Haven't we been here before?

I used to be a real Lynch fan. I practically knew every line in 'Eraserhead' off by heart. I was glued to 'Twin Peaks'. Loved 'Blue Velvet' and 'Wild at Heart'.

Twenty odd years later I sat down to watch 'Mulholland Drive'. Two hours later I really wish I hadn't bothered. It was like a protracted deja-vu. A rehash of all the old Lynchian themes he'd done to death years ago. All that 'mysteriousness', that obsession with the macabre. The stage scene that was just a replay of 'In heaven' in 'Eraserhead'. Scary strange people with odd expressions and maniacal laughs. Dreamlike sequences. Impossibly convoluted 'plots' which are actually nothing but inane meanderings posing as complexity. Years ago I might have been captivated, convinced there was some inner meaning to it all. Now I was just bored. There's no meaning here. It's just idiotic. All surface and image. Not profound, not mysterious, just ridiculous.

And more than that, there's something really quite repellent about Lynch's fetishistic obsession with women and their appearance. The way he likes to make them look all wooden and vulnerable and doll-like. The hints of violence - bruises on the prostitute's arm, the druggy woman collapsing on stage. There is really a nasty underbelly to Lynch's psyche that makes me very glad I don't have any personal acquaintance with him.

All in all, I was left wondering what's the problem here - that I grew up or David Lynch didn't?