| EMPIRE, 1990 |
WILD AT HEART DIRECTOR.....DAVID LYNCH
The mixtur of catcalls and cheers - the latter in the clear majority - which greeted Wild at Heart´s Palme D´Or win at Cannes in May is a fair example of this extraordinary film´s ability to delight and offend in equal measure. Basically, it all depends on just how you like your explicit sex, gratuitous violence and eardrum-busting rock music. Whatever personal sensibilities may be ruffled, however, it is impossible to deny that David Lynch has produced a weird and wonderful twist on the traditional road movie. Unlike his last feature, Blue Velvet, where the emotional charge came from two ultra-normal characters suddenly pitched into a world of menacing evil, Wild at Heart starts out from a comic book situtation and just gets crazier. Sailor (Cage) and Lula (Dern) are young lovers fleeing south from her vengeful mother (histrionically played by Dern´s real-life mum, Diane Ladd). In a fit of parental pique, Mum sets thoroughly weird hit-man Bobby Peru (Dafoe) on their trail, while a few other pursuers, among them Harry Dean Stanton and Isabella Rossellini, join in the chase. Wild at Heart, more than any of Lynch´s previous movies, is genuinely funny, with its warped humour serving to deflate the genuinely gory moments. Nicolas Cage does a brilliant line in fat Elvis impersonations, Dern is wonderfully good at the hyperactive Lula, and Lynch´s breathtaking imagination, sure-footed direction and bizarre use of colour all add up to a genuine cinematic tour de force. **** (out of *****) KENNY MATHIESON |