Yh tbh I don't normally have much of an issue with Lynch's (or anyone else's) interest in Buddhism, including Tibetan Buddhism. The main exception is white, bougie, hippie westerners new age appropriation of it, especially in the culture of modern corporate capitalism where you get it recycled as corporate management techniques (Gautama must be turning in his mandala). Lynch is obviously quite a bit in this tradition of white westerners being influenced by new age interpretations of east asian spirtuality, but I think he uses it in interesting ways. I'm also not absolutely against people using techniques from other traditions that can help them psychologically. If people wanna usefully incorporate buddhism meditation practices for their own well-being then I'm not going to be a cold piece of shit on them like a holier-than-thou moralist. I'm not about to just write-off the entirety of a thousand year philosophical tradition or how it can be used in modern words of art. Also, the metaphysics in Lynch's universe is closer to some more materialistic types of buddhism, or even just straight up Lovecraftian.

If Lynch a mystic and prob a lib? Like abstractly yh I guess it definitely seems so on paper. I also think he's just so ideologically weird that applying those terms to him can be very misleading. Like I can't imagine any other lib making films like Eraserhead, Fire Walk with Me or Elephantman.

But the one of the central themes throughout his work, which is normally not highlighted enough in pop-culture, is male violence on women, the violence-inducing delusions of the male gaze and womens' consequent trauma. The weird metaphysics are him making concrete the traumatic dream-logic of the traumatized inner psyches of his characters. As they put in the show, it's about the almost incomprehensible depravity of the evil that men do . Watching Twin Peaks and coming away from it with 'it's about a quirky detective who likes donuts, black coffee and tibetan buddhism' is really not giving it due credit imo. More generally I think it says something about liberal culture's media illiteracy.

I think Lynch does in fact buy into his own metaphysic. Which I don't mind, tbh, it's some mindbending stuff, and I think it's pretty weird to write off without reflection a work of art because the metaphysics of the creator don't conform to my materialist beliefs, even if I'm going to likely be favorable to works which do to some degree, even though there's plenty of materialist works which are just terrible art) but whether you buy it or not, it can still be a deeply beautiful way to explore and express the ideas he wants to express, and a principal function in the series is to allow him to develop a concrete story (although, yh, the linearity of the whole thing and the 'common sense' idea of a narrative breaks down) about the psychological traumas of women, above all, but not only, Laura.

Also, I don't know how much you've watched of it, but as the series progresses, especially once you get to Fire, Walk with Me and season 3 (honestly one of my favorite works in anything ever) the idea that Cooper is just this goofy, heroic, labrador-like human being is really deconstructed. Cooper is not portrayed as innocent of the male gaze and fetishization of the women around him, including Laura. Also checks out when you consider Audrey's character progression.

Also, are people really not allowed to engage in rounded character developments of character's we should, ofc, problematize politically because of their reactionary actions? I'm not suddenly not interested in anyone's reflections, pov or character because I can place them in a relatively non-progressive or regressive political or social position. Those points of view can also be important for reflecting about the issues and ideas being explored. I can still lose my breath or get a rush seeing some renaissance painting or greek sculpture or taoist chinese poetry or islamic calligraphy despite not being Christian, a polytheist, a taoist or a Muslim.

On the tibetan politics point, the incorporation of it into the PRC was imo definitely historically progressive given that Tibet was in effect a theocratic, feudal society whose serfs' condition in practice frequently amounted to slavery, so yh his championing of the tibetan people is obvs a classic 90s lib take on the issue, but let's also not pretend like every time actually existing socialist states have intervened that it hasn't been problematic in many respects, even if it was progressive from a historically materialist perspective.

I agree it's a bit gratuitous that I put both lists but I think each has some films not on the other list.

I'm not sure if Lanthimos is explictly left wing but The Favourite was kinda left by default for me because every aristocrat is scum.

Yh I also need to check the Changjin sequel. First one slapped. It was amazing seeing the yankies as villainous as they portray every other group of (non hwhite) people.

Yh I will admit that the second half of season 2 for Twin Peaks gets a bit rough at points. The reason is that apparently Lynch had stepped away for a while from actively directing and writing, so the minor screenwriters took over and it became a bit more like an actual silly soap. If you really want to be a purist and watch it all I recommend interpreting everything it the middle of seaosn 2 as a goofy fever dream where everything suddently seems more innocent before it descends into horror again.

Honestly you can just check the plot for the rest of the season 2 episodes after the big mid season reveal resolution in episode 10, except for the final two episodes. The final two episodes are fantastic though. The final one is honestly one of favorite episodes of anything ever. It can be still good to watch it all to catch everything in the film and season 3.