review: inland empire (david lynch, 2006)

What to say about a film that so determinedly places itself in opposition to rationalization, to logical thought, to being pinned down or reduced into any logical schema? David Lynch's Inland Empire, even by Lynch's standards, is a film that absolutely cannot be reduced to its narrative elements or summed up in a plot outline.

It is, more than any film of his career, or, indeed, than any major film of the last few years, a film of pure images and atmosphere. The transition to DV has suited Lynch well; though the glossy, hyper-real saturation of Mulholland Drive (2001) is lost, the grimy, murky look we gain, all overexposed highlights and dark, grainy shadows, suits the film perfectly - it is difficult to imagine Inland Empire shot on traditional film. Lynch isn't the first major film-maker to switch to video, but none have made the switch so comprehensively, so acutely aware of the possibilities created by the change in medium.

So what is Inland Empire? At its core, it is a labyrinthine descent into an individual and a collective subconscious, a dense, interlocking web of images and stories, a claustrophobic and frequently outright terrifying inner journey into the darker corners of everyday domestic life and the psychic imprints they leave behind.

Having said all this, there is a sort of narrative sense, though the pieces can only begin to fit together once you accept that multiple levels of consciousness and reality are being intercut, and that not every image is to be taken literally, and that the connections are more often emotional, metaphorical or psychoanalytical than logical.

The most obvious story thread is that of actress Nikki Grace (played with terrifying intensity by Laura Dern), a has-been star who is given a role that could put her career back on track. There are complications - an affair with her co-star brings down the wrath of her jealous husband, mirroring the plot of the film under production; while the cast learn that the film is based on a Polish folk tale that is said to be cursed - an earlier attempt to film the story was abandoned when the leads were murdered.

(it is probably not a good idea to read the next couple of paragraphs if you haven't seen the film, especially if you feel it's important to reach your own interpretation first)

There is much more to it than this story, however. Besides Nikki's story, the film is also that of the unnamed woman we see at the start, crying as she watches television. Just like Nikki herself as well as her character in the film, she is trapped in the "old story", the record playing over and over, of desperate marital unhappiness, in whatever form - infidelity, jealousy, abuse, violence, abandonment. The myriad interlocking and overlapping stories that surface and disappear in the swirling mass of Inland Empire orbit this theme, with the endless, hypnotic repetition of images, lines of dialogue and characters all trapped in the same endless drama.

Seeking solace in the television, she finds it (among the pop-culture detritus TV images) in the film (or possibly more than one film) Nikki took part in. Nikki, in confronting and overcoming the demons in her own subconscious, her own "inland empire", while making the film, made it possible for other women, through the stories, to do the same, such that at the end of the film, the unnamed woman is able to welcome her husband back and find happiness. The film, then, is a journey simultaneously into the collective subconscious and into that of two particular women, the actress whose delving into her own subconscious allows for the creation of the stories that are released into the collective consciousness that helps the other woman, the viewer, to overcome her own demons. It is an expansive inner epic in which Lynch explores not only the theme of female oppression - as revealed by the film's subtitle, "A Woman in Trouble" - but also the power of stories and storytelling, and the relationship between the collective and the individual consciousness.

(end "spoilers")


What Inland Empire definitely is, is Lynch unleashed, Lynch redux, Lynch freed completely and totally from any commercial pressures and allowed to go as far down his own rabbit hole as he wishes. The math is simple - if you've enjoyed or appreciated Lynch's previous descents into the subconscious, particularly the fractured psychological dreamscapes of Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Drive (2001), then you will love this. If you didn't, then this might provide you with the most excruciating three hours you'll ever spend with a film. It isn't for everyone, and that isn't meant as a damning either of the film or of the people it isn't for. It is what it is.

In distilling his vision into its purest, most individual form, and painting it over his largest canvas yet, Lynch has created something that feels distinctly like his Big Statement. I am less eager to label it the apex of Lynch's career than some other critics have been, but that is a testament to the quality of his back catalogue, not in any way a denigration of this film. Inland Empire is another masterpiece, a staggering, frequently jaw-dropping work of pure cinema, an intense collection of gorgeous and terrifying images, a densely layered meditation on consciousness, gender, oppression and the relationship between the artist and their audience. It is a landmark film that offers further confirmation, if any were needed, that Lynch is a cinematic genius with very few equals.

classic image: wild at heart (david lynch, 1990)

It might seem strange that what strikes me as one of the cinema's most honest and perversely beautiful affirmations of love comes from David Lynch, a director more associated with disturbing dreamscapes and nightmarish journeys into the dark underbelly of small-town life. And yet Wild at Heart is precisely that: an oddball, offbeat, deeply troubled but ultimately joyful celebration of passionate love, and of the fragile yet powerful private sphere lovers inhabit.

