How does the film work to draw us into its nightmarish world? Consider the visual means that Lynch uses: the odd details that abound throughout, the indeterminate time of the film (is it taking place in the 1980s, or the 1950s?) the way that scenes congeal into strange tableaux, the use of exaggerated light and shadows, the lengthened dark screen in between scenes, and so on.
What do you make of the film's deliberate use of cliches? Consider the polar opposition of innocence and experience, the two women who correspond to these two sides, the citation (more than the actual use) of Freudian themes of trauma, primal scene, and Oedipus Complex, etc.?
How would you characterize the tone of the film, its movement between mystery and fear, on the one hand, and tongue-in-cheek irony on the other?