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 inland empire
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.David Lynch’s empire of the senses. “A woman in trouble”. That’s as far as David Lynch is prepared to elaborate on the subject of his latest film, Inland Empire. Lynch has always resisted interpreting his own multi-layered, surreal dreamscapes but his reticence here makes more sense than ever, because his movie, on any conventional shot-by-shot basis, does not. How does one describe a three-hour digital video shuffle (shot on a consumer-level camera, not HD) of shape-shifting characters and parallel worlds populated by Hollywood actors, Polish prostitutes and a canned-laughter sitcom featuring humans dressed as rabbits? Inland Empire makes even the Moebius Strip narratives of Lost Highway or Mulholland Dr. seem as logical and plot-driven as CSI. It’s still unmistakably a David Lynch film, only more so, though critics might claim self-parody rather than self-examination in the familiar signature touches: a soundtrack of ominous industrial rumbling and incongruous lip-synched 50s pop; fritzing lightbulbs, murky corridors and blandly empty rooms that somehow ooze with menace; mysterious cyphers offering gnomic warnings or deadpan non-sequiturs; and, of course, that “woman in trouble” (fearlessly exposed muse Laura Dern), here a Hollywood star whose psyche is turned inside out by a movie role with a “cursed screenplay” that killed its leading man and lady last time out. The scuzzy digital video (and audio) deny even the usual lush surface pleasures of previous Lynch films, so if you aren’t already onboard with his singular wild-at-heart-weird-on-top style, Inland Empire won’t convert you. But if any filmmaker has earned the right to plunge the medium or the audience down his own rabbit hole, it’s Lynch. He isn’t the first major filmmaker to grapple with DV – Soderbergh, the Dogme 95 gang – but typically he’s taken it to its outer – or inner – reaches. There was no framing script for Inland Empire and it’s the very technology that has enabled Lynch and Dern to keep improvising, investigating, experimenting.  For make no mistake, this is as experimental as avant-garde narrative cinema gets: Mulholland Dr.’s poisonous valentine to Hollywood via the DIY version of Eraserhead’s waking nightmares. Only the hardcore Lynch mob would argue that every one of its 179 minutes works, or that Blue Velvet or Mulholland’s greater rigour and accessibility (!) aren’t more successful. But Inland Empire proves again that whatever the medium or methodology, no living filmmaker has David Lynch’s sinuous hold inside our heads. In dreams, he walks with you.
Leigh Singer
Inland Empire, on national release 09 March 07.
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comment by sisterquay
May 7, 2007
I thought Laura Dern was amazing - the film was captivating all the way through, even though for most of the 3 hours you're never quite sure whats going on! Its been playing on my mind ever since I saw it, I'd definitely recommend seeing it (although some people I went to see it with seemed annoyed that it was a bit self-indulgent - if you're unfamilar with Lynch it might be best to see Eraserhead or another of his films first, just to prepare yourself!)
comment by Lugnuts
Mar 14, 2007
I saw at at the weekend and it's amazing. not as accesible as Mulholland Dr. but still a very good piece of film. Def. one for repeat viewings!The cinema in Manchester also aired Eraserhead afterwards.
comment by Mr_Naughty_
Mar 9, 2007
Have you seen it yet? I haven't  , but just reading the reviews I am already excited ... - s.
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