Inland EmpireIt has been said that someone under hypnosis is in a trance like state, experiencing an alternate level of consciousness. It has also been defined as a distinct form of role-playing, where the subject "acts" out the parameters defined by the hypnotic suggestion. And, the word "hypnosis" is derived from the Greek hypnos, which means "sleep". All of these interpretations are firmly entrenched within Inland Empire, the hypnotic and dreamlike drama by David Lynch, which he has described as being about "a woman in trouble". All that can be said for sure is that Inland Empire focuses on actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) and her bizarre experiences while working on a new movie.
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Inland Empire is about the fragile barriers between reality and fantasy, especially regarding dreams. Nikki's story begins in Hollywood, which is frequently depicted in Lynch's works as a literal "dream factory". Nikki has recently been signed to star in a banal melodrama called "On High in Blue Tomorrows", alongside her playboy co-star, Devon Berk (Justin Theroux); she and Devon play two lovers--Sue and Billy--who are unfaithful to their spouses. The film-within-a-film is directed by Kingsley Stewart (Jeremy Irons), and as they Nikki and Devon work together, they begin an affair like their characters, in defiance of the ominous threats made by Nikki's husband, Piotrek (Peter J. Lucas), who seems to have connections with the criminal underworld from Poland. Inland Empire blurs the line between fantasy and reality, especially between the life of an actor and the character they play--a theme explored in movies like Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue and even Ingmar Bergman's Persona. Kingsley discloses that "On High in Blue Tomorrows" is actually a remake of a film from Poland, whose production ended due to the murder of its stars. Whether it is due in part to this ominous backstory or an actual curse on the film, Nikki gradually loses her grip on reality, confusing her role as Sue with her own life, as the boundaries between the two disintegrate.
Before Nikki receives the confirmation that she has got the part, she is visited by a woman with a thick, Eastern European accent, credited as "Visitor #1" (Grace Zabriskie). The "visitor" speaks ominously about the film's plot and makes intimations that sound like a gypsy divining ill omens. This scene is a preamble for the rest of Inland Empire, filled with details that take on greater importance as the film progresses--from the time of day to crucial conflicts in the story--while the visitor maintains an accusatory tone that suggests that Nikki is hiding from her subconscious knowledge of what is to come. After Nikki has a kind of breakdown, she gets caught in a glitch in reality and space-time, fragmenting her personality across multiple plot threads. Nikki usually encounters some conflict with Piotrek in each thread, who is often in contact with members of a Polish "circus"; he maintains that he keeps their company because they want him to look after their animals. Among his confederates is the ominous "Phantom" (Krzysztof Majchrzak), an aggressive and sinister figure who lurks in darkness and twists the words of others to exert dominance over them. Nikki envisions a group of sneering prostitutes dancing in a dark hotel room. In one moment, she is transported to the wintry and desolate streets somewhere in Poland, and in another thread she plays a hard-living misfit who has been abused, as she confesses to a bespectacled man in a small office. All of these fragments of "Nikki" are swirled about in a confusing jumble of plot, all while a tearful prostitute--credited as "Lost Girl" (Karolina Gruszka)--watches this and other unusual programs (like a sitcom about giant anthropomorphic rabbits) on a cathode ray TV set, adding yet another layer to the question about how real Nikki's "reality" really is.
Inland Empire is shot entirely on digital video, with a handheld camera operated by David Lynch himself. This "cheap" looking aesthetic is by design, adding a cinéma vérité style that further distorts the barrier between what is real and what is only a movie. This adds a brutally realistic--and paradoxical--element to scenes like the one with Doris Side (Julia Ormond) in the police station. When Nikki/Sue is scrambling around on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, convinced that someone is trying to kill her, the moment feels very raw and unfiltered, and somehow dangerous because it is shot on location in this style. The story goes that David Lynch wrote Inland Empire in the midst of its own production, contributing to the logic-defying structure of the narrative. Furthermore, it is said that even the actors didn't know how the story would end, contributing to the sense of unease and mystery that is palpable in their performances. Laura Dern is fearless in this multifaceted role; the story goes that Lynch tried to advocate for an Academy Award nomination on her behalf strangely with the aid of a cow. The cinematography by Lynch is inexorably bound to the way that the audience absorbs the tone and feel of Inland Empire. There are frequent and uncomfortably intimate closeups of actors in stressful situations, and the audience is made to feel like a voyeur to these anarchic crises and desperate moments. Lynch fosters this by defining reality as a backstage look at the process of creating a film like "On High in Blue Tomorrows", only to topple it later with cutaways straight out of a nightmare, like when a manic Nikki races toward the camera with her lips peeled back in a blood-curdling rictus.
