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Wild At Heart (1990)

Dir: David Lynch

Sailor (Nicolas Cage) is a drifter through life, who unfortunately drifts too often in the wrong direction.
After getting mixed up in other peoples ruthless power games and their murderous, personal, psychosis's he at lasts find something to cling to in the tempting shape of Lula (Laura Dern).
But Lula's 'Momma', Marietta Fortune (Diane Ladd, Dern's real life Mother), has other ideas.

After Sailor gruesomely beats to death (one of Lynch's most brutal sequences) a man sent by Marietta to kill him, he is sent to prison for manslaughter.
But a bad Momma can't keep love apart and, soon after being re-united, Lula and Sailor hit the road (thus breaking Marietta's thin grip on sanity as well as Sailor's parole) and attempt to leave the past behind.

But both Sailor's and Lula's pasts cling to them in more ways than one, and it looks like their love will have to endure many deadly trials as Marietta sends out her foolishly doting Private Eye Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton) to track them down and then hires the mysterious, sadistic, Santos (J.E. Freeman) and his mixed group of psychotic contacts to get Lula back. And to wipe Sailor of the face of the Earth……

 

David Lynch's masterwork of cinema (based on Barry Gifford's novel) holds up now just as well as it ever did. In fact with each viewing it shows the viewer even more of its delights as each experience of the film peels back another it's many layers.

Cage has never been better in a role suited to no one else. His wonderful, soulful sub Elvis demeanour, that in some other films has grated, actually works as a vital component of the movie's success.
He instils a wild rebel persona into Sailor and yet remembers to keep that darker, tragic edge there. Both different and chaotic parts of his personality fuse to create one of Cinema's most flamboyant, fascinating and troubled characters and shows just how skilled Lynch is at bending out conceptions of what the movie 'hero' should be. Much like Jeffrey from Lynch's outstanding "Blue velvet", Sailor is a complex lead character of dark and light, of fun and freedom and of the creeping, ever present shadow of compromise, sacrifice and incarceration.

It's a shame that Laura Dern succumbed to the cleansing powers of Spielberg for her "Jurassic Park" role, as he she shows a scorching sexuality that, although tempered by a unique adult innocence that could have only been born out of the cruel tearing apart of her childhood innocence, shows just what a realistically erotic aura she can project.
Lula is a rebellious child, a soul mate, a voice of reason and a call to wild abandon and she easily hold her own against Sailor's powerful character just as much as Dern herself does against Cage.
And together they bring a very real passion to the relationship between Lula and Sailor.

Willem Dafoe is also a delight as Bobby Peru, filling his stock bad guy character with a twisted, violent energy. Through the most revolting teeth ever seen in film Dafoe makes Peru one of cinema's most memorable and dark villains.
Like Sailor and Lula, Peru is a compelling mix of the tarnished adult and the child like. A sadistic child using all of it's adult powers to survive. Or to destroy, in the case of the vile Peru.
Dafoe's wonderful scene with Dern in the motel room is one of the movie's highlights as the damaged part of Lula is coaxed out into the open by the snake like hiss of Peru's warped, stygian sexuality.
A sexuality that is tamed and made into a twisted joke (perhaps for the sake of Peru's own, on the critical list, sanity) by his sudden turning of the darkly erotic sequence into a child like joke.

Lynch and Gifford fill the screen with fascinating personalities. Not just in the movies many colourful characters but in the actors who bring these essentially off the wall personas to life.
Long time Lynch stalwart Jack Nance's ("Eraserhead") brief cameo, in just a few minutes of screen time, becomes the poster child for all that is magnificent about Lynch.
As his wide, wild eyed character delivers his monologue about his dog, the viewer sinks willingly into Lynch's dark yet welcoming take on the human psyche. As Gifford and Lynch merge you know a frightening yet compelling picture, of a dreamlike yet nightmarish Americana, is being formed.

Be it the tripped out thug 'Dropshadow' (David Patrick Kelly, "The Warriors", "Twin Peaks"), the decadent and sinister Mr Reindeer (W. Morgan Sheppard, currently to be heard in the popular 'Medal of Honour' games console series), Calvin Lockhart ("The Beast Must Die") as a Voodoo type assassin, Isabella Rossellini's dangerous yet erotic take on Gifford's Perdita Durango character (who would become, essayed very differently by Rosie Perez, the leading character in the hyper kinetic, brutal, yet rather simplistic film by Alex de La Iglesia, from Gifford's "59 degrees of Raining" novel, of the same name),

Freddie Jones's really strange cameo as a nameless figure in a bar that squawks about the trouble with pigeons, Sherilyn Fenn's a grim foretelling role of a car crash victim, the lover's 'Good Witch' (Laura Palmer herself, Sheryl Lee) or "Back to the Future's" Crispin Glover as the seriously damaged young man (with a closeness to Cockroaches that is a text book example of Lynch's love of the dark side of the Human mind) in Lula's infamous story/flashback, all the support characters are welcome and fascinating,

The superb work done by the ever welcome Harry Dean Stanton (whose facial performance in the nightmarish, drug hazed scene of psycho sexual mania - with that other Lynch essential Grace Zabraski as a wonderful example of a grotesquely erotic character - speaks more than any words could ever do).

