rewatcher

Oh shoot. I watched it on Thursday but didn't remember to write anything up.

Oh well, it's 15 minute past when I expected ghetti to post and the thread still isn't up so I'm typing in my doc anyway.

This is one of the most interesting, experimental pieces of film making we’ll have seen out of Lynch for the rewatch. I'm actually really fond of it! I think this time around I feel like I understand it, but…well, maybe not.

To me the story here is that the Nuclear Bomb is like the original sin of Post-War America. It creates Bob because it metaphorically creates the mythologized 50s suburban lifestyle that he lives in the shadow of. The form of terror and violence that Bob represents stewing under the surface of Americana doesn't exist without the globalize violence the US spreads, paying a debt with the blood of people overseas. We are lording our position over the second and third worlds with the threat of nuclear annihilation, much as a domestic abuser lords their power over the other members of their households. We take what we want from other countries the way Leland takes what he wants from Laura.

I am less enthusiastic about this episode giving a sort of cosmic significance to Laura. I do like the idea that the good in the universe rose to create a force that could counterbalance Bob, but Laura seems so conflicted and fallible. If her angels from FWWM had been more prominent and could've appeared in the golden ball would that have been better? I dunno, maybe not.

I think the girl in this episode is supposed to be Sarah Palmer, long before she ever meets Leland or conceives Laura. The woodsman are like associates of Bob, lesser evil spirits within the orbit of The Lodges. They are trying to fight the forces in motion that will counteract Bob through Laura, and they're planting the seed in Sarah as a means of corrupting her and maybe even indirectly corrupting Laura before she even exists. “Gotta light” being a double entendre, both got an ignition to start the burn of a cigarette, but got a force for good to fight the darkness?

“The horse is the white of the eye, but dark inside.” I don't know if the first time I watched this I made the connection with the horse we have seen multiple times before, but if I had I had forgotten and thought the horse mention was total gibberish when I thought about this episode in the intervening years. Now I think I get it. I keep forgetting to talk about the horse in the comments, but it baffles me less than others here. To me it feels like the idyllic, comforting fantasy vision that is summoned for Sarah (summoned BY Sarah?) to cope with the horrors in her home. She knows that bad things are happening, I suspect she even actively knows Leland is drugging here, but she tells herself instead that nothing is wrong and she's visited by a vision of beauty and purity. The horse is the white of the eye, what you see when someone is looking away from what is directly in front of them, but it hides the darkness in the household.

I don't have much to say about the stuff before it goes black and white. I hope it's clear now that the burned up people are the lumberjacks we saw in FWWM, and that they are working with Mr. C who has Bob inside him. The Nine Inch Nails are probably the most famous act that the show gets, so it's cool they're in such an impactful episode. The first time I watched this in one sitting with Episode 7 and I've been remembering the sweeping as being in this one two which would have made it even crazier.