Saturday, 18 September 2021 18:57

Inland Empire






INLAND EMPIRE

US, 2006, 180 minutes, Colour.
Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux, Julia Ormond, Harry Dean Stanton, Diane Ladd, Grace Zabriskie.
Directed by David Lynch.

If ever there was a film where you could use the old joke, ‘What’s it about?’ ‘About three hours’, this is it. One could list some of the aspects of the plot but that would not really tell you what Inland Empire is about at all. The answer is simply, ‘this is a David Lynch film’.

For more than thirty years Lynch has tantalised and exhilarated his audiences. In the 1970s, it was the puzzle in black and white of Eraserhead (and its reverberating sound engineering). In the 1980s, it was the darkness under the suburban garden surface in Blue Velvet. In the 1990s, he took television audiences into the weird state of Twin Peaks. He also developed parallel worlds in Lost Highway and continued that into the 21st century with parallel and contrasting worlds in Mulholland Drive.

Where is the Inner Empire located? Geographically in the US and Poland, with filming done in both places. But that is only external topography. The Inland Empire, or Inner Empire, is the interior world of David Lynch as storyteller, creating an inner empire of storytelling of the mind and the emotions, showing facets of an inner empire of the central character’s psyche and evoking an inner empire response from each viewer, a world of response that will differ from person to person.

Obviously, Lynch is not interested in direct narrative. There are the elements of narrative there if we want to get some hook onto the three hours’ experience. Laura Dern is an actress. She is offered a part in a film to be directed by Jeremy Irons and is to star with Justin Theroux. She is interviewed on TV by a brassy reporter (played by her mother, Diane Ladd). The film is a remake of a film that was never finished because the leads were murdered. It is based on Polish myths. The actress has her own life, the life of the character she is playing and alter egos which emerge at different times. Julia Ormond also appears as, perhaps, another alter ego but in a weirder and more violent world. These are the major suggestions, but there is a great deal more detail.

Lynch is not concerned with narrative logic. Time fluctuates because it is multi-dimensional (after all, we imagine, we remember the past, we fantasise about the future, we dream – the narrative of our inner empires moment by moment has little narrative logic). And what is space? Is it a continuum (after all, we are present in one place and our memories and imaginations have us in other space dimensions). Our day-by-day imaginative lives are quite surreal if we examine them, so why not use this experience for a film? It engages our mind in a pursuit of reason, logic and truth but it works on the level of consciousness and feelings.

What Lynch is interested in is the experience of possibilities, alternate states, parallel worlds. With his use of digital cameras, he is freer to move the point of view around much more fluidly, capturing more effectively emotional and imaginative events.

The experience of watching Inland Empire is more than a touch mesmeric. It does run for almost three hours and, unless the experience is so confusing or disturbing that one cannot surrender to it, it draws us in and gives us, in images, movement, sound, speech and music, a truly cinematic experience.

Laura Dern appears in almost every sequence and gives a wonderful performance with quite a range of emotions. She remarked before the screening at the 2006 Venice Film Festival that she was looking forward to seeing the film to find out what it was and what it was about. Her version of the answer would probably be quite different from yours and yours and hers from mine. But that’s all right. We all have our own Inland Empires.

1. The expectations of a David Lynch film? His themes, visual style, music, sound engineering? Dreams, reality? A puzzle?

2. The use of digital camerawork, its flexibility, grainy stock, the demanding nature of the stock, the close-ups? The presentation of real worlds, unreal? The filming in Poland?

3. The musical score, the vibrations and reverberations? The range of songs? Popular? European? American? The performances throughout the film, songs and dances interspersed? The exuberance of the final credits?

4. The real world, parallel worlds, alternate worlds? The United States and Europe? The real world, the world of imagination, dreams? The world of film and the film story, compared with reality? Theatre and reality – and the participation by applause and laughter of the audience? One world flowing into the other? Offering the audience plenty of scope for imagination, reflection? The challenge not to try to work out logical connections but to go with the flow of the film?

