I was going to review Inland Empire on Blu-ray at some point, but was inspired to do so with a little more urgency by some surprisingly dismissive comments about it in the Twin Peaks Gazette, an online community dedicated to the seminal TV show and, moreover, the work of David Lynch. The general opinion is that this is a dog’s dinner from a movie and that it has single-handedly killed his movie career.
I couldn’t disagree with these sentiments more vehemently, in my opinion it could very well be the crowning glory of bodywork of great distinction. Granted, it was never going to be to everyone’s taste, even those who have championed its most commercial efforts might well take issue with its epic length and the fact that it’s shot not on celluloid but on retrograde digital camcorders, operated entirely by Lynch himself. The film is at once a showcase for the acting talents of longtime muse Laura Dern and her intense, multifaceted performance eats up the screen, as well as a serious attempt to push the boundaries of the film medium as art.
Detractors of the film argue that it does not have a coherent plot and that the characters are not well defined enough to want to spend as much time with them. However, Dern’s breakout performance as Nikki Grace, a Hollywood starlet about to take on the lead female role in a drama steeped in adultery and murder, only to discover that it’s not an original script, as she first thought, but a remake of an abandoned Polish film that was believed to be “cursed” according to the new film’s director, played with comedic subtlety by Jeremy Irons. The romantic leads of the previous film died under mysterious circumstances and it seems that the folktale from which the plot is derived also has a horrible history; benefiting from a masterfully dark central performance by the wonderful Peter J. Lucas.
The director urges Nikki and her leading lady, Devon (a welcome return from Mulholland Drive’s Justin Theroux) not to panic as they will be perfectly safe; but as they rehearse the scenes, the lines between the film’s history, folklore, and the fate of the original couple transgress their own reality. While this is familiar Lynch ground, it is by no means predictable, quite the contrary. Menacing moods and wildly surreal visuals, most notably a cheesy sitcom starring bunny-headed actors with canned laughter, are interspersed, adding to the mounting unease and tension as Nikki plunges deeper into the mystery.
I agree that there are elements in common between Inland Empire and Lynch’s previous film, Mulholland Drive, but no more than there were with his own predecessor Lost Highway, which was similarly criticized when it first came out for being too dark and confusing, but is now widely hailed as a Lynch classic. This is where the world of “art” differs wildly from the world of cinema, where audiences expect a director’s new film to be completely different from the last. However, in both painting and music, it is quite common for an artist or composer to make ‘variations on a theme’ throughout their career.
While I acknowledge that Inland Empire is the least accessible movie David Lynch has made to date, I think it’s all the better for it and emerges as a true “work of art.” This is the kind of expression we should expect from an artist who has broken free from the constraints of budget, time, and studio executive interference by embracing the digital medium. Trying to compare Inland Empire to even Mulholland Drive, the first two-thirds of which initially made up the TV series pilot and thus stems from a commercially conscious sensibility, is like comparing apples and oranges. The only other film that comes close to it in Lynch’s canon would be Eraserhead and I’ve come to understand that when he said he was “done with the film” he wasn’t simply referring to the medium rather than digital; he was also referring to the limitations that commercial film distribution places on a creative artist and it is a testament to the French, who have a real respect for auteur cinema, that Canal+ continues to air the work of David Lynch.
It’s probably a mistake to even try to review Inland Empire, it’s a film that should be experienced with as few preconceived ideas as possible, perhaps approached like a visit to an art gallery, walking through it at a leisurely pace without expecting what’s around the corner or the surprise that might be in the next room.