inland empire

well, there’s a new david lynch film out. unfortunately, it is self-distributed and unlikely to come anywhere near me, and so i’m probably going to have to wait for it to come to dvd next summer. the slate review says it is ultimately more maddening and opaque than rewarding but it sounds enticing anyway, even at three hours:

Inland Empire is inland, all right—it travels so deep into its creator’s brain that the rest of us poor saps are stranded there without a map, like the kids in The Blair Witch Project. But Lynch’s brain is a fascinating place to get lost in, full of red velvet curtains, vague foreboding, Polish prostitutes, and giant bunnies (more on those later).

mmmmm giant bunnies. did anyone here ever become a paying member of lynch’s website and watch those rabbit films? are they available on dvd anywhere?

10 thoughts on “inland empire”

  1. I might have to see this in New York over the break (when I should be at MLA which I really want to avoid; I’m delivering my paper and getting out of there for some theatre and film in the big city). I’m pretty sure Lynch just released a DVD of his online shorts (though when I read the announcment a couple of weeks ago, Netflix did not carry it).

  4. I finally saw Inland Empire. It is the first – and the only – David Lynch film that I can honestly say I was disappointed in. And along with Dune, it’s the one I’d call tedious.

    That’s overall still a pretty good track record.

    It looks like exactly what it is: Shot by someone without a script – or even a story outline. And while editing, an attempt was made to craft a movie. I almost write “to craft a story,” but I doubt if that was ever Lynch’s attempt. The start is promising enough. The mere appearance of a mad-eyed, slightly staggering Grace Zabriskie on the screen gets the Lynch-fans giggling in knowing anticipation in the theater, myself included. For a guy who doesn’t make sequels, the appearance of actors he’s formerly used (over and over) grants a reassuring sense of comfort. But the beautiful saturated colors, the familiar bouncy Angelo Badalamenti stand-up bass lines, the incredibly creepy seemingly random character meetings that we’ve come to know – they’re not there. They’ve been replaced with imposters. In this case, grainy washed out DV in place of film, hit-you-over-the-head sound design done by Lynch rather than Badalmenti, and – worst of all – those blissful moments of abject horror and queasiness that stay with you for years(*See below) – they’re nowhere to be found here.

    We still get red curtains and 50s furniture in dark rooms. We still get the confrontations and bass lines with horn melodies played over them, but – and it’s not the repition I object to, mind you – it’s just not as well done. It’s certainly not thought out.

    Your best bet may be to treat the movie as a very long video installation and let it all wash over you, never trying to make any sense of the parts, but making a few vague connections of the whole.

    I’ll say again that I’m not tired of Lynch’s motifs. There is a scene – one of the 2 or 3 best in the film – of a group of beautiful girls dancing and lip-syching to a 50s hit. It’s perfcect Lynch and it’s really effective. (It gets repeated with different girls and a different song in the end credits.) The thing that is getting old is Lynch’s fascination with the fractured-self as a plot device. Watching it twice already in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive was enough, and as good as a lot of Laura
    Dern’s performance is, especially considering how in the dark she must have been about the film and its years-long off and on shooting schedule, the idea was just too played out for me to sit through it again.

    It’s also an overly long film. It’s an easy assumption to make that shooting in DV over so long a period gave him much more raw material to work with while editing and he fell in love with his own footage and used way too much of it.

    Maybe this will play better on TV. The huge number of facial close-ups will definitely look less out of place on TV that it did on a big screen. Not having to watch it all at once and being able to control the volume of its bludgeoning soundtrack will be a plus as well. That said, you’re missing something if you don’t see it in a theater. I”m not sure what exactly, and it’s not pleasant, but you’d be missing… something.

    The last 45 minutes, which are relatively linear are quite good. It doesn’t redeem the film for me; it comes too late and I’m already too deadened by pointless Polish prostitutes, unmoving bunnies, and long blank stares, but there’s some good stuff in there at the end, almost the makings of a good movie.

    *Sherilyn Fenn unknowingly dying from a car crash and Bobby Peru getting in the face of Laura Dern in Wild At Heart, half a dozen bits in Blue Velvet, but “going to see Ben” in particular, Robert Blake’s phone call in Lost Highway… the list goes on)

  6. I’m not sure I would disagree with anything Mauer says about ‘Inland Empire’ except that, if you do just let it wash over you and give up on trying to follow the plot (if indeed there is a plot), it is a hell of a ride. There are countless haunting shots, and the shades of blackness generate both faces with inky pools where the eyes should be and faces where the only distinguishable features are the eyes gleaming like miniature moons. I would have liked more exuberance, and in that regard, the final scene, played over the credits, is a revelation. There is more energy in that one scene than the rest of the movie put together.

