A young woman prepares for the biggest role of her career. She is lonely and scared, but what does it matter? She has the power of suggestion to guide her through. Someone comes to visit: her words are ominous, and she seems to change the trajectory of the known universe with just one look. The numbers four and seven are haunted, something unspeakable moves behind the scenes, and the entire film seems doomed from the start. Somewhere new, a hypnotist wreaks havoc. Our protagonist doesn’t know it yet, but she will. Story and reality blend into one. Cameras and TVs move in and out of shot, Lynch constantly reminding us that we are the audience. Until he stops. The lines blur and she crosses a threshold; we go with her. Nobody is holding our hands anymore. All hell breaks loose, in and out of seedy alleyways and loveless living rooms. A young woman is in trouble. Who will help her? Not her predestined no good husband, or the strange friends who dance in and out of shot. And certainly not her lover and his all-too-familiar wife. Women’s abuse at the hands of men loops around in a constant circle, we get lost in a lurid maze of past and future. How is it possible to be so alone on Hollywood Boulevard? Someone turns the camera off. We’ve made it out, but something is missing. She is silent but she marches on. A film within a film within a screen within a screen within a screen. The cycle completes itself — the story is over. Have these last three hours really happened? But wait — something remains. Joy. A young woman has escaped herself.
Truly a masterwork in cinema. I could wax poetic for days about the way timelines and characters and ideas wander in and out of one another but that would be boring. Just know that this is a wonderful film.
Scratch that, I think I’d like to discuss my interpretation of the film (I.e. splurge all my ideas into here so I don’t forget them). I believe we follow 3 central narratives: Nicky attempting to make it as an actress, the life of Sue as she slowly unravels, and (although this could be completely wrong — I’ve no way or knowing as I can’t speak polish and there were no subtitles) the original film that was cursed & never finished, explaining why those scenes are so randomly interspersed. Nicky’s life is fairly straight forward: she goes to work, her husband is mean, and she starts an affair with her coworker. All of these things seem to be predestined — her husband is terrible because people say he is, she gets the job because Visitor #1 tells her she will, and she falls into an affair with Devon because everyone keeps insisting that they absolutely mustn’t. But this affair with Devon has disastrous consequences; Nicky seems to fall through the fabric of reality and completely become Sue. Here, things become a little more difficult to follow. The character describes the situation best herself, telling a therapist that it seems she is standing in a dark theatre, watching her life spin in circles around her. Sue’s life spins a web around us, showing one event and then flashing somewhere completely different, only to return to that event later on and strengthen the links within her life. From what I can gather: her husband is horrible and abusive, she has a child who dies, and she is having an affair with Billy. She shows up at his house, triggering his wife’s remembrance of being hypnotised to murder someone. This comes back to bite Sue, who she stabs with a screwdriver on Hollywood Boulevard. Sue dies alone and cold on a street representative of Nicky’s entire life. Then we return to Nicky, although she seems a shell of herself without Sue. She finds herself on the big screen and one of her fellow characters appears to come to life before disappearing again. Then she’s in a dark and dingy place, outside room 47 — emblematic of the very cursed production she’s involved in. Here, she shoots the hypnotist who’d been harassing Sue’s ex-husband, and also caused Sue’s death. She enters the room. The young polish lady of the original production is sitting on a bed, watching Nicky on television. They share a kiss and Nicky disappears; seemingly, two become one. Then Sue’s husband returns, only he’s now here for the Polish woman (I’m so sorry— I’ve no idea of her name). A son is with him; a happy family is finally reunited. At last, we return to Nicky and her original visitor. Nicky looks around, as she did three hours ago, only its a completely different scene awaiting her on her sofa. We are left with the question, did any of it really happen? In a way, I believe the visitor was Nickys true therapist. By creating the realities for Nicky that she did, Nicky is able to overcome the male abuse that has haunted the story throughout. If her wide smiles during the credits are anything to go by, she seems to be freed. Those are my thoughts — of course, we’ll probably never know what Lynch’s entire true intentions were. I think this film has a lot to say about the power of words & the way we leave abused women to cope alone & the impacts of cinema upon the individual. It’s pretty good, basically.
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