Wild at Heart is screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema on Saturday 10th May at 8pm and Thursday 15th May at 8.15pm.
Audiences were not quite on board when David Lynch’s Wild At Heart first premiered at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Though it went on to win the Palme d’Or that year, the decision was met with more boos than cheers. It was criticized for being too sexual, too violent, too cartoony, too… odd. But, as Lynch himself would later say of the film, “It was exactly the right thing at the right time.” So how does Wild At Heart hold up now, thirty-five years since its initial release?
Back in 1990, the term “Lynchian” hadn’t yet entered cinema’s lexicon. Though Lynch’s debut Eraserhead was certainly surrealist, it was little seen, and his following two films, The Elephant Man and Dune, played it relatively (a word used advisedly) straight. It was only when Blue Velvet came out that film fans were truly introduced to the hallucinogenic, dreamlike filter Lynch was starting to pass his characters and stories through. After a series of project knockbacks, due to various legal wrangles with bankrupt film studios, Lynch tried his hand at TV. The hit show Twin Peaks enthralled and confounded audiences in equal measure, but he actually left the show quite early on (only being fully involved in the first two episodes) to return to making films, specifically, Wild At Heart.
The story, adapted from the book of the same name, centres on two lovers – Nicolas Cage’s Sailor, and Laura Dern’s Lula – who take to the road after Lula’s mother sends a series of hit men to kill Sailor. Lynch described it as a film about “finding love in Hell”, and the opening credits pay testament to that – the names of the cast and crew appear over a full-screen blazing inferno, whilst a lush, golden-era-Hollywood romantic score (from regular Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti) serenades us. Close your eyes, and you could be watching Brief Encounter. Open them again, and you’re watching Terminator 2. This type of juxtaposition runs throughout the entire film and is a showcase for Lynch’s enduring playfulness.
On the much frowned upon sex and violence: Lynch said at the time that “each year we give permission for people to get away with more”. And now, thirty-five years later, that statement rings quite true, for the multiple sex scenes do seem a tad tame by today’s standards. Quaint even. They do not feel gratuitous, but rather play an important role in helping the audience buy into the love Sailor and Lula have for each other. Cage and Dern do a tremendous job in convincing that their feelings are not based purely on lust, but on a deeper, emotional level. The violence, on the other hand, still shocks. Within the first few minutes, we are thrust into a brutal, bloody beating – a level of gruesomeness that sustains throughout. Lynch doesn’t shy away from the gore, and ensures that a man getting his skull caved in is an uncomfortable watch, as it should be.
All the hallmarks of Lynch’s later works are present to be enjoyed – the mundane mixed with the ethereal; the side characters so bizarre they can only be authentic; the acting so goofy it somehow circles back to cool; the beautiful and snazzy Badalamenti score; the disjointed, self-contained-scene storytelling; never knowing if we are in a dream or a nightmare. However, all these elements, when retrospectively compared to the likes of Fire Walk With Me, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, do seem somewhat muted, as if this is Lynch testing the waters before diving head first into the surrealism pool. Before its release, he was concerned that the film, and especially the ending (drastically altered from the source material) was too mainstream. Whilst not as cryptic as his later works, it would be a massive stretch to consider it mainstream. Reframed in the context of his entire filmography, Wild At Heart now sits proudly amongst his best work – the fever-dream of a madman in love.
Reviewed by Matthew Onuki Luke
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