From a visual point of view you can tell there’s a connection between them: Lula is Marietta’s younger and wilder version. Mother and daughter are very different – at a certain point of the narration they’re actually enemies – but there’s a very strong bond between them. All the bizarre, eccentric, wicked, violent and ruthless Lynch aesthetic is shown at its best, reaching its peak of perfection in the star-crossed lovers ( Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace, respectively Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern) and in Marietta Fortune, Lula’s vengeful mother (the actress who played the role is Diane Ladd, Laura Dern’s mother in real life).

I love everything about it, which is the reason why it’s still among my favourite movies ever. After many years, I recently had the chance to watch it again: the shock is obviously gone, but the feeling you’re watching a unique film is still there. It shocked me, as if I had seen an alien, because it was different from anything I had watched so far. I strangely have no memories of Disney movies, but I perfectly remember the impact the twisted love story by Lynch had on my 17-year-old prudish self. I started to regularly attend a cinema when I was 14, so these are not the only movies I remember vividly, but are surely those who impressed me most. This is surely my case: the first memories I have of watching a movie at the cinema are linked to A Hard Day’s Night by Richard Lester (I was 5), to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (I was 12) and to David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (I was 17).

I believe the movies you watch as a child and as a teenager often leave an indelible mark on your memory and on your cinema tastes as an adult.

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