INLAND EMPIRE

Last night Nate and I had tickets to see David Lynch’s new feature, Inland Empire (he has written that he prefers it in all caps, but I just can’t go there). It was both our first time at the Music Box Theater. The place reminded me a lot of the Castro Theater, with an organist and similar exterior lighting. We sat outside in a massive line for half an hour freezing our asses off, so it was really nice to sit down and listen to some hokey tunes from the organist while people-watching. It was as nerdy as I expected it to be, but less nerdy than when I saw Werner Herzog last year.

At 8, Lynch comes out to say hi. He introduces a man who does an “improvisational piece on the organ” that sets a dark mood. (Chris Isaak performed some songs at the premiere in the Bay Area) Lynch then reads a short poem and walks off stage. The red curtain behind Lynch gave me flashbacks to Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks. I was waiting for Agent Cooper to come through the curtain and see Laura Palmer and the Arm.

Then begins the three hour film. I had read rave reviews of the movie, so I was really excited to sit back and digest three hours of near-insanity. The film starts with two people speaking Polish, heads entirely blurred out. The woman is a prostitute or someone simply lost and the man is some sort of evil. There is a lot of talk of doors and darkness, two major themes in the film. It then cuts to a seemingly random crying female on a bed, watching a terse sitcom of Rabbit-Humans with inappropriate studio laughter. More doors, more lighting tricks. Within the first 15 minutes I knew I was going to love this film.

Laura Dern does an amazing job. I’d say it was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen out of an actress. She plays an actress getting back into Hollywood, who finds out her new film is cursed by listening to her whacky “neighbor” (Laura Palmer’s mom) and from the director and his cohort (Jeremy Irons and Harry Dean Stanton respectively). Dern’s character slowly delves further into her movie-character role to the point where her former self is completely removed from the actual film. She becomes the trashy Southern wife who is having an affair. The nightmarish qualities and fading in and out of alternating versions of reality are incredible. The tension is broken with random dancing scenes provided by hoochy girls (that I very much appreciated were NOT all anorexic). The camera work is intense – the close ups made the film so abnormally intimate that you would get uncomfortable looking at the screen.

I was trying to make sense of the sexuality in the film, of the evil Polish guy beating the women, of Dern’s character telling tales of ripping off mens’ testicles, but I’m not sure I have an answer yet. In other Lynch films some of the interchangeability of female actresses bothered me, but I didn’t get the same uneasiness in Inland Empire. I also don’t get the impression from Lynch that he is sexist, but maybe another female can help me out on that one.

There were lots of very Lynchian moments. He used lots of contorted faces, abnormally wide mouths, cuts from a normal face to a terrifying monster face (Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, anyone?), flickering buzzing lights, intense deep base in some seriously sexy music, slooooooow movements from all the characters, maddening purposeful withholding of names and shots where you know you can’t see what you want. The film seemed to be a more mature version of Mulholland Drive. It told nearly the same story, and had the same critique of big Hollywood. However, it was much more focused in alternate realities. He was probably able to do that because he refused to sell it to a distributor and is instead traveling around the country with it himself.

In the end, I felt like I understood the movie better than any of his other films, but have absolutely no ability to explain it. Nate said it needed a ton of editing and was definitely not one of his best. I heard a lot of people leaving the theater saying they hated it. From what I’ve read so far, the critics are the same way – either loving it or absolutely hating it.

Also, Lynch took questions after the film. He got the usual asinine questions that fan-boys (only ONE female asked a question) ask, but he gave awesome answers. For example: “Where do you get your ideas from” His answer: “I get an idea. Then I get another one.” Or “Did xyz Polish director influence this film because some of it is set in Poland” Answer: “No he did not” and left it at that. Lots of brief answers. He admitted he is done with the film medium and will only shoot digital, as digital is so much better. He said film is being banished, and rightly so. Lynch also went off on a tangent about how wonderful meditation is, and how optimism is so wonderful, and we shouldn’t have any negativity. Lynch also had this odd jazz hands move he did the entire time he was speaking. Essentially, he is the anti-Herzog. Makes me wonder how I can love both so much.

And because I am NOT a film reviewer, I figured I’d put some links and quotes to the pros who reviewed the film. I just hope some of my other friends can see it so we can discuss.

The easiest way into “Inland Empire” is through the grand mansions, derelict houses, ominous hallways and grubby back alleys that Nikki, Susan, the big rabbits and the whores inhabit. Each room brings new moods, visual textures, threats and sometimes even a crime, as well as such familiar Lynchian flourishes as a buzzing electric light and velvety red curtains. […]“Inland Empire” isn’t a film to love. It is a work to admire, to puzzle through, to wrestle with. Its pleasures are fugitive, even frustrating. The first time I saw it, I was repulsed by the shivers of Lynchian sadism, a feeling doubtless informed by my adoration of the far more approachable, humanistic “Mulholland Drive.” On second viewing, though, “Inland Empire” seemed funnier, more playful and somehow heartfelt. - Manohla Dargis, NYT

As with Eraserhead, Lynch made Inland piecemeal over several years, on low-res digital video, shooting new scenes whenever he had the inspiration — a way of working, guided by intuition and instinct, and impervious to the demands of producers, executives and audiences, that most artists (especially painters) take for granted, but which remains virtually unknown to those in the film industry. That alone does not make Inland Empire great, or even good. What does is the fierce lack of compromise in Lynch’s vision and the extraordinary degree of commitment he draws from his collaborators — especially Dern, who plays her role(s) with the kind of naked abandon that Naomi Watts brought to her ill-fated starlet in Mulholland Dr., and who, a few months shy of her own 40th birthday, shows acute sensitivity to Nikki Grace’s fear of a premature Hollywood death. Scott Foundas, LA Weekly

Metacritic