David Lynch's films--especially Inland Empire--are interested in transfixing the audience with a heady philter of sight and sound, favoring the evocation of powerful emotions over traditional narrative tropes. Inland Empire raises questions about "what it means" without forcing the question, and then making those answers subjective to the individual viewer. Characters like the Phantom argue about a "door"; their conversations makes sense to them, even if they are as of yet inscrutable to the audience. The first visitor tells Nikki a pair of parables about a boy who passed through a "door" and fostered evil. She suggests a connection between these two events; but what is the connection supposed to mean? It becomes the audience's purview to determine the significance of these metaphors, giving the audience a degree of ownership over the story. Inland Empire is a highly self-aware movie--it is a movie about making a movie, and explores the active relationship that exists between the audience and the movie. (Devon's comment about the cappuccino he shares with Nikki being good because it's "all about the beans...and I'm full of beans" is a self-referential moment for Lynch, who uses this quote as a tagline for his own brand of coffee.) The convoluted events that make up Inland Empire grow out of control and beyond the scope of a traditional movie, drawing comparisons to Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, while the relationship between the viewer and the audience shares similarities also found in Persona. Nikki journeys into another world is reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz. She encounters people who are like others she knew before crossing the threshold of a door that transports her into another time and place--as if these people were archetypes present in all realities. The film opens with a record playing the "longest running radio program" called "Axxon N.". This mysterious name frequently lures Nikki into situations that challenge her definition of reality, as if she were stepping into another dimension or realm of consciousness--the power of immersive "storytelling" has transported her away into the domain of her imagination.
Another key motif in Lynch's films are secrets, which often manifest as self-deception and are revealed to be the root cause of conflict in his films. Like the devil himself, secrets seduce us into being dishonest with others and ourselves, warping our perception of reality to justify the lie. This is explored in multiple ways--through characters who speak in riddles to pervading sensations of guilt, anxiety, rage, and even despair. Inland Empire features scenes in which Nikki travels down pitch black corridors--devoid of the "illumination" of truth--leaving her (and the audience) shambling in the darkness for answers. Inland Empire includes reoccurring cutaways to a bizarre sitcom about giant rabbits, one of whom repeats, "I have a secret". Nikki has a secret; but her affair with Devon is symptomatic of a much larger "secret" in Inland Empire. The Lost Girl is a "prisoner" of her secret and escapes into the worlds of others--a common practice for someone "in trouble", unable to cope with a crisis. It's even possible that the Lost Girl has created Nikki's entire world as a fantastic dreamland to deal with her own disappointing life--similar to Mulholland Drive--inducing a hypnotic trance by staring into the static on her TV after an unpleasant encounter with a client. Nikki represents her questing soul looking for escape from the labyrinth of self-deception and sorrow if this interpretation is to be considered, recalling the meditation by Zhuangzi about a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, and awoke wondering if he was real or just the dream of the butterfly. Like Inland Empire, it is a question that raises more questions than answers.
Recommended for: Fans of a complex and surreal drama that challenges the audience to define the overarching narrative from their own experiences with the film. Inland Empire isn't strictly a horror movie, but it has several unsettling scenes that rely on ramping up the audiences tension and defying expectations to keep the viewer from growing complacent. At almost three hours, Inland Empire demands the audience's attention and a willingness to submit to its hypnotic message.
Before Nikki receives the confirmation that she has got the part, she is visited by a woman with a thick, Eastern European accent, credited as "Visitor #1" (Grace Zabriskie). The "visitor" speaks ominously about the film's plot and makes intimations that sound like a gypsy divining ill omens. This scene is a preamble for the rest of Inland Empire, filled with details that take on greater importance as the film progresses--from the time of day to crucial conflicts in the story--while the visitor maintains an accusatory tone that suggests that Nikki is hiding from her subconscious knowledge of what is to come. After Nikki has a kind of breakdown, she gets caught in a glitch in reality and space-time, fragmenting her personality across multiple plot threads. Nikki usually encounters some conflict with Piotrek in each thread, who is often in contact with members of a Polish "circus"; he maintains that he keeps their company because they want him to look after their animals. Among his confederates is the ominous "Phantom" (Krzysztof Majchrzak), an aggressive and sinister figure who lurks in darkness and twists the words of others to exert dominance over them. Nikki envisions a group of sneering prostitutes dancing in a dark hotel room. In one moment, she is transported to the wintry and desolate streets somewhere in Poland, and in another thread she plays a hard-living misfit who has been abused, as she confesses to a bespectacled man in a small office. All of these fragments of "Nikki" are swirled about in a confusing jumble of plot, all while a tearful prostitute--credited as "Lost Girl" (Karolina Gruszka)--watches this and other unusual programs (like a sitcom about giant anthropomorphic rabbits) on a cathode ray TV set, adding yet another layer to the question about how real Nikki's "reality" really is.
