Inland Empire - Spoilers

If you haven't seen the film, I'd reccomend going in cold. Read as little as possible. But, if you have, or if you just don't care, read on for what will be the deepest analysis of this film yet to be done! Or at least deeper than any of the other stuff I've read on the web so far. It's a bit rambling, this is my raw reaction to the film.

A couple of weeks ago I saw The Science of Sleep, a film that feels like a more abstract remake of Michel Gondry's own Eternal Sunshine. It forsakes the polished, Hollywood look of Eternal in favor of a grittier, more abstract narrative that's harder to follow, but rewarding in its own way. Inland Empire does the same thing for Mulholland Dr., at times it feels surprisingly redundant of what Mulholland did, but there's so much other stuff going on, it becomes a unique entity all its own. I would not have thought that you could create a film that would make Mulholland Dr. look tame and mainstream, but that's what this does, the sheer force of its abstract, emotion driven narrative leaves the highly structured dual worlds of previous Lynch films in the past.

The opening sequence is astonishing, drawing you into the film primarily through the booming bass of the ambiient soundtrack. I love the reveal of the massive title, as well as the recurring image of the needle on the record player, a throwback to Twin Peaks. There are so many throwbacks to previous Lynch films here, it can become almost a where's Waldo search, but at this point, I consider Lynch's films to take place in a shared narrative universe. So, much like you can't fault Tim Burton for making another film about a pale outsider protagonist in a world filled with striped black and white, Lynch owns the domain of red curtains, heavy blue lighting, strobes and fragmened women.

From there we jump to a brutal near rape of a Polish prostitute, which leads into scenes from Rabbits. This part of the film is quite good, the abstraction of the faces in the opening scene likely a comment on the mutability of identity, a critical theme in all of Lynch's work. The image of the woman crying as she watches TV is very loaded, and also classic Lynch. In FWWM and Mulholland Dr., the protagonists cry while watching a live performance. Here, the woman cries while watching a TV image, a comment on the use of digital photography? That's possible, but I think it's more designed to tie in with the idea of film as dream.

The way I saw the film's structure is as follows: This woman, who watches the film, was the star of the previous version of the Blue Tomorrows film. In the film, there is a thin line between acting and reality, so her life seemingly merged with that of the character. She observes Laura Dern, a woman who is a fantasy version of herself. So, Nikki/Sue is a composite figure built from the real life of this brutalized Polish prostitute and the imagined life of Nikki, American movie star. However, unlike Mulholland Dr., I would hesitate to assign a simple real/imaginary dichotomy to any of this, there's a kind of symbiosis between the two characters, just as the Polish woman is seen watching/imaginging Laura Dern, Nikki's immersion in the role seems to have to put her in touch with the spirit of the woman who acted in the film before her. The two are symbiotic, and it's in their meeting that the narrative world exists.

So, like Mulholland Dr. the film begins in a kind of fantasy world. Here, Nikki is a successful actress, about to return to the top. The scene with Grace Zabriskie, much as I love her, is the weakest in the film. It's meant to be slow, but it winds up taking forever, with not enough content. I see Grace as someone in the tradition of Philip Gerard, The Cowboy and particularly Louise Bonner from Mulholland Dr., a person with access to higher dimensional powers and a picture of the overall shape of the world. I wish there was a transcript of this movie somewhere, because I'm sure what she says ties in thematically with what went on after, but I can't remember it well enough to analyze it. However, she does cause a shift in perception for Nikki, throwing her into the future through the shift to the other couch.

This leads us to the glory/hollowness of fame sequence, where we observe Nikki and Devon going through the basic rituals of being a star. Notable things here are the hyper-masculineness of Devon and his crew, as well as the difference between Nikki's friends here and the gang of women that crops up around her later in the film. One of Lynch's main preoccupations, in both this film and Mulholland Dr., is the way that Hollywood destroys the dreams and lives of young women who go there seek stardom. But this is her time at the top, where she finds only hollowness and facade. I was surprised to see William H. Macy make an appearance in the film, seemingly reprising his 30s radio announcer character from Seabiscuit.

This whole opening chunk is, for me, the weak part of the film. I've read reviews, mostly the negative ones, that say the film goes off the tracks after the first hour, and that shows that the first hour is the most narrative driven. It's not totally conventional, but things go ahead pretty much linearly, stopping occasionally to play with distinctions between film and reality, as in the veranda conversation between Billy and Sue.

The most important notion for the rest of the film is the idea that the movie they're engaged in is the remake of a Polish film. As we proceed, we see Nikki getting lost in the role, and gradually becoming unable to distinguish the fiction from the reality. However, this is not an original reality, she is going down a path that has previously killed someone. The scene where she says "Our lives are just like the script" is really effective and gives you a sense of her loss of perspective.

I'd place this film into a loose trilogy with Fire Walk With Me and Mulholland Dr., all films that deal with women under extreme stress who experience degrees of psychosis and dissolving identity. Inland Empire only confirms FWWM as the major turning point of Lynch's career. Before that, all his films featured male protagonists and fairly straightforward narrative structures. Even Eraserhead is fairly straightforward story wise, if difficult to decipher due to the heavy symbolism involved. But, from FWWM on, we've gotten an increasingly subjective view of reality, with fractured scenes and moments depicting the characters' psyches rather than the real world they inhabit.

Laura Dern has a look that's very similar to Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr., in a few shots they're virtually indistinguishable. He loves deep red lipstick, blue eyeshadow and clearly defined eyelashes. Lynch's 'good' females are almost always blondes. This film doesn't explicitly engage with the blonde/brunette dichotomy he's so fond of, except for the Asian woman's speech about her friend who wears a blonde wig and looks like a movie star in it. Here, the idea of movie star is a persona you can put on and pretend to be, but, it's all an illusion.

Things proceed in a fairly straightforward manner until Devon and Nikki have sex. The lighting in this scene, the really heavy blue, recalls Club Silencio from Mulholland Dr. In Lynch's films, