Inland Empire: Experiential Cinema

Staggering beauty infused with insane terror, reflexivity contrasted against intensely driven characters, reality paired against levels of fantasy: Inland Empire has the imprints of a master’s touch, everything Lynch has aspired to through Transcendental Meditation, spirituality, and his pursuit of film as the highest form of Art.

Hints of Lynch's past films linger in Inland Empire, like the many traces of the Mystery genre that provide the plot driving force of all his films. The innocent introductions of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Wild At Heart invite the most conservative filmgoer to enter his work through conventional beginnings, speckled with punctuations of the insane, only to be exposed to the full onslaught of Lynch's psyche much later than expected. Most likely unconscious, Lynch shatters expectations and completely destroys the very idea of genre through abrupt shift in tonal qualities, an example of which is physically manifested by The Blue Box in Mulholland Drive. Once opened, there is no turning back for both the character and the spectator.

Both Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire share much in terms of "plot", but when considering style, Inland Empire demonstrates a maturity that shies in comparison to the rest of his work, but not at the expense of his impromptu, almost youthful buoyancy. The most obvious stylistic departure can be found in the very existence of reflexivity in Inland Empire. Camera lenses, projectors, and plot construction discussions are liberally peppered throughout the film, exposing Lynch's new hope – and cynicism – with the medium of film, or more specifically, video.

Inland Empire is the first video project in Lynch's oeuvre. In every recent interview I've seen with Lynch, there has been a repetitive mention of how "liberating" video is, and how he will never return to film. Anyone who reads these interviews – as I was – will most likely find this the regretful last words of an absolutist. After viewing this film, though, I truly hope he never returns for the following reason: as an auteur, Lynch is more versatile and free to express himself in his ostensibly stream of consciousness filmmaking style. Without gigantic 35mm film rigs to haul around, big budgets, or large crews, video bodes well with Lynch’s content and thoroughly compliments his style.

Inland Empire exploits the simplest of plots in a big way. By stripping away typical storytelling conventions, he simply throws results into the viewers face. Sure, there’s a semblance of a story, but this only provides the thinnest through-line to hang Lynch’s style and subplots off of. For better or worse – this line snaps about 20 minutes into the film, and never ties itself back together. Laura Dern in the most unmotivated, yet acutely affective role of her career, portrays Hollywood celebrity, Nikki Grace. Boosting her career to an even bigger stardom, she manages to snag a leading role in an upcoming Hollywood film with co-star Devon Berk (Justin Theroux). In the most evocative turning point in Inland Empire, they rehearse the blockbuster script with the film’s director, and are informed that the last two times this script was attempted, both lead actors were killed – both times. They joke and beat around the bush, and then dive right into a read-through. Close-ups of Devon and Nikki fill the screen - the hand-held camera providing that loose, documentary feel - emotionally tearing at each other with poetic lines of dialogue. The sequence peaks with Nikki trying to subdue an escaped tear that discreetly rolls down her cheek . As always in Lynch’s films, moments like these tend to verge on the melodramatic (music serves as the backbone), but Lynch manages to bring a very real poignancy to the scenes through intense direction – to both his actors and technical style. We hear a crash on the set behind them, halting their performance. Regrouping, they attempt to proceed with the scene again. A crash strikes once more. Each character silently waits for someone to take action, staring with profound concentration for a few moments, and Devon is off to investigate the still echoing noise. Whispers and distant taps amplify the viewers suggestive powers tenfold, the sounds resonating through mysteriously empty frames that both constrict and liberate our senses. This is a key moment where fantasy and reality first collide.

It’s at this point that the mysteriously cryptic script begins to take on a life of it’s own. Nikki’s character in this script, and Nikki in Inland Empire are weaved in and out of each other in a pastiche of scenes as disparate and far ranging as musical and horror. It is at this moment the film becomes completely incomprehensible and – partly thanks to this – comes to be deeply frightening.

There are always those people who will say, after all’s said and done, “Wait, what happened?” This is a futile and pointless question, although very tempting to ask. So tempting, in fact, that on the DVD of Lynch’s last film, Mulholland Drive, there are a list of 10 questions to help guide the viewer to “figure the story out.” This cute, mystery-solving (and thus, spoiling) feature, when applied to Inland Empire, will only result in annoyance and aggravation.

My advice? Don’t study it. Don’t attempt to understand it. Don’t try to make connections. Just experience it and let it wash over, at least once. And if that human instinct for understanding sneaks up on you, then, by all means, watch it again, pick it apart, and get frustrated.