Inland Empire (2006): How much more Lynch can this be? None, none more Lynch (Review)

Re-released in a new Criterion led restoration, Inland Empire is David Lynch’s most recent feature length film (if you’re not counting Twin Peaks: The Return, which is more contentious than you’d think), and generally has the reputation of being a collection of ideas and experimentations with filming in digital, lacking the focus of his previous features. Almost two decades after its release, there is a growing movement of reappraisal that I am more than happy to contribute towards. Since I managed to make some sense out of Mad God, it makes sense that I’d be the one to try and decipher Inland Empire.

Except trying to decipher a Lynch film is completely the wrong way to approach his films. It’s not that you can’t gleam meaning from them, indeed Lynch actively encourages audiences to find their own meaning rather than asking him to provide it for them. All of his films have a comprehensible narrative, it’s just the storytelling that makes it difficult, and arguably Inland Empire is more difficult than his others.

While not one to repeat himself, there are definitely echoes of his previous work. The black and white opening draws an immediate comparison to Eraserhead with the following scene of a stranger ominously telling the protagonist about their future reminiscent of a similar, iconic, scene from Lost Highway. In terms of subject matter, it is a darker look at the dark side of Hollywood that Lynch had explored in his previous feature, Mulholland Drive.

Even these frame of references won’t help though as the film is actively disorientating. The tagline for the film was “A woman in trouble” and we are firmly in Nikki Grace’s (Laura Dern) troubled mind. Upon getting the leading role in a movie, she is told that the film is actually a remake of a Polish film that was never finished after the two leads were murdered. The meta framework is clear, not least when the murdered actors are described as “characters” and that there was “something inside the story” that got to them. That something seems to have gotten to Nikki too as she blurs fiction with reality, and not even just her own reality.

Here, a remake is not just a retelling, as since the story was never finished, you are telling that story again while also telling your own version. Naturally, there’s going to be some confusion. By far the most chilling aspects of Inland Empire are its slippages of time, where someone can know about what’s going to happen tomorrow because it felt like it happened yesterday. Even the title of the film-within-a-film, ‘On High in Blue Tomorrows’, calls attention to it. Scenes with intense blue lighting feel like fake memories, where real sex feels fake. It is this sort of holistic logic that the film is built upon, leaving you uncertain but not lost, following a path that you can’t quite see.

Because no matter how confusing or strange it gets, Lynch is firmly in control of whatever it is he’s showing us. Inland Empire is the closest he’s got to making a horror film with ominous discomfort from the beginning. The most notable visual cues are the intense close-ups on actor’s faces but it is worth highlighting how distanced framing is used for similarly uneasy effect. Fragments of a sitcom starring people dressed as rabbits on a dollhouse-like set, the over-lit talk show, the incomplete movie set – these are all examples of deliberate alienation, rooms where people can get lost in by just being in it. The permanent dread is everywhere in this film with Lynch’s direction as good as it ever has been, even if Inland Empire isn’t as cinematically beautiful as his work shot on film still looks.

This release brings Inland Empire close to that aesthetic by cleaning up the grainy aesthetic of the film’s original release with a re-mastered picture and soundtrack supervised by Lynch himself. There’s an argument that this detrimentally strips away the power of that original aesthetic, but Lynch’s participation puts those fears aside for me. Moreover, it doesn’t detract from the film looking almost like behind-the-scenes footage, again blurring the lines of reality and fiction even for us as audience members. In this way, Nikki’s psychological turmoil is depicted through the cinema experience, and she later describes it as such: “a bad time watching everything go around me while I was standing in the middle watching it like in a dark theatre before they bring the lights up.” At this point, Nikki and her character Sue are indistinguishable, life imitating art or maybe the other way around. Or both, who knows?

Let’s talk about Laura Dern, who is at the centre of this film and has the unenviable task of creating a coherent sense of character for Nikki, Sue and the various iterations of herself that she encounters throughout the film. The layers of performance is a feat to behold, such as when Nikki cries in character at a read-through, echoing the similarly intense audition scene in Mulholland Drive. For Nikki, the film is meant as a comeback for her to “soar back to the top,” though we are never told what exactly she’s meant to be bouncing back from. Did something happen with her “powerful” husband, is she trapped under his control? Maybe it’s something to do with the sex workers who crop out throughout the film and who she seems so empathetic towards? And speaking of them, why do they dance along to the Locomotion?

This is a film that asks more questions then it answers and so I can understand the frustration some might feel. To me, it is rewarding in being able to pick over these details, not to find coherence, but to experience a story in a unique way. As you’d expect for a film like this, the supplements (including a short interview with Lynch around the making of the film and the documentary Lynch (One)) provide little guidance on intention or meaning though do provide behind-the-scenes context. The inclusion of More Things That Happened, a feature length collection of deleted scenes, is as close as it gets, revealing what Lynch felt didn’t benefit the movie. It also reiterates how Inland Empire does have a focus by demonstrating what a Lynch film made out of random scenes actually looks like.

If you’re already a fan of Inland Empire, this release is a must-get. If you’re a curious new-comer to the film or Lynch in general, give it a go. It isn’t the most accessible introduction to his work, but it is arguably the most comprehensive single example of his style. Try to put expectations aside and let its spell work on you, however that turns out. I’m unsure if those who disliked Inland Empire before would re-appraise it just because it looks less grainy, but in providing an opportunity to revisit it, this release is a pretty good incentive.

Mike’s Archive: Inland Empire (2006)