Inland Empire is shot entirely on digital video, with a handheld camera operated by David Lynch himself. This "cheap" looking aesthetic is by design, adding a cinéma vérité style that further distorts the barrier between what is real and what is only a movie. This adds a brutally realistic--and paradoxical--element to scenes like the one with Doris Side (Julia Ormond) in the police station. When Nikki/Sue is scrambling around on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, convinced that someone is trying to kill her, the moment feels very raw and unfiltered, and somehow dangerous because it is shot on location in this style. The story goes that David Lynch wrote Inland Empire in the midst of its own production, contributing to the logic-defying structure of the narrative. Furthermore, it is said that even the actors didn't know how the story would end, contributing to the sense of unease and mystery that is palpable in their performances. Laura Dern is fearless in this multifaceted role; the story goes that Lynch tried to advocate for an Academy Award nomination on her behalf strangely with the aid of a cow. The cinematography by Lynch is inexorably bound to the way that the audience absorbs the tone and feel of Inland Empire. There are frequent and uncomfortably intimate closeups of actors in stressful situations, and the audience is made to feel like a voyeur to these anarchic crises and desperate moments. Lynch fosters this by defining reality as a backstage look at the process of creating a film like "On High in Blue Tomorrows", only to topple it later with cutaways straight out of a nightmare, like when a manic Nikki races toward the camera with her lips peeled back in a blood-curdling rictus.
David Lynch's films--especially Inland Empire--are interested in transfixing the audience with a heady philter of sight and sound, favoring the evocation of powerful emotions over traditional narrative tropes. Inland Empire raises questions about "what it means" without forcing the question, and then making those answers subjective to the individual viewer. Characters like the Phantom argue about a "door"; their conversations makes sense to them, even if they are as of yet inscrutable to the audience. The first visitor tells Nikki a pair of parables about a boy who passed through a "door" and fostered evil. She suggests a connection between these two events; but what is the connection supposed to mean? It becomes the audience's purview to determine the significance of these metaphors, giving the audience a degree of ownership over the story. Inland Empire is a highly self-aware movie--it is a movie about making a movie, and explores the active relationship that exists between the audience and the movie. (Devon's comment about the cappuccino he shares with Nikki being good because it's "all about the beans...and I'm full of beans" is a self-referential moment for Lynch, who uses this quote as a tagline for his own brand of coffee.) The convoluted events that make up Inland Empire grow out of control and beyond the scope of a traditional movie, drawing comparisons to Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, while the relationship between the viewer and the audience shares similarities also found in Persona. Nikki journeys into another world is reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz. She encounters people who are like others she knew before crossing the threshold of a door that transports her into another time and place--as if these people were archetypes present in all realities. The film opens with a record playing the "longest running radio program" called "Axxon N.". This mysterious name frequently lures Nikki into situations that challenge her definition of reality, as if she were stepping into another dimension or realm of consciousness--the power of immersive "storytelling" has transported her away into the domain of her imagination.
Another key motif in Lynch's films are secrets, which often manifest as self-deception and are revealed to be the root cause of conflict in his films. Like the devil himself, secrets seduce us into being dishonest with others and ourselves, warping our perception of reality to justify the lie. This is explored in multiple ways--through characters who speak in riddles to pervading sensations of guilt, anxiety, rage, and even despair. Inland Empire features scenes in which Nikki travels down pitch black corridors--devoid of the "illumination" of truth--leaving her (and the audience) shambling in the darkness for answers. Inland Empire includes reoccurring cutaways to a bizarre sitcom about giant rabbits, one of whom repeats, "I have a secret". Nikki has a secret; but her affair with Devon is symptomatic of a much larger "secret" in Inland Empire. The Lost Girl is a "prisoner" of her secret and escapes into the worlds of others--a common practice for someone "in trouble", unable to cope with a crisis. It's even possible that the Lost Girl has created Nikki's entire world as a fantastic dreamland to deal with her own disappointing life--similar to Mulholland Drive--inducing a hypnotic trance by staring into the static on her TV after an unpleasant encounter with a client. Nikki represents her questing soul looking for escape from the labyrinth of self-deception and sorrow if this interpretation is to be considered, recalling the meditation by Zhuangzi about a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, and awoke wondering if he was real or just the dream of the butterfly. Like Inland Empire, it is a question that raises more questions than answers.
Recommended for: Fans of a complex and surreal drama that challenges the audience to define the overarching narrative from their own experiences with the film. Inland Empire isn't strictly a horror movie, but it has several unsettling scenes that rely on ramping up the audiences tension and defying expectations to keep the viewer from growing complacent. At almost three hours, Inland Empire demands the audience's attention and a willingness to submit to its hypnotic message.