Diane Ladd, in the standout role that is Lula's repugnant yet tragic Mother, all makes sure that whenever Cage and Dern are not on screen "Wild At Heart" continues to grip the viewer. Lynch especially gives Ladd's character some choice scenes of wild insanity, and the actress never wastes these barn-storming chances.

The music by Lynch regular (and as vital a part to the whole 'feel' of lynch film as Lynch himself) Angelo Badalamenti is his typically wonderful take on Jazz, Classical and Rockabilly that takes in the genuinely beautiful (the title theme over a wonderfully rendered firescape) to the raunchy and the bizarre.
Adding some well-chosen songs and music by such diverse artists as Chris Isaac, Glenn Miller, 'Them' and Gene Vincent. With the icing on the cake being a cheesy yet caustic (and re-occurring) Metal track from "Powermad" and Cages' show stopping Elvis warbling (the nightclub sequence is a classic of the camp, the bizarre, the surreal and the romantic that only Lynch can pull off) we end up with a movie as sonically rich as it is a delight to look at.

The Cinematography by Frederick Elmes (who never worked in another film of the same quality, before or since, sadly) is a widescreen wonder to behold as the movie's, Gifford's and Lynch's images come to life. Be it a clinical, screen filling close-up of a blazing cigarette, a chaotic nightclub sequence, a passionate scene of love making or the warped, intriguing landscapes and locations that are the backdrop to the gripping story, all are expertly rendered. The location shooting, especially in New Orleans, is also exceptional.
Duwayne Durham's ("Blue Velvet") Editing shifts from slow, drifting cuts to hyper fast bombastic montages that give that extra boost to Lynch's sterling Directing work.
And, just like in "Blue Velvet" Lynch shows just how expert he is at mixing the romantic with the blackly comic and shocking. The latter two showcased in a wildly gory robbery sequence.

The references to "The Wizard of Oz" are often criticised, where in fact they add that Fairy Tale atmosphere to the film's hyper-realism plot line. The light and dark, the good and the evil of the best Fairy Tales are all utilised to add a child like, naive fantasy atmosphere and yet still creates a scary and dark shadow that forever threatens to swamp all before it. That the dreamlike idea of the magical red shoes, that transport you away from the bad when their heels are clicked together, are powerless and only herald misfortune is yet another example of the love Lynch has for the innocent and the cruel.

Perhaps the perfect Lynch creation that, even more than his "Blue Velvet", combines the magical ingredients of violence, sex, eroticism, surrealism and fantasy into a reality that is as bleak as it is beautiful. All in a way that is essentially obscure yet has the ultimately vital hook of total comprehension.
A movie where all the unreal, other-worldly images, characters and events (rather than simply swamping the film in pretentious incomprehension that simply keep Internet movie message boards busy for a few years like in his later "Lost Highway" that Gifford also wrote) are expertly utilised to highlight the main, easily accessible plot line.

Lynch and Gifford also give us some wonderful dialogue as they weave many wonderful conversations and interactions for their characters. Be it Lula's creepy flashbacks, or the way Sailor makes her feel ("You got me hotta then Georgia asphalt") the surreal set pieces as they meet the strange characters and events created in the films deranged melting pot of ideas, or Sailor's classic re-telling of a vapid sexual encounter ("Take a bite of peach"), the script is full of the kind of lines any actor would relish.

This is Cinema as extreme art. This is Lynch at the peak of his powers.
With "Wild at Heart", "Blue Velvet" and "Twin Peaks" (that would use "Wild at Heart's" initially mysterious static shots of a location that then fade out only to appear later as leading, sinister, plot points, like the first appearance of Perdita Durango's house) all coming in close succession, Lynch and his co-creators gave every fan of cutting edge cinema and television a few years of shocking, beautiful and delightfully warped entertainment.

And "Wild at Heart" also heralded a standout decade of creativity in successful, yet extreme, American film artistry that combined that essential air of cult sensibility and vision.A decade that would give us Abel Ferrara's "King of New York" and "Bad Lt", Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs", Tarantino's and Scott's "True Romance", Oliver Stone's (not much Tarantino left) "Natural Born Killers", Matthew Bright's "Freeway" and "Confessions of a Trickbaby" and Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem For A Dream" to name just a few.

Now released on an excellent (if sadly bare bones, unless you want the optically censored Special Edition) DVD, where a crisp anamorphic print and a new 5:1 sound mix show off the films sensory delights to perfection, you have no excuses not to take this wild yet heartfelt trip with Sailor and Lula.
Ravishing movie making from one of Cinema's true visionaries.