David Lynch's Inland Empire (Limited Edition Two-Disc Set)
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Movie Reviews of David Lynch's Inland Empire (Limited Edition Two-Disc Set)
Movie Review: A Misfire Off Mulholland Drive
Summary: 3 Stars
David Lynch is one of my favorite filmmakers, so when I first heard that he was filming "Inland Empire" with a DV camera, I was doubly excited. Any time I hear that Lynch is working on a new project, it's cause for celebration, and the fact that he was filming the movie with a camera accessible to almost anyone made it all the more intriguing. Knowing that Lynch is an artist with little inclination to spell things out or dumb anything down for his viewers, I was aware that the 3 hour film was going to be a trip. As I have discovered with most of Lynch's projects, the trip is often the entire point in appreciating the film, rather than the conclusion, or any ending summation. However, with "Inland Empire", the trip is often rocky and fraught with an obtuseness that appears to be thrown in, not for art's sake, but for the sake of seeing how far the viewer will go along with it before heading for the door (or the STOP button).
I love the way the imagery turned out--the DV camera has served Lynch well, and though there are some exceptions, most of the film looks as though it was filmed with professional equipment. This should be especially encouraging for aspiring filmmakers, to whom I would recommend this film for that reason alone--it demonstrates how much can be accomplished without a great expenditure of money.
The acting is also worth mentioning. Laura Dern gives an exceptional performance as a film actress trying to revive her career by starring in the remake of an allegedly cursed film in which the two leads died. She alternately plays the role (in the film within the film) of a lower class woman stuck in a bad marriage (something that Nikki, the actress, is familiar with). Dern is never less than riveting, even when it's unclear whether or not she knows where her character(s) is headed.
Jeremy Irons makes an interesting film director, with Lynch regular, Justin Theroux, believable as the male lead in Nikki's film (and later, in Nikki's bed).
While the film is being shot in Los Angeles, there is an alternate storyline involving a woman whose abusive husband has her locked up in a hotel room in Poland, forcing her to watch increasingly disturbing television programming.
To be honest, three hours seems a little excessive for these personal dramas that, eventually, do interconnect, and therein may lie a big part of the problem. Because "Inland Empire", for all its worth as the product of a great artist and filmmaker, is never more than the sum of its parts, and those parts, in this case, aren't intriguing enough to warrant a lengthy treatment more befitting an epic. I don't hate "Inland Empire" in the way that I've hated some of the other movies I've reviewed here, but I didn't love it, either.
Movie Review: Delicious
Summary: 5 Stars
The thing I don't understand about most people is that they say the films of David Lynch are impossible to understand. If you watch and pay attention, not everything is going to necessarily make perfect sense, but you're going to get the jist of what he's trying to do.
In this brilliant new film (certainly as good as, if not better, than "Mulholland Drive" in many ways), Laura Dern gives on the most terrifying performances I have ever seen as promising, beautiful actress Nikki Grace/ a low income, degraded, hideous woman who has nowhere to go.
If you want an idea of the kind of non-linear, angst-ridden surreality you're in for, here's an example:
about a half an hour of the film is devoted to Susan, not Nikki's, plight with a group of prostitutes, some looking like Hollywood stars and others
like crack addicts. She is stabbed by her Polish husband in the cursed film. Bleeding to death on the Hollywood strip all over the "stars", a homeless black woman says: "You're dyin', lady". Then a Japanese girl speaks in her native language--while Dern's schizoid character is dying--about a bus going to somewhere else in Hollywood. This takes about five minutes. Then the black woman holds up a lighter and says to Dern: "Sometimes we die, is all. Here. You see this light? You won't see no blue when you wake up." Then Jeremy Irons bursts in with his megaphone screaming "Bravo! Smashing cut!"
Either Nikki was never Nikki or she was Nikki and became Susan once she prostituted herself for Devon. Or Susan fantasized about being Nikki. In any case, this is schizoid identity crisis in the extreme, but more than that a very nicely placed punch on the nose of Hollywood itself: as in "MH", he portrays most actors and actresses as elitist snobs who are amazingly empty and superficial apart from their roles, wrought with hanger ons and arrogant directors. I don't know if this is Lynch's conspiratorial, paranoid fantasy about Hollywood or how it actually is. This movie is brilliant, exciting, terrifying, and simply enjoyable all the way around. Art. Lynch continues to transcend himself.
