Lynch/Oz

LOFT FILM FESTIVAL 2022 REVIEW! Sporting enough hot air to float the Wizard’s balloon up to planet Arrakis, we have Alexandre O. Philippe’s pointless documentary Lynch/Oz. The film consists of several chapters, each with an interview with a different filmmaker or critic. We hear from L.A. Weekly and Village Voice critic Amy Nicholson, Pink Flamingos director John Waters, The Green Knight director David Lowery, Destroyer director Karyn Kusama, Room 237 director Rodney Ascher, and Loki and Moonknight directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Each speaks about the presence of The Wizard of Oz in David Lynch’s body of work while clips are played. They mention the direct references, suspected symbols, and common themes related to Oz across several Lynch movies and T.V. projects. Together the interviews might constitute a deep examination of the traces of a good witch found in the work of a bad one.

“…speaks about the presence of The Wizard of Oz in David Lynch’s body of work…”

Philippe’s hands must still be warm from all the steaming bullshit he used to fingerpaint his way through this film. The injured parties include Lynch, the poor, mishandled interviewees, and the audience, who are punished for their curiosity. Anyone watching wants to hear discussions about either Lynch or Oz. Unfortunately, however, there is a lot of talking about neither, with many other famous directors and children’s films deconstructed to theoretically supplement the examination of Lynch’s work or the appeal of L. Frank Baum’s stories. So instead of steak, we get meatloaf. It is as if the narrow subject focus of the interviews causes the interviewees to run out of material, and they have to go off-road to keep talking.

Oddly, it also seems there is an unspoken pact among the speakers to avoid spending time on Wild At Heart, the Lynch movie so jam-packed full of Oz trappings that it started the whole association between the two. Diminished early on as the work with the obvious direct references, the speakers seemed to be encouraged to go hunting for Oz elements in Lynch’s other work. The problem is this leads to many square Oz pegs being hammered into round Lynch holes. The references become more superficial, like pointing out there are a lot of curtains in Lynch movies, and the Wizard was behind a curtain. Big deal. Dorothy wore ruby shoes, and there were red shoes in Lynch movies. So? There is more grasping of straws here than when Dorothy and Tin Man were trying to put Scarecrow back together. All this fluff obscures legitimate Oz Easter eggs like the yellow broken highway line in Lost Highway echoing yellow bricks, which comes and goes here in a flash.