously you would go nuts. You hook into it, smell it, taste it, feel its agonies, its unreasoning stupidities, and then express it in any medium you choose. Thats called art, and art isn't dumb. But it is Dumbland.

It is said that David Lynch's films and shorts won't appeal to everyone. Neither will Dumbland, maybe more than ever. I have a feeling that Dumbland, as people come across it, will be a true mark of 'I get it' or 'what the hell'. It's not surrealism exactly, but absurd to the point of no return. It's also very, very, very stupid. But in this stupidity can be a sort of ironic intelligence to it, that the maker knows so well how childish and repugnant this is, and this self-consciousness is a plus, not a detraction.

It's just a bunch of crudely drawn shorts- the kind that might not even make it on Hertzfeldt and Judge's Animation show (which, I might add, Lynch here has a lot in common with both directors in their work- centered on a lummox with an IQ of 20 who has a constantly quivering-with-fear wife, and a child who looks like a cross between the gingerbread man and/or an alien. The episodes include little situations like a faulty treadmill, a salesman who can recite the Gettysburg address, watching over a sick brother in law, ant hallucinations, and just wallowing on the couch with noise all around. All the while, Lynch is still experimenting, as he was constantly for better or worse during the period of five years he made on and off Inland Empire.

For one thing, he's going back to the roots of his very first short, Six Figures Getting Sick Six Times, in the usage of repetition as a means to an end. This sometimes works excruciatingly well, and sometimes not. Sometimes, like with the episode with the sitting around the house doing nothing as teeth are bleeding and a fly buzzes around, the absurdism sort of waxes and wanes without much of a good effect. And even an episode like with the guy's friend coming over is funny more-so for the Beavis & Butt-head comparison (both laugh like idiots, and are equally engrossed by killing things like fish and sheep). What ends up working is how Lynch shows up front delirious abstractions, in the crudest ways imaginable, and excessive violence.

In what comes closest to surrealism in "ants", the guy mistakenly sprays bug-spray (just called "Kill", one of Lynch's very cheap but fun pokes at societal conventions) on himself, and envisions ants in a musical chorus line, solos included. And one of the most harrowingly funny things I've ever seen from the filmmaker is "get the stick", where we just see the guy, cheered on by his son, getting a stick lodged in his mouth. Soon the neck breaks, eyes pop out, and once said stick is removed he doesn't watch out for traffic waddling like a manhole cover. Other moments pop up like this in unexpected crevices, and it's drawn as if on cheap paper with an impetus to shock with foul-mouthed language (mostly from the man, as well as from the 'grandmother', who in one of Lynch's voices for the characters is the deepest of all), and a shaky quality that's reminiscent of the cream of the crop from (early) Hertzfeldt.

All the same I'm still not sure if Dumbland is something I would put into someone's hands if they haven't seen much of Lynch yet let alone anything by him. There are some little points on society made via complete exaggerations that may or may not be in Lynch's mind closer than we usually think to those in real life. However in general there's not a whole lot that should be read into it, which is why I'd say more than half who see it will hate it with a passion. Those who dig the bottom-less pits of animated comedy, be prepared have a blast.

I'm gonna tip the scales here a bit and say I enjoyed this. However, the cartoon is really only going to appeal to those who have very absurdist tendencies. It's definitely something that most people will not get, as is the nature of absurdism.

the animation is horrible, but yes, that's the point. The main character is foul mouthed, violent, and stupid. no redeeming qualities whatsoever. his wife shrieks and wails, apparently just barely capable of the most basic communication skills. most of these stories completely lack any kind of point.

but again, that's the point ;)

If non sequiters, foul language, and complete and utter randomness are your thing, you're going to love this.

It is really short, so I would probably rent instead of buying.

This is a short, crudely animated series by David Lynch (as it says in the beginning), and it follows the misadventures of a backwoods, overall-wearing large man, with a wife who has a stress disorder and an annoying son. Both of those elements are harped upon repeatedly in the short episodes, and there's no real plot to be seen. It's easier if you think of this as an exceptionally odd, slightly macabre Looney Tunes- with far more gore, profanity, bloody violence, and occasional moments of hilarity.

I bought the DVD along with Eraserhead, having previously seen Eraserhead. Don't look to this series if you want an artistic masterpiece- this is anything but. In fact, it seems to almost be a statement against such things, as its rough style spits in the face of any sort of animation convention you may see. As Lynch says, "If this is funny, it is only funny because we see the absurdity of it all."