The Good

David Lynch shows that there's still a place for independent filmmakers in the world.

The Bad

I don't know that one can really watch this movie more than once...

"A Woman In Trouble"

That is the title quote on the DVD box of this movie and I am assuming it is talking about Laura Dern's character. She plays an actress who takes on a new role in a movie and then disappears into the set, and that point Inland Empire becomes one of the more subjective film experiences one might ever see. Mixing disparate images of woman watching a TV show starring bunnies, with the odyssey that Laura Dern's character is embarking on, I found myself having to piece together what I thought this movie was about.

At it's basest level, I think that director David Lynch has made a film that is a statement about popular culture. It is looking at reality TV, regular television, movies and other forms of media, and he is basically saying that he may as well make a sprawling, incomprehensible movie like Inland Empire because nothing the other shows are doing really matter anyway. While I can appreciate and applaud this approach (if in fact this is what Mr. Lynch is doing), I am wondering if it is so inaccessible, so hard to follow and so tough to piece together that the message doesn't get lost with the medium.

Decide for yourself if Inland Empire works for you, and also decide what it means to you. This is all presupposing that you want to see this film and, also, that once you pop it in your player you will finish it. I have a weird feeling that fans of David Lynch either saw this in the theater and could care less about reviews. Or, they didn't see this movie during its theatrical run, they have it on DVD and they don't care what other people think anyway.

Features

Stills

Truthfully, when these started I didn't know what was going on. They essentially play as one chunk taking us through the movie while also showing us some candid shots. We see things like Lynch holding the camera, the actors in between shots, in addition to images from the film. While I was somewhat surprised to see something so pedestrian on this release, it was nice to have something to wade through that didn't feel like an aesthetic chore.

Ballerina

More Things That Happened

Believe it or not these are deleted scenes from this movie. Something tells me that Lynch and Co. had a ton of these things and this big chunk of them doesn't play too much differently than the movie itself. In fact when I was given this DVD to review, I was half thinking that the DVD might contain a whole other movie based on the footage that wasn't used. The footage shown is of similar quality to Inland Empire itself, with the same mundane character moments, and I was half wondering why Lynch didn't put them in the film itself?

Stories

Lynch 2

Presented here is the first 10 minutes of a documentary on David Lynch as he's shooting Inland Empire. We see him yelling at his crew for not moving quick enough and what surprised me was all the equipment that was employed. This movie looked very spontaneous and on the fly while I was viewing it, yet it seemed to have the trappings of a major production. Other interesting things we are treated to are David Lynch dictating the screenplay, prepping scenes, and talking about how he wants to light certain locations in the film. Personally, I would like to see the whole documentary because, if nothing else, it at least illuminates a little more about David Lynch.

Quinoa

This is the cooking lesson that everyone has been talking about. Presented in black and white (which actually makes it hard to see at times), I couldn't help but wonder if Lynch was taking a stab at Robert Rodriguez and the cooking courses he offers on his DVDs. David Lynch explains that quinoa is a grain, if he could eat it all the time he would, and that it is the only "perfect protein." He walks us through his creation of this meal and what keeps us watching is the solid and editing and Lynches unbridled enthusiasm for this meal.

Video

They don't list out what the aspect ratio is for this shot on DV opus but lets just say that there's black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. They have shot the majority of this movie with such a low amount of light that it adds a painterly style to this film. This look pervades the movie and seems to be juxtaposed with scenes in reality that are more brightly lit. All of this translates really nicely to DVD with the compression of the video not becoming too sharp. Something tells me that after Lynch shot the movie on DV, he then transferred it to film, then he had that compressed to DVD.

Audio

5.1 Dolby Surround. 2.0 Optimized for Stereo. The audio on this release was really good. I am big fan of the way Lynch uses sound. How he takes everyday noises and seems to amplify them and then combine the sounds with the distorted reality of his world. He seems to always present us with a sense of foreboding even though what's on screen doesn't seem that scary. At all times Lynch seems like he's trying to warn us about the world and also about the vagaries of trusting what our eyes tell us we're seeing.

Package

The front cover of this release presents the title of the movie and then underneath it is a shot of a terrified Laura Dern. The back cover lists out what this 2-disc set contains, some technical specs, critics quotes, images from the movie and a credits list. They have nicely stored both discs inside an amaray case and that makes this release a very contained, arty piece of indy filmmaking to add to your collection.

Final Word

When I first saw this movie in the theater I went with two people who consider themselves high minded art types. As I do not, this probably accounts for why I was able to sit through the entire film in one pop, while the intellectuals I was with left the theater claiming that they couldn't stop thinking of anywhere else they would rather be. Now, maybe I sat through the entire film because I don't believe in walking out on movies. Once I start something like this I like to finish it and, at the time my friends exited, there was 40 minutes left in this 179 minute film. I also might have have stayed because I did pay to see Inland Empire, but considering the money and time that I had already spent I certainly wasn't going to ditch out in the final minutes. Lastly, I might have also stayed to spite my friends, knowing that they would have to wait for me as final reels of this film unspooled.

Whatever the case, I was able to make something out of Inland Empire (as you read above), and while I never expected there to be a moment where David Lynch tied everything together so that suddenly the film made sense (think The Number 23, which isn't bad but it's a recent example of a moody, non-linear, mainstream film that did this), I, like Lynch, took whatever I took out of the equation. There are different kinds of movies and this just happens to be one of those that asks a great deal more of its audience than most.

Inland Empire was released September 6, 2006.