Ahrhgth. Brenchenfrendher. Nincunhuytherisherid, capowk? Delinguishers ov frenciswerschis. And that’s just in the first half hour…Yes, friends, “Inland Empire” is weird. Really weird. “Mulholland Drive”, by comparison, is a $200 million grossing family-friendly summer blockbuster. Here are some of the things that happen in the film, which is, incidentally three hours long:
1. An actress rehearsing for her new role in a movie based on a Polish folk tale travels through time, sort of, and becomes the very same person spying on her two days ago behind the set, sort of.
2. Three people wearing giant bunny heads have an utterly mundane conversation, or rather just exchange a series of unconnected sentences, such as “what time is it?” and “it is red”, which is met with canned audience sitcom laughter.
3. A woman who believes she’s been hypnotised tells a police officer she’s going to kill someone by stabbing her in the stomach with a screwdriver. She then pulls a screwdriver out of her own stomach.
4. Polish people in dark, snowy alleyways talk about murder, unable to decide whether they know the murderer, or even whether one of them actually is the murderer.
5. As in Mulholland Drive: magic lesbians.
6. In the most obvious visual metaphor for…something, a woman vomits blood onto Hollywood’s walk of fame, having been stabbed in the stomach with a screwdriver by the woman who had herself been stabbed in the stomach with a screwdriver.
7. Polish people sit round candlelit tables, vanishing.
And so on.
So is “Inland Empire” good? Yes. It’s very good. It makes absolutely no discernible sense whatsoever, which means in David Lynch’s head it probably makes perfect sense. It’s at least twelve different stories, interwoven in so many ways, all becoming stories within each other’s stories, that it’s impossible to tell by the end of the film what the reality of the film actually was, if there was one. In my view, this sort of thing should happen a lot more often. Not just in cinema, but it real life. It would be wrong of course to describe “Inland Empire” as “surreal” – it’s just drawing attention to what’s there by showing us what isn’t there, which is what’s really there, underneath what isn’t. It’s Thomas Pynchon cinema, maybe. Please don’t describe it as “surreal”. There are very few genuinely surreal moments in the film, outside the giant bunny-rabbit-sitcom-people, who at one point appear to talk directly to the audience, as though giving us clues on how to interpret the film we still haven’t finished watching. Clues like, “it has something to do with time”…Thanks, giant bunny-rabbit-sitcom-woman. I got that bit.
Another thing: red lamps. There are a lot of red lamps in “Inland Empire”. This certainly means something. There’s a lot of red lamps in “Mulholland Drive” too.
4 Comments
March 11, 2007 at 10:25 pm
David Lynch films = absolute w*nk. FACT.
March 12, 2007 at 12:25 am
No, Harris
March 13, 2007 at 7:36 pm
If there is a single undivided objective reality in the universe upon which we may hang all our certainties and upon which the entire cosmos stands, it is the fact that every film David Lynch has ever made, is making, or will ever make is inexcusable shite enjoyed only by cretins, deviants and chronic masturbaters.
Mathematically one might put it thus:
David Lynch films = WANK x the speed of light squared.
FACT.
December 17, 2007 at 4:59 pm
just because you dont understand something, doesnt mean its shite. not that i claim to understand inland empire, but as with almost every lynch film (the straight story is the only exception i can think of) it requires a lot of rewatching and brainwork to understand. i feel sorry for the people who dont enjoy his work, as when you finally understand a lynch film, they take on the role of something a lot more important. lets face it, if we all had the same opinion as you, a lot of the great works of our time would remain ’shite’. dont mock what you clearly dont understand, there is a reason lynch has so many fans, why do you think he repeatedly attracts stars such as william h macy, naomi watts and justin theroux. they didnt think it was shite did they. everyone has there own opinion, but yours seem to smack of someone who doesnt understand something, so therefore thinks its shite. well done.