Rialto Channel’s Director’s Series this September features the work of David Lynch, and to get you into the mood Rialto is also playing a documentary about the director, simply titled Lynch (Thursday 6^th September, 8.30pm).

You’d be forgiven for thinking Lynch was a David Lynch project. It certainly looks like one with its stylised and grainy video look, whimsical black and white images and mesmerising music. Then there’s the up close and personal access to the director himself as the documentary follows him creating his “experimental” work, 2006’s film Inland Empire.

The film was shot over 2 years and the director, credited in the film as just “blackANDwhite”, was supposedly a film protégé of Lynch’s who lived and worked at the director’s house/studio. Even so, it’s hard not to suspect Lynch has had a hand in it all.

It’s not a definitive look at Lynch’s career, more an insight into his enthusiasm for art across various mediums (photography, painting, sculpture and film), how transcendental meditation assists his creativity, and, what will be most revealing for Lynch fan’s, a glimpse at his process working behind the camera.

Lynch is quick to tell us artists don’t need to suffer for their work – if you don’t like doing it then don’t, he tells us. He also makes his point that art should be created because you like the process of making art, rather than the idea of making money from it.

For all this passion and positivity Inland Empire turns out to be a challenging project, and Lynch doesn’t shy a way from admitting he has no idea what he’s doing with this film. In between his stories about things like living in Philadelphia and leaving messages for members of David Lynch.com, there are moments when you see the stroppy, overwhelmed and frustrated Lynch – yes, all in the name of making art.  

Lynch’s work is always visually mesmerising and often perplexing, and this documentary is a little the same. David Lynch refuses to explain his work – life’s complicated and confusing, so why can’t his films be? This is one of the traits that makes him one of the great contemporary filmmakers of our time so even though we don’t get all the answers we at least get closer to the man.