5. The prologue, the record, the serial, popular in the Baltic area? The Polish locations, Poland itself, the people? The legends? Stories from Poland, the Polish characters, language, the members of the circus? Families, women? The violence? The scene in the hotel, sexuality, the blurred faces? The woman, her weeping, watching television – and this recurring at the end of the film, her watching Nicky’s world as well as the film?

6. The Alice in Wonderland overtones of the rabbits, performing on a stage, audience and applause and laughter, Pinteresque dialogue? The situation in the room, sitting on the lounge, the ironing? People trying to enter? Nicky coming to the door at the end?

7. The neighbour, her appearance, visually truncated, coiffeured, coming into the house, praising its beauty, wanting to be neighbourly, having the cup of coffee? Talking with Nicky? Her story of the boy reflecting evil, of the girl doing the same? Her telling Nicky she would get the part, asking whether there was a murder in it? Their discussion, her rough language, Nicky objecting? Her reappearing at the end – younger?

8. The introduction to Nicky, very proper, welcoming to the neighbour, the servants and the coffee, her husband lurking, his general absence? Welcoming but uncomfortable? Laura Dern’s presence, her part in the film as a dramatic tour-de-force, the film depending on her?

9. The woman getting her to imagine what was going to happen tomorrow, on the couch with her girlfriends, the phone call, getting the role, the jumping and excitement, the husband watching? This being a real in an unreal world? The world of tomorrow and what if?

10. The making of the film, the introduction to the director, Jeremy Irons’ style? Harry Dean Stanton as his assistant, his manner? The enthusiastic speeches, the welcome to the stars, the reading session and performance, the story about the film being a remake, the story behind the story with the deaths of the stars? The mystery and nobody knowing what exactly happened? The director, the filming, the techniques, the praise, his reappearing at the end, the dramatic death scene and the appearance of the camera? Praise, printing? His final concern about Nicky? The enigma of the assistant and his borrowing money from Nicky and Devon?

11. Nicky and Devon meeting, their reputations, manager, discussion about deals? Nicky being very proper? The reading at the table, developing their characters, the issue of the remake? Their going to the television session, the obnoxious questions asked by the host (and her being Diane Ladd, Laura Dern’s mother)? The scenes of the story of the film, Devon and Nicky – falling in love in reality, their scenes, or dreams? Nicky appearing later and declaring, as Susan, her love for Billy, Billy’s wife and her anger and reaction?

12. The significance of Nicky and her dreams, her being trapped in the dreams, going from one story to another, rushing, trying to get back but unable? The inevitability of dreams? The desire to escape? The range of dream worlds, the different identities for Nicky, her being bashed, inviting in the man with glasses, her crass language? Issues of relationships? Her appearing as the naïve suburban wife, the barbeque and her bewilderment? With the circus people? Herself, mirroring herself? Sue as a mirror or not of Nicky? With the women, in the room, their songs, dances? Their appearing and disappearing? As the prostitute in the street, with the other prostitutes, meeting the men in the street, recognising them, the discussions? The ultimate fight, the stabbing? The pathos of the death scene – the black woman lying in the street, the Asian woman, their long discussion about how to get a bus, the issue of the bus? The black woman telling her that she was dying? Her blood, vomiting the blood, her death – and the audience then seeing the camera and the director calling “Cut”? Nicky and her inability to get up for some minutes?

13. The effect on Nicky, her finally getting up, wandering, into the cinema, the screen, the man she confided in passing by? Going to the different rooms, the women in the rooms, the Polish woman watching her on the television screen? Her entering the room with this woman, the kiss, her disappearing? Two halves of the one identity? Her wanting to visit the rabbits?

14. The woman in the room, watching the screen, the kiss, her being happy?

15. The husband, Billy, the Pole, the merging of different husbands? The suburban husband and the barbeque? The husband and the son, finding Nicky/Sue? Seeing and not seeing?

16. The range of men, a certain anonymity, the Polish strangers, the circus personnel?

17. The exuberance of the final song, celebratory mode? Laura Dern present in the middle of all this?

18. Where was the inner empire, as a location, an inner world location, different worlds – and the quest for identity and meaning within this empire?

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