by Cláudio Alves

David Lynch as John Ford in his last big-screen appearance, in THE FABELMANS (2022).

Somewhere in LA, in the middle of a concrete nowhere, an open door beckons. It tugs, a jerky motion that makes you fly through space, into Club Silencio. The insides are old, the red velvet memory of a place that is no more. And yet, despite the unease, it's time to sit down and attend the MC's lugubrious presentation, a swirl of lies and jest, fakery that denounces itself in a spectacle that's a bit like a threat, a lot like a spell. Blue swaths over red, it glows, and then, at long last, the diva makes her entrance – Rebekah Del Rio will be singing "Llorando." But of course, it's not her voice, for she falls, and the ghostly tune persists. Somehow, that doesn't matter. In a palace of illusions, the false still rings true. And look, truthful tears stream down your face.

Watching this scene in Mulholland Drive feels like falling an endless fall, free-floating across the void, suspended in nothingness. It feels like pure beauty born of nightmares, pain and ravishment. It feels like nothing else in the world. Like something only David Lynch could have imagined. And what can we do other than surrender to that feeling on this day of all days when we must say farewell to the man, the artist, and the great? David Lynch has died…