"The Wizard of Oz" (1939), a film inspired by the 1900 novel by the American writer Lyman Frank Baum, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", is a classic in the history of cinema, one of the greatest successes of the director of "Gone with the Wind" and its leading actress, the then teenager Judy Garland, remained in everyone's hearts for the role of the sweet dreamer Dorothy who sings the immortal "Over the Rainbow" in the film and pronouncing the magic words «There's no place like home», returns to his home in Kansas.
The musical, lavish (five months of shooting, a complicated production, director Fleming who replaced his colleagues Thorpe, Vidor and Cukor) and in Technicolor, was a great popular success at the time: it was awarded two Academy Awards [best soundtrack to Herbert Stothart, and best song ("Over the Rainbow") to Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg ] out of six nominations (the other nominations went to motion pictures, production design, cinematography, and special visual effects); managed to attract generations of children to him, to enter the collective memory and become a point of reference for many cinematographic works.
Well, among the many people who have appreciated or loved this musical, a praise of dreams and an allegory of individual growth and formation, there are some who have chosen it as the supreme object of fascination, a source of continuous inspiration or even a real obsession . Among them, and by his own admission, is the American director and screenwriter but also musician and painter, David Lynch.
It is almost impossible to list the many references, cross-references and citations, aware and not, to "The Wizard of Oz" present in the films of this enigmatic and visionary filmmaker/artist from Montana (just think, by way of example, of the red curtain in "Twin Peaks"; to some sequences of "Twin Peaks - The Return"; or to the recurrence of the red shoes, just like Dorothy's; or to the final scene of "Wild at Heart",
where the fairy who saves Sailor embodies the Good Witch of Oz).
It is precisely from here that the documentary "Lynch/Oz" developed, first screened at the Rome Film Fest 2022 and then at Comicon 2023.
The film was created with the intention of comparing themes and images of "The Wizard of Oz" and the symbolism present in the entire artistic work of David Lynch, and is scrupulously directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, a specialist in cinema documentaries .
David Lynch doesn't love and has never loved explaining to the public the hidden meanings inside each of his films. For this reason, Alexandre O. Philippe turned to other illustrious personalities linked to the world of cinema to investigate and analyze the alleged aforementioned links, starting a creative reflection and a real critical visual discourse. Specifically, he interviewed film critic Amy Nicholson, and filmmakers Rodney Ascher, John Waters, Karyn Kusama, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead and David Lowery.
Exceptional guides that accompany the viewer within six chapters that divide the film: "Wind", "Membrane", "(Spiriti) Affini", "Multitudines", "Judy", "Scavare".
Six chapters to dissect and understand the imaginative impact, but also the crisis of all those aspects founding the charm and hidden in the shadows of the film David Lynch loved since he was a child and in turn metabolized, deconstructed and rebuilt according to his own personal dictates intimate and poetic.
The pleasant and exciting documentary shows us all the strength that has characterized this devotion, the causes that have generated it, but also the consequences it has created in the Lynchian universe.
In this direction, the demolition of mythology is interesting, starting with the ending of "The Wizard of Oz" which has always been read by many as decisive and reassuring; well, here a new interpretation insinuates itself: is Dorothy's return to her world with the same sepia tones with which she had left it, is it really something reassuring? So there is cinematic mythology on the one hand, its demystification on the other; on the one hand the apparent image of the American myth, on the other what is hidden in the deceptive illusion of her. It is a dignified work which, despite the limitations (some forcings, speculation without borders, redundancies), through an honest and accurate interpretation of Lynch's filmography, manages to immerse the viewer in a cinematic experience of knowledge and expansion of borders.
The film was nominated for Best Documentary at the London Film Festival 2022, and won the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2022 as well as the Tribeca Film Festival 2022.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
The greatest 01 hour: and 48 minutes ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
