Inland Empire (2006)

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely the worst movie.

A Masterpiece!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I thought 'Inland Empire' has a basic story, about a curse. 'Axxon n' was a Polish story of a prostitute that evolved into murder, allegedly cursed and sympathetically passed on. At the start there is a scene from the play, with the actors faces obscured enigmatically. A film was attempted of it, '4/7' , clips of which are shown periodically, and the curse was passed along. Finally 'On High in Blue Tomorrows' was made based on the other stories and the star, Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), comes to realize how the curse is working and actually ends it. I am guessing that David Lynch added some dream imagery, mostly Nikki's. It seemed to me that one of the victims of the 4/7 movie, a young girl, apparently a prostitute, is trapped in some sort of limbo, in a room and has a metaphorical view of how the curse is working. She also had contact with some sort of hypnotist wizard who seems to be the protagonist in all the stories. Nikki Grace seems to come into psychic contact with this ghost girl, who tells her if she folds a slip over, burns a hole in it and looks through the hole she will see visions that explain some of the mysteries. Nikki does this. While filming 'On High in Blue Tomorrows' her costar Devon (Justin Theroux) also gets the feeling about the curse as Nikki tries to explain it to him. She is having constant visions of the original story 'Axxon n', and tries to explain it to Devon who really wants to understand but doesn't quite, although their lives seem to be somewhat of a parallel to their movie script. I thought Nikki was also having dreams about her situation, symbolized by some rabbit people in a Room 47 who say symbolic things about the stories. Devon and Nikki are also having an affair and their spouses suspect and both plan on doing something about it.Clever, eerie story I thought.

Let me preface this by saying that not only am I very familiar with Lynch's work, but I've loved every movie of his that I've seen and the only ones I haven't seen are "Wild at Heart" and "The Straight Story". I even watched the entirety of "Twin Peaks" and loved it. "Inland Empire" is just too much."Inland Empire" starts out seemingly on the same track as "Mulholland Drive". That is to say, an actress hoping for a big break who gets caught in an endless downward spiral of crime and guilt, and for most of the movie, even after it gets absolutely nuts, this seems to be what the movie is going for (emphasis on "SEEMS", because there is no way of really knowing with this one). The thing is, this movie has no real plot, no consistent characters, no space, no time, and as far as I'm concerned, nothing in it is reality, but it's never truly clear. And it's three hours long.What the movie descends into is an absolute nightmare. I can say with certainty this is the weirdest film I have seen, and it's probably the scariest one too. Usually the latter would be high praise, but with this one... I don't know. This movie really, genuinely unsettled me, and it probably has done the best job of any film to recreate what it actually feels like to be in a nightmare. Everything about this film just feels wrong. The way it is shot, with these poor quality digital camcorders, usually uncomfortably close to people's faces with an ultra wide angle lens, distorting their faces. There are full scenes in a foreign language without subtitles. The mic quality isn't that great, there'should no studio lighting (or lighting of any kind for that matter. I don't know if this one was intentional, and frankly it made me laugh, but it has horribly bad sound effects for people being hit, and that is probably just a flaw, but honestly I couldn't tell. It just generally doesn't look or feel like a movie... even for Lynch it's absurd.Here's the thing: I can appreciate the movie for how it made me feel, considering no movie has ever made me feel that way, but at the same time it was really just not enjoyable. Usually I can love movies that make me feel really sad, or afraid, even though those are negative emotions, because I can appreciate the filmmaking aspect that was required to make me feel that way. No one would say "Schindler's List" made them feel good, but many of the people who watch that film love it. So when I say it wasn't "enjoyable", I also mean that it was just too bizarre and unorthodox to truly be able to analyze the specific filmmaking aspects, and there were no characters or symbolic imagery to analyze either. I roughly understood the themes and felt the mood of the film, but that was about it. This is what makes it different than other Lynch films: all the rest of his films take place in psychological landscapes, but are grounded in reality, and it's possible to find this in "Mulholland Drive", "Eraserhead", and even "Lost Highway" in my opinion.I do not exaggerate when I say that I did not want to watch this film during it's last hour, not because I thought it was necessarily bad, but I just really didn't like the way it made me feel, and there was even a moment near the end of the film where I stopped watching for a few minutes because the film made me feel so strange and anxious.The film has the unique feeling that literally anything could happen at any moment. The only thing truly consistent about the film is its mood, which can only be described as a nightmarish fever dream.In short, I have mixed feelings about this strange amalgamation.Edit: It's been a day and I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished watching it. I still don't really know what I think about it, but no movie has had this effect on me before, so I bumped the score up to a 7/10.Edit: Been three days. In retrospect, I think this was kind of great in its own way.

This feels like the natural culmination point of Lynch's films. Mulholland Drive was a masterpiece, whereas this feels like the indulgence that the latter film afforded him. That's not meant derogatorily. Mulholland Drive was a perfect Lynch film, but Inland Empire felt like he'd finally got the green light to follow all of his artistic tendencies as far as he wanted (even jokingly acknowledged in the final scene). It's a descent into madness, and the rule book went out of the window. This has some of Lynch's most memorable scenes, but it also pushes the viewer's natural inclination to apply order beyond the limit.It's not free form stream of consciousness, but is right on the line. There are hints all over the place, but unlike Mulholland Drive there isn't a suggested interpretation that emerges. I have my own ideas about what this film is meant to be, but that's my personal reading. I believe that Lynch aimed to make a film that invited multiple interpretations, and which resisted definitive resolution. It's this open-ended approach that makes it such an enigmatic and imaginative film. It provokes your imagination.

After four viewings I am certain: Inland Empire is a 10-star movie. I think that every time I watch it, I love it more. This isn't just a movie, it's an experience that puts you in a dream world, and it's oh so good. If I have to compare it to other movies, I'd say it's a raw version of Mulholland Dr., Eraserheadstyle. And these were also great and dreamy and kinda scary.Honestly, after my first Inland Empire, I was mostly stunned, thinking: 'what did I just watch?' and still I... wanted more. That's the strength of David Lynch's work, it draws you in and if you put yourself to it for several viewings, it's so rewarding. Everything he makes is so layered and you discover new things every time! I think Inland Empire is the most layered film I've ever seen. It's not about the plot at all, it's about the experience. I've read comments from people who are frustrated because they can't explain the movie, but this is irrelevant. It's surrealism. It's about the feeling, beauty, disturbing thoughts. It gets you in a buzz, 'on high'.Cinematographically, it looks a bit less perfect than most of Lynch's movies, due to the way it was filmed, but this really adds to the dream feel and increases the raw emotion a lot. The soundtrack is, of course, amazing. Every sound is perfectly matched to the pictures and emotions. When she walks outside in the cold: 'Ghost of Love'. The 'Locomotion' hookers. 'Black Tambourine' on Hollywood Blvd. The ending credits!Laura Dern deserves loads of credit as well, her acting is so raw and disturbing, there's no words to describe it. She quickly became one of my favourite artists after seeing her as Nikki Grace (and co).If you're either a fan of Lynch or surrealism or you like to be overwhelmed by atmosphere and you don't mind putting some effort in a movie evening, do yourself a favor and go for the experience, preferably more than once. Go to this place both wonderful and strange, it's really worth it!