David Lynch died on January 15th. Rather than doing what most sane people would do (watch Blue Velvet again) I went for his longest and least accessible work, Inland Empire. How can this film - which is impossible to interpret - have an IMDB rating of 6.8 when Aloha has 5.4? I'll tell you. It's because the majority of voters are pretentious arseholes who would rather praise a pretentious, indecipherable film than a simply beautiful and wonderful film from a filmmaker at the top of his game (both as a writer and director).
Inland Empire doesn't follow any sort of logical narrative structure. Or to put it another way, it's batshit crazy. It starts plots that go nowhere, has scenes that make no sense. This is beyond Mulholland Drive, which seemed to me like a dream. This is .. Is it even deeper into the dream state? It doesn't feel like it. If that's what Lynch was going for, he went too far. the initial set up, people enacting a film, is quite fun because we're slipping between the filming and the film itself, but that is soon eschewed in favour of an explosion of meaninglessness. But I did appreciate the little touches - her collapsing in pain and her husband's T-shirt covered in ketchup both foreshadow her murder.
One thing I can tell you is that it has a committed performance from Laura Dern. She's an actress and her character, a hooker and / or a tough woman with a nasty background, and a suburban housewife.
And that it doesn't have much (any?) of those amazing Lynch moments where it feels like he's doing something incredibly advanced and serious in filmmaking, nor does it display almost anything of his black humour - the sole bizarrely funny moment is when Dern, stabbed and dying, falls next to some homeless people, who start discussing whether you can get a bus from there to Pamplona or somewhere.
It doesn't help that it has a weird look, like it was shot on video. Also often deliberately too close into people's faces. There's no credit but Lynch shot it himself, on digital, which isn't great. (He also edited it.) There's all sorts of music going on, including Penderecki, and Nina Simone behind the end credits performing 'Sinnerman'.
With Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, Harry Dean Stanton, some Polish people.
When I say David Lynch died on January 15, he may have simply shifted into another dimension.
The usual ominous soundtrack is present.
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