Movie Review

Inland Empire

Posted by Paige MacGregor (paige@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 17, 2007

For avid David Lynch fans the five-year-long wait for another product of the filmmaker’s seemingly tireless genius is finally over. Lynch, known for his work on the popular ’90s television series “Twin Peaks” as well as his films Blue Velvet (1986) and Lost Highway (1997) among others, released his latest film, Inland Empire (2006), in independent theaters and movie houses across the U.S. during the past several months.

For viewers who have never seen a David Lynch film, Inland Empire may not be the best movie with which to initiate oneself into “the David Lynch experience.” With the opening scene of Inland Empire audiences are made immediately aware that this is not the average film; the first scene depicts two actors engaged in a verbal pas de deux with their faces mechanically blurred.

From that point on, Inland Empire only becomes more confusing. Scenes in which the two leads, Laura Dern (October Sky, Jurassic Park) and Justin Theroux (Miami Vice, American Psycho), appear as actors Nikki Grace and Devon Berk preparing to film a fictitious movie called “On High in Blue Tomorrows” under the direction of a pretentious Jeremy Irons (Kingdom of Heaven) are juxtaposed with a series of sitcom-style scenes involving a family of rabbits in an eerily-lit apartment, complete with laugh track, and the repeated depiction of prostitutes in what appears to be 1940s Poland and contemporary Los Angeles.

The degree to which the classic linear thrust of cinematic narrative is broken, re-worked and in certain places even completely obliterated in this film makes other Lynch masterpieces like Mulholland Dr. (2001) seem relatively understandable in comparison –no small task, as those who have other Lynch films know.

If Mulholland Dr. is 25% surreal suspense thriller/film noir that journeys into the darkest, most mysterious areas of the mind and 75% classical, relatively linear yet not necessarily structurally connective narrative with a degree of continuity, then Inland Empire is 10% classical narrative and 90% raw psychological horror story.

Despite the linear, chronological and geographic breaks created by the unique combination of these different narrative trajectories, Lynch makes sure to create subtle ties between them: in one scene Laura Dern’s character places a telephone call from her apartment that is answered by one of the rabbits; her actions are also followed throughout the film by a distraught Polish girl, assumedly one of the prostitutes, in what appears to be a hotel room via a flickering television screen.

David Lynch has once again successfully used the tools of Hollywood cinema to create what can only be termed a film “experience.” Inland Empire is not about a particular story or narrative so much as it is about exploring and creating a visual palette for ideas about traveling to and from the past, present and future as it relates to our constant journey back and forth between our own psyches and collective unconscious.

Inland Empire debuted at the Venice Film Festival and had its U.S. Premiere at The New York Film Festival where it was highlighted as the festival’s “hottest ticket” and received gala screenings at the AFI Fest on November 3 and 6 of 2006 in Los Angeles.

The film clocks in at a surprising 172 minutes, but the purposefully slow pace and repetition of certain scenes clearly intended to evoke feelings of anxiety and discomfort in viewers does not lend itself to a painful viewing experience. The DVD is slated to come out this summer. When asked about the Inland Empire DVD, David Lynch said: “The DVD will be really cool. It will have so much great stuff on there. I am going to load it up and make it exactly the way I want it.”