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Mulholland Drive – Attempt no 2

A year ago I watched Mulholland Drive for the second time.
It turned out that in recent years my perception of the film has changed a lot since I have become more cynical and have already seen a lot.
As for the plot content of the film, I think the director came up with the idea of ​​showing the story of the trip to the address on Mulholland Drive 2 times, and the second time the girl in this scheme is already different, and many details become clear from the final conversation at the table.
Well! This is a great idea!
But to tell the truth, this plot action would take on the screen not 2 and a half hours, but only about 40 minutes of the film.
Therefore, all the rest of the time Lynch is occupied with some kind of outsiders, funny broken plot lines leading to nowhere. Lynch loves to laugh, and deliberately places mysterious points during the film so that the viewer can rack his brain happily over it.

That is why this time I watched this film as a comedy, or rather, as a set of funny sketches.
Judge for yourself: then we see in the frame a certain so-called mysterious chief sitting in the chair, to whom the situation is reported and who is listening. Then our attention is switched to negotiations, and then to the quarrels of the director in black glasses with the Italian mafia. Or one more funny sketch – the husband finds his wife’s lover at home, or the champion of “incomprehensibility” – the so-called scene in a cafe. Or those strange pop numbers on the stage of the Silesio Theater, crowned with a blue cube!

Oh, earlier I could really think seriously: but what means this kind of blue cube with no less blue key? :))

The picture is quite stylish, one might even say – “very stylish”.
All in all, I really loved the impressive music and the panorama of the city’s night lights in the background. And a very exciting feeling when a car is driving to such music in the dark.

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“Each of you has a part of all your teachers” (School of Life, 2005)

At the beginning of the film, as “on his deathbed,” Norman says parting words to his son Matt Warner, which at first remained incomprehensible: “I don’t want to see you die. You can die while still alive. ” As we can see, the dying father is seriously worried about the outwardly quite prosperous life of his son.
Matt in bewilderment repeats the words of his father to himself, unable to comprehend their secret meaning.
After the death of Dylan’s grandfather, a new history teacher comes to school, Mike Di Angello – Mr. Di. Matt Warner is seriously concerned about the success of Mr. Di. , he loses his peace and slumber.
At the end of the film, when Matt Warner overcame his excessive vanity and found harmony with himself, he understands the last words of his dying father that the worst thing is to die while still alive ..
Thank goodness Matt Warner is not dead. On the contrary, it was as if he was born again, gaining new horizons. And it is thanks to Mr. Di. that Dylan ceases to be ashamed of his father and, on the contrary, begins to be proud of him. Matt’s family life is also at its best – over the past three years, his family has replenished with two new children.

… Nevertheless the question arises: what would have happened if, as a result of his investigation, Matt Warner had not discovered two things: 1) Mr. Di had leukemia and 2) Mr. Di was once a favorite student of his father – the great teacher Norman Warner?
After all, it was these two things that reconciled Matt Warner with everything that happened, allowed him to rise above his feelings and learn his main lesson in life (don’t forget, the title of the film is “School of Life”).
So, I repeat: I am haunted by the question: how would events develop if Mr. Di. would remain alive and well for many years to come? What would happen then? Where would biology teacher Matt Warner take his all-consuming, destructive envy?
This remained incomprehensible to me. Moreover, in American films, the technique with a fatal illness of the hero is often used as a way out of the plot deadlock.

You shouldn’t expect any heights of acting from the performer of the role of Mr. Di , and here’s why. Unlike the multifaceted image of Matt Warner, always reflecting and doubting, the image of Mr. Di is embodied in the film not particularly fully and in relief. This is explained by the fact that, paradoxically, Mr. Di. is a somewhat schematic, secondary, auxiliary character. For, as Dylan quite rightly believes, it was his grandfather – the great teacher the Terrible Norman Warner – who sent Mr. Di to school in order to make his father – Matt Warner – the next great teacher. In support of this, recall the episode at the beginning of the film, when, after the funeral of his grandfather, Dylan encounters an unfamiliar man in the cemetery, who deliberately greets him meaningfully and puts flowers on his grandfather’s grave. And, of course, this man is none other than Mr. Di, who soon came to school as a teacher – that is, it turns out that grandfather died, and at this very moment Mr. Di appears in the life of the Warner family.
Throughout the film, we never see Mr. Di. alone with himself, we always see him only through the eyes of others – most often through the eyes of Dylan or Matt. This confirms the idea of ​​the phantom nature of this character. Essentially, Mr. Di. is Norman Warner’s will. He unexpectedly appears in the lives of Dylan and Matt precisely at those moments when he wants to convey something important to them.

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“Spoorloos” (1988)

In my search for films, I came across a not very well-known film “Spoorloos”, the description and reviews of which interested me …. However, I tried not to read the reviews especially to avoid spoilers.
In this film, we see on the screen an idyllic decade in the history of mankind before the advent of the Internet, coronavirus and everything else.

Idyllic pictures of the bearded man’s leisure time in the circle of his family give everything that is happening more embossed shade.
Throughout the film, it seems to the viewer that it will be about some kind of banal, more or less inventive rape, or something like that, since this man, most likely, did not receive some sexual sensations he needed in his exemplary family.
But our French bearded murderer turned out to be not a banal pervert, but a man testing himself for the ability to cause mortal harm to another person.
And just to keep the intrigue of the film a secret until the last moment, the author of the film does not allow the killer to tell Rex and us too much, that is why the killer is just speculating for a long time whether he is capable of doing things.
It seems to me that the killer’s reasoning is quite rational. In Russian literature – there is a novel “Crime and Punishment”, and the main character in his reasoning asks himself the question: am I an ordinary creature or have a special right? In general, it is for extraordinary people that he recognizes their right to crime.

So here they are – Rex and the killer.
Rex feels hatred, but he also has a feeling that finally what he has been waiting for so long is happening, and therefore Rex even feels some elation.

From Rex’s point of view, the intervention of higher powers leaves no doubt, because just at the moment when he doubted whether he should drink murderer’s sleeping pills, thunder suddenly struck and a downpour began, and Rex found himself near the very tree under which Saskia buried her comic treasure. And this was, undoubtedly, a sign to Rex from the higher powers that he must continue his deadly journey in search of his beloved, no matter what it cost him.

It is quite difficult for the viewer to recognize and correctly interpret the intervention of the Higher Forces, because in general the film was filmed in a rather mundane, deliberately everyday manner, and only these rattling organ sounds give everything that happens a little timeless and detached.

I can confess that within a few seconds after the light at the end of the tunnel was shown and Saskia smiling standing there, I suddenly believed that this story had a good ending and Rex really found Saskia and was rewarded was rewarded for his loyalty and courage in this brave journey in search of his beloved, accompanied by a representative of the dark forces.

After that, I involuntarily recalled that scene in the tunnel at the beginning of the film, when Saskia is scared, she tries to find a flashlight shouting to him: “Rex, don’t go! I’m afraid!” And Rex calmly leaves, despite her screams. It seemed to me that everything that happened was a punishment for Rex for leaving his woman in a frightening dark tunnel.
And at the very end my perception became very cynical and aloof – I thought: yes, these lovers met in another world. I remembered the phrase “Until death do us part” and that Spanish anecdote when, after death, a wife finds a husband in heaven, but the husband declares to his wife that he promised to be with her only untill death but not after death.

I especially appreciated this special birds cooing, which is typical for the southern European countries 🙂

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