Watch out for the Polish lady!
Movie Review: Perhaps the creepiest film I've ever seen.
Summary: 5 Stars
David Lynch has consistently been one of my favorite filmmakers. He doesn't work often, but when he does it's an event. No other major filmmaker has been able to so exquisitely expose to us his very subconscious in such frightening, arresting ways. "Inland Empire" is now the third straight Lynch film -- after "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive" -- to explore a similar subject in a similar style. All three films appear to be about guilt fracturing a person's personality.
Visually, this may be Lynch's best film. Playing around with his little digital camera, Lynch creates stunning, scary, skin-crawling images that will leave you totally unnerved. Actors' faces pushed close into wide-angle lenses, Edward Hopper-esque still settings of the "bunny family," actors leaning into still shots from out of frame, light and shadow and noise used to completely shock your senses. "Inland Empire" is an atmospheric feast.
With all the gimmicky, dumb horror movies out there -- with their killers and ghouls and other nonsense -- here was a movie that, simply with visual and auditory style, scared the hell out of me.
With a Lynch movie, people always want to know if it really makes sense in the end. Does "Inland Empire"? I don't know. I'll admit I'm not sure how all the threads fit together. But who cares? I don't think you have to understand every component of a Lynch film to enjoy it. "Inland Empire," to me, is a stygian nightmare vision -- paranoia, the subconscious, fear, jealousy all alight across the screen.
Forget about making sense of this movie and instead enjoy Lynch's showmanship -- the lighting, the camera work, the soundtrack -- and the incredible performances he receives, especially from Laura Dern and Julia Ormond.
"Inland Empire" is another brilliant glimpse into Lynch's mind.
Movie Review: an argument winner for the anti-lynch brigade
Summary: 1 Stars
I once had an argument with some friends who detested The Beatles. I love them - even an earlier, deceptively simple song like 'Please Please Me' is sheer melodic genius. These friends thought their 'argument winner' was "Ok...what about 'Ob La Di, Ob La Da' then, huh?!".
Hmmm... 'Inland Empire' is David Lynch's 'Ob La Di, Ob La Da' - lousy output from a very fine artist. I loved the intrigue of 'Lost Highway', and 'Mulholland Drive' still haunts me. But with 'Inland Empire' the riddles and twists left me absolutely cold. The Lynch ingredients are there but the cake just doesn't rise. I guess it's what can happen when the usual budgetary constraints of film-making are lessened to a large degree by the opportunity to shoot digitally. Discipline and restraint can go out the window as the director gets carried away with his new-found 'freedom'.
Quite liked the rabbit sitcom though.... One star for that.
Movie Review: 2 Hours, 59 Minutes of Terrifying Furniture
Summary: 4 Stars
Regarding INLAND EMPIRE, David Lynch said digital filmmaking was a revelation for him and he'd never return to conventional cinematic hardware. The smaller equipment offered greater freedom of movement and the superior light-capturing ability allowed for less cumbersome set-ups and more "natural" takes.
And also--he can shoot FOREVER and it don't cost nothin'.
The digital world allows Lynch, in INLAND EMPIRE, to, finally, fully indulge in his obsession with the dread eminating from mid-century modern furniture.
This isn't so much a movie as a meditation on the decor.
As for the story, it's Brand Lynch: the main character (Laura Dern) suffers through endless fracturings of persona and reality.
What's new here is the time alloted for the background to roar and yawn and seeth/fester/stutter in tones from dullest taupe to fever red to blinding flourescence.
Lynch sees the normality of these 1950s Americana settings as a mask getting ready to fall and expose a truly horrible underneath.
Though I think this one has a happy ending. Your call.
INLAND EMPIRE isn't great Lynch, like BLUE VELVET or MULHOLLAND DRIVE. It lacks narrative cohesion. BUT--it's something to fall into, watch several times, groove on the truly uncomfortable vibe, maybe nod off and dream some weird stuff yourself and see how it fits into Lynch's bizarre, utterly unique Living Space.
Cheers.