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David Lynch week on World Movies

Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Eraserhead feature in a David Lynch showcase this month.

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World Movies will screen 5 works by director David Lynch in a week-long showcase, WM Focus On: David Lynch.

The films include Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Eraserhead, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and Lost Highway.

“World Movies prides itself in bringing Australians the finest cinema from around the globe, and we are thrilled to present David Lynch’s most compelling and ground-breaking films for the very first time on our channel,” said World Movies General Manager Chris Keely.

“From his film debut Eraserhead to the critical acclaim of Blue Velvet, World Movies is the perfect place to celebrate the wit and wisdom of the one of the world’s most fascinating filmmakers”.

Blue Velvet (USA, 1986) 9.30pm Monday 13 April
If you’ve never taken a trip into the mind of director David Lynch, this is the place to start. At once beautiful, horrifying, erotic and surreal, this 1986 controversial masterpiece is about the evils that can exist in even the most perfect of places. When college student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) investigates a mystery in his small town, he unwittingly opens the door to an underworld of murder, sex, kidnapping and blackmail. Dennis Hopper gives one of the big screen’s most unforgettable performances as Frank Booth, a twisted drug sniffing villain. Voted “one of the greatest films of all time” by Entertainment Weekly.

Wild at Heart (USA, 1990) 9.30pm Tuesday 14 April
If Lula knows one thing in this world, it’s that she’s destined to be with her ex-con boyfriend Sailor no matter how many times her mama tries to kill him. But when she and Sailor finally hit the road in a desperate bid to find happiness, their journey plunges them into a disturbing underworld filled with sexual secrets and dangerous desires that form a terrifying tapestry of human extremity.

Eraserhead (USA, 1977) 9.30pm Wednesday 15 April
Five years in the making, Eraserhead is David Lynch’s bizarre and groundbreaking film debut. Shot in black and white, the film unfolds in a lifeless, industrial wasteland where the protagonist, Henry Spencer, tramps the grey, empty streets in a confused dream. An aloof young man who works as a printer, Henry finally faces up to his winsome, hysterical girlfriend and her freakshow family before finding he’s the father of a mutant alien child. Lynch called Eraserhead “a dream of dark and troubling things”, and Henry inevitably falls deeper into an unconscious nightmare populated with the demented, deformed and depraved until a beautiful vixen offers him some hope of escape.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (USA, 1992) 9.30pm Thursday 16 April
David Lynch’s prequel to his cult television series Twin Peaks concerns the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer, whose plastic-wrapped corpse, found floating in a river, was the fulcrum for the television series. During the day in the town of Twin Peaks, Laura is a top honours student at the local high school. By night, she is a sex-crazed cokehead, prostituting herself at a sleazy sex club to get money to feed her drug habit. Her race to oblivion is fuelled by her father, Leland, who, as his alter ego Bob, has been sexually abusing Laura since she was a child. But Laura has an attack of conscience when she realises that she is leading her best friend Donna (Moira Kelly) down the same rocky road. Leland, however, discovers Laura’s nocturnal debauchery when, during a business trip out-of-town, his mistress for a sexual tryst sets him up with his own daughter. In a fit of jealous rage, Leland follows Laura as she travels to a sex party in an abandoned railroad car. Consumed by insatiable longing, Leland transforms himself into Bob, with tragic results for Laura and her friends.

Lost Highway (USA, 1997) 9.30pm Friday 17 April
Fred Madison has killed his wife Renee, but why does he not remember doing it? Why is Fred opposed to video cameras and what does this have to do with Pete Dayton and his friend, the powerful gangster Mr Eddy? What is the meaning of the strange video tapes Fred and Renee receive every morning? The answers to these questions may be discovered at the end of the Lost Highway… but does it have an end?

3 Responses

  1. Eraserhead is still my favourite Lynch film. It’s like watching yourself in a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. The song “In heaven ( lady in the radiator’s song)” is one of the most haunting /disturbing songs ever.
    I also think Fire Walk With me is a great horror film that would make no sense if you have not seen Twin Peaks.
    Blue Velvet is a great film that anticipates Twin Peaks in many ways from it’s setting to the idea of a dark underbelly lurking below those white picket fences. Hopper’s performance as Frank is also chilling.

  2. Blue Velvet is the only significant film in that list. And that’s more because it was different in 1986, rather than brilliant.

    Eraserhead is a student short film, except 60 minutes too long. It’s just commitment phobia represented visually as a horror film.

    Fire Walk With Me is for die hard Twin Peaks fans.

  3. David Lynch is my favourite director of all time. Eraserhead was a nightmare! I never felt so disgusted by a movie. Ever. He knows how to make real horror movies.

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