David Lynch Does Dior

Does anyone else troll Wikipedia in the wee hours? When all is quiet through the house and not a creature stirring - not even a mouse - am I alone in finding myself wandering the web in search of tantalising new information on some nostalgic old favourite?

Every now and then something I'll come across something - a song in the background of a show, a DVD in someone else's collection, an image on a billboard - something that reminds me of some old interest that's been dormant so long I've almost, but not quite, forgotten it. The other day, say, my mp3 player spat out a classic Deftones track during a random roustabout, and a quick Wiki later, what do you know? They've got a new album, their first in four years: Diamond Eyes. A damn fine new album at that.

But never fear, I'm not on the metal bent again.

So now the scene's set. Over the weekend, then, something - for the life of me I can't put my finger on exactly what - reminded me of David Lynch. He's never been the most prolific of filmmaker, but I thought it's been... what, five years since Inland Empire? He's got to have done something with himself in that time.

Well, he has. This is it:

Apparently Dior called him up and said "Would you like to make a short film for the Internet? You can do anything you want, you just need to show the handbag, the Pearl Tower and some old Shanghai."

Lynch said yes. One imagines a wad of cash might have been involved in the bargain at some stage. And so we have Lady Blue Shanghai, a short film that does not just involve a handbag, old Shanghai and the Pearl Tower, but revolves around them.

It's a little amateurish, to be sure, but what most interests me is that in the space of fifteen minutes, with an obviously limited budget, Lynch manages to communicate all that makes his work his. In Marion Cotillard, we have a beautiful woman. We have some striking use of colour, not to mention another red room. And that underwater synth soundtrack...

Utterly baffling, of course - what do you expect - and a far cry from a proper David Lynch film, but a worthwhile watch nonetheless. Certainly I wouldn't have spent fifteen minutes watching Dior commercials. This, though; this I can justify to myself.

And it does leave me wondering. What would happen if I called David Lynch up and said to him, here, have a wad of cash, and make me a film for the internet about an elf, an axe and the colour purple?