Director: David Lynch
David Lynch reportedly began shooting "Inland Empire" as an unscripted series of scenes on digital video. It then somehow turned into a three-hour feature which in many respects is similar to his previous film, "Mulholland Drive."
"Mulholland Drive" was a masterpiece, however, while "Inland Empire" is a far more haphazard piece of work. There are moments of sheer brilliance and moments of gratuitous nonsense. The result is a bizarrely fascinating and frustrating movie that pulls you into its dreamlike logic but often leaves you wanting to abruptly wake up.
The story is relatively straightforward for the first hour. Laura Dern plays an actress who gets cast in a comeback role in a movie directed by Jeremy Irons. She discovers that the film was an abandoned Polish project in which the lead actress was murdered.
The narrative becomes increasingly complex and convoluted as Laura Dern starts to fall in love with her co-star, a phenomenon that mirrors her role in the film. Much of the film is shot in some gloomy, snow-covered Polish city which is one of the main threads connecting the multifarious elements of the story.
There is also a roomful of people in rabbit costumes on a stage set whose monosyllabic lines of dialogue are greeted with the eerie canned laughter of a pre-recorded TV show. When one of the rabbits leaves the stage set, it also provides another motif running thoughout the movie.
If you have seen "Mulholland Drive" then "Inland Empire" will make a whole lot more sense. It also uses Hollywood as a starting point from which to explore a nightmarish world of cyclical structures and horribly fragmented causalities.
But "Mulholland Drive" worked magnificently well thanks to the impeccable tightness of its structure. "Inland Empire" feels forced and labored in contrast. As such, it largely fails to convince as either movie or dream.
However, there is still plenty to admire. Laura Dern does a brilliant job of looking confused for three hours. In fact, her powerful performance is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the film. And there are some truly breathtaking scenes, especially at the beginning and end of the movie.
David Lynch is to be respected for his relentless and uncompomising vision and the ingenious way he uses film to explore it. But as at other times in his long and immensely impressive career, he is danger of falling into self-parody.
Opens in Latvia Sept. 28 and in Lithuania Oct. 12 .
