David Lynch’s dark masterpiece contains two narratives. The first, revealed as a dream within the second, is explicitly concerned with the recovery of memory, as a plot device: the mysterious Rita (Lara Harring) seeks her identity, aided by the plucky Betty (Naomi Watts). The second narrative reveals that “Betty” is in fact Diane Selwyn, and that she is suffering guilt for ordering the murder of her unfaithful lover. But this “true” narrative depends, as much as the first does, on configuring and re-configuring memories. Both narratives are examples of the way in which memory must be ordered to give shape to human lives. To retreat from memory—to fail, in fact, to re-member the past—is to put an end to all narrative. The result, as the haunting final word of the film assures us, is “silencio.”
—Nathaniel Booth
Arts & Faith Lists:
2015 Top 25 Films on Memory — #25