Much of the film's success can be attributed to Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, both delivering memorable performances at the manic intensity the film demands. The story of their characters, Sailor and Lula, is reminiscent of countless other outlaw-couple stories, from Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973) and Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) all the way back, of course, to Romeo & Juliet, and probably to much earlier than even that. When I watched the film with Lara a few days ago, we talked about the parallels between the film and Shakespeare's play - though there are no warring families in Wild at Heart, there is the same sense of a rotten, corrupt and violent adult world that constantly intrudes upon and threatens to shatter the lovers' idyllic dream. The only way the couple can keep their dream alive is by running, constantly travelling down seemingly endless highways with California as an almost mythical, unreachable final destination. The adult world repeatedly ensnares Sailor into committing acts of violence, in much the same way as it does Romeo, and the forces and structures of the law, family and society form barriers which seem to trap Sailor and Lula and prevent them from achieving the happiness they find in each other.

One of Wild at Heart's strengths is that it belongs to the category of films (that also includes, for instance, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994)) that externalize the private, shared universe created and inhabited by its lover protagonists - the deeply personal dream-world in which they attempt to claim a space untouched by the corrupting, hypocritical influence of the adult establishment. Thus, the film's world is an endearingly, surreally kitsch pop-culture world of Elvis songs, jazz, snakeskin jackets, Good and Wicked Witches, convertibles and endless highways - a world composed of Sailor and Lula's psyches writ large. Theirs is a passionate, burning love expressed through numerous dancing scenes, rock songs, and especially through the energetically lustful yet tender hotel room sex scenes, expressing a bond that is unashamedly, delightedly carnal yet emotionally strong. This is in contrast to the adult world, which is depicted not as chaste and repressed (as is typical in many young vs. old narratives), but as sexual in a perverse and emotionless manner - as in the images of a mob boss constantly surrounded by naked, immobile sex slaves.

Lynch, however, does not shy away from depicting the dark side of the protagonists' story. The deliriously overblown fire imagery, repeatedly associated with the protagonists' lovemaking, recalls the death of Lula's father in a suspicious fire as well as the deaths of Sailor's parents through smoking-related illnesses, and invokes not only the ever-present spectre of death but also the realization that the fragile existence Sailor and Lula have carved out for themselves is ephemeral and cannot last.

This impression is reinforced by the haunting scene of carnage they encounter in the wreckage of a car accident that has claimed the lives of what seem to be kindred youthful spirits. As the girl they try to help dies in front of their eyes, a sense of mortality settles on the couple, shattering their previous confident hedonism. It is in this mood that they end up, penniless, in the dead-end desert town of Big Tuna, Texas, where the aura of decay and death is intensified as the first clue we get to the arrival of new life is a close-up of flies buzzing around a pool of vomit - perhaps the most stereotypically "Lynchian" image in a film which, for the most part, foregrounds his latent wacky sense of humour. Here, reality catches up with Sailor and Lula; they are forced to face the consequences of their hedonistic elopement and to realize that what they have been living is a dream that must reach an end.

At the end of the film, however, we have a hopeful - even joyously hopeful - note. Sailor and Lula have come to accept that life and love cannot be perfect, that they might have lost something along the way and that the pressures of the world might have damaged their impossible dream; but they have decided that is no reason to give up the dream. The finale is at once hilariously kitsch and, in a weird way, movingly romantic, and it affirms the possibility of the the existence and survival of love, even at the cost of a Sisyphean struggle with the outside world.

Wild at Heart is in no way whatsoever a subtle film, but it operates at precisely the right pitch to capture the love story of its characters - in much the same way that, at the opposite end of the spectrum, Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (2001) exists at the subdued, quiet level the character of its protagonists demands. It is ultimately, for all its filmmaking and technical brilliance and postmodern invention, a simple, uplifting, life-affirming love story, and one of the best films by one of the greatest of film-makers.