David Lynch has been one of my favourite filmmakers for most of my life now.
Having seen all of his feature-length films, I finally decided to watch some of the shorts, in chronological order.
"Six Men Getting Sick" had to come first, then, because it's the first movie Lynch made. He made it while in college, and when he intended to become a painter, not a filmmaker. In fact, the cost of making the movie caused Lynch to swear off filmmaking forever, but luckily for us he was tempted back to make another film.
There's not a whole lot to say about this movie. It reminded me less of a short film than a video installation, kind of like a (barely) animated painting. We see six abstracted figures in the background, unmoving, presumably from a painting of Lynch's. Overlaid is some basic animation, mostly showing bright fluid travelling up the figures' bodies and coming out their mouths.
A siren sound plays on a loop all the while.
What is it supposed to say, and what is it about? Who knows. Probably few people will be satisfied with it. I do find that it shares a common thread with much else of Lynch's filmography, though, and that is experimentation. Lynch's movies are always inches away from collapsing into an abyss that always feels like it's just barely being kept off-screen. But there's always light in his movies, too. And that light mostly comes from the joy he gets from experimentation, and invites us to share with him.