    Lynch’s focus on the fractured self is old, but it seems more complete here, as if ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Lost Highway’ were studies for this movie. Just before I watched ‘Inland Empire,’ I read a piece in the New Yorker about CIA interrogation techniques, particularly the use of darkness and sound to fracture reality and create complete disorientation. The result is that the captive becomes desperate for some normal contact and routine, and — in principle — comes to identify with the interrogator. I’m not saying that watching this movie is like being tortured (I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but I cannot get it out of my head and that is a sort of success), but I do think that Lynch effectively conveys the experience of reality unraveling around you. The result is that we come to identify in a particularly powerful way with the main protagonist, played by Laura Dern.

    And whatever one thinks of the movie overall, hers is really a remarkable performance. There is something about the bone structure of Dern’s face that allows her look like several different people, depending upon the camera angle and the light source, even without the benefit of a blond wig. Anxious, flirty, haggard, insecure, tough, Dern’s face is the center of the movie. It is also a movie in which men all but disappear about a third of the way through, and the remainder of the movie is carried by its female cast.

    A failure, I think I agree, but an honorable one.

  7. It’s been a while since I liked Lynch’s films. Somewhere–perhaps Fire Walk With Me, maybe Lost Highway–my experience watching a David Lynch stopped being like having a dream and started being like someone telling me their dreams. When Lynch sucks us into his subconscious, there is perhaps no filmmaker more potently sensual and cinematic. Particularly with Blue Velvet which still after some 20 viewings remains as potent, funny, scary, shocking, enthralling as the first time I saw it…

    …whereas I never stopped looking at my watch in Mulholland Drive. Maybe I’m just not giving in, but I am more inclined to blame Lynch for giving up and rehashing a schematic approach to the surreal. I didn’t like this film, and forced my way through, hating the constant tight close-ups (where heads filled the ugly washed-out image), annoyed by the portentous music and much of the self-parodic tics which emerged most aggressively in Diane Lane’s performance and (ahem, in disagreement with Mark) the girly-girl ’50s-song surrealism, and yet…

    …every time Laura Dern came into focus I found myself more riveted than I expected. Even, at times, moved; there’s a scene early on when she’s table-reading with Justin Theroux and soon they go off-script, she’s looking right at him (and Dern has the most intense and engaged emotional stare) and he’s asking her if she’s crying, and she is, and is it a line of dialogue or is she really crying and–damn, the film had me. Then instantly I’m jarred out by Harry Dean Stanton coughing out a line and some “spooky business” emerges. Maybe this is intentional; maybe there is something to be said about the Dern character(s) and how intense absurd/paranoid plotting keeps diverting us from the horrors of her emotional breakdown… or maybe that’s something to be said about Lynch, how narrative coherence is always a stiff comic game, which seems to cover up the vicious intensity of our emotional engagement with images and id…

    …but I can’t say this film really worked to make it happen for me. I find it easier to think about what the film’s up to than to really engage with what the film is doing, let alone experience what it’s meant to do to me. This is a shame–Dern alone recalls what Lynch can do, and is an accusation for all the filmmakers not giving her more, and more frequent and more challenging, work.

    I’d say it’s worth a look, but not really worth really watching.

  9. I thought Mulholland Drive was great as well, but in the interests of full disclosure, you should know that Mulholland Drive is a model of linearity and clarity compared to Inland Empire.

  10. Finally, finally, finally. I watched this last night. It was a grueling marathon. But I enjoyed it, perhaps more than anyone here. I watched Lynch and Lynch 2 beforehand, which maybe helped me. And I would recommend them both (they’re available as “watch instantly” on Netflix). The first is more of a conventional documentary about Lynch going about his business and preparing his next film (Inland Empire). He’s on the phone, scouting locations, looking at sets in their early stages, etc. The second is more of a scrapbook of behind the scenes moments. Two important things surprised me. 1) He can be a cranky son of a bitch on the set. This suggested to me he knew (at least at times) exactly what he needed and was pissed beyond redemption when things weren’t carried out correctly by his crew. 2) He was at times terrified about making this film–though damned confident about his choice of medium.

    That said, I went into the film sort of knowing that he was, more than with any of his other films, experimenting. In the first doc he keeps saying (to himself more than anyone else) “this is an experiment…this is an experiment.”

    The film was a bit long, I agree. But I can’t imagine what might be taken out. In fact, I felt there was a lot missing. For instance, should there have been a scene between Laura Dern’s husband and Devon Berk before the former threatens the latter? Did I miss something?

    But I don’t need these missing threads or linearity. This is a dream film–an hallucinatory, schizoid fantasy journey. So yes, you have to let it wash over you. Like champagne and blood and vomit. Some of imagery in the last 45 minutes is astounding. I certainly won’t forget the image of Laura Dern shooting at some creepy Polish man, whose face then contorts and shakes and wobbles like an angry fucked up clown who lives at the bottom of a nightmare. Jesus.

    I’m pleased everyone here agree Laura Dern is amazing. What a demanding role! What a commitment! Though I see she was co-executive producer or something. Great performance. In fact, all of the performances were great. Except the rabbits. They seemed a bit stiff.

Leave a Reply