Overview
In a dimly lit room in a grimy train station, a capuchin monkey sits at a table. In walks a detective, who then starts smoking a cigarette and interrogating the animal in front of him. They chat, bantering back and forth as the cop asks questions and the primate answers. At one point, the monkey even sings. Queries range from "do you know anything about birds?" to "you ever ride the rodeo?", all in a quest to solve a murder. A chicken also pops up, and a waitress.
If the above scenario sounds more than a little surreal, that's because it is — especially given that it's part of David Lynch's new 17-minute short film. Called What Did Jack Do?, the black-and-white piece also stars the inimitable Lynch as the detective. At this stage of the acclaimed director's career, that just sounds natural, really.
Intrigued? If you're a fan of the filmmaker's work — spanning everything Eraserhead and Blue Velvet to three seasons of Twin Peaks across nearly three decades — then of course you are. And thanks to Netflix, you can now spend a small chunk of your day watching the latest unique, delightful and inescapably odd work by one of the most distinctive auteurs to ever stand behind a camera.
While first screened at Paris' Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain back in 2017, and then playing Lynch's own in Festival of Disruption in New York in 2018, What Did Jack Do? hadn't been widely seen until now.
And although Netflix isn't known for stacking its catalogue with shorts, when it adds one, it's worth checking out — like last year's also far-from-ordinary Paul Thomas Anderson and Thom Yorke collaboration.
Check out a clip of What Did Jack Do? below:
What Did Jack Do? is currently available to stream on Netflix.