David Farnor | On 20, Jan 2020

How do you celebrate your birthday? Go out for a meal with family? A quiet night of drinks with friends? Release an experimental short film about you interrogating a monkey? David Lynch, whose birthday is today, opted for the third option, dropping a surprise short on Netflix worldwide.

Hopes of Lynch making something for Netflix – or anyone else offering him creative freedom – have circulated among fans since Twin Peaks: The Return premiered on Showtime (and on Sky Atlantic in the UK). What is clear is that Lynch has certainly had some kind of dialogue with the streaming giant to release his 17-minute movie online with no prior warning.

Titled What Did Jack Do?, the movie was first screened in Paris at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in 2017, before going on to screen at Lynch’s Festival of Disruption in New York.

It sees Lynch play a policeman who quizzes a monkey who is suspected of murder. Meeting in a train station’s diner, and shot entirely in black-and-white, the film sees Lynch take on his Twin Peaks-esque persona of an eccentric detective, as well as voice the monkey, which does talk back to Lynch throughout.

The result is, it goes without saying, very strange, and undoubtedly the most unusual short film you’ll see today. With Netflix increasingly investing in experimental shorts and music videos, and with Lynch apparently not adverse to working with Netflix, fans’ hopes may well be ignited once more. And, whether they come to fruition or not, at least we’ll all always have a 17-minute film about David Lynch interrogating a monkey to enjoy.

 

What Did Jack Do? is available on Netflix UK, as part of an £9.99 monthly subscription.

 

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