!F starts today: Lynch and the Maharishi

My adopted Turkish sister and almost look-alike (if you really need glasses) is the director of !F, the coolest film festival in Turkey. !F is the abbreviation for the Istanbul International Independent Film Festival, and it starts today. Tonight I am going to see the new David Lynch film with a friend before heading to the festival opening party. My friend pointed out that Lynch’s films have been getting crazier and crazier over the years, so we can’t expect this one to make a lick of sense.

I accept the fact that Inland Empire will most likely be a bunch of shots of Laura Dern looking deranged, intercut with flowing velvet curtains and accompanied by molasses-slow atonal acid jazz. But isn’t this the whole reason for going? I don’t care so much if there is a discernable story as long as I leave with a creepy feeling.

I will admit that Lynch’s unquestioning support of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his cult transcendental meditation organization makes me love him a little less. I mean, if I had the time to just meditate and film creepy shit, I think I would be supporting people like Anna Politkovskaya and Arundhati Roy rather than the Beatles’ old guru who runs his organization like a bad-manimal-Rescaper (see the book listed at the right by Keller Easterling for a chapter on the spatial projects of the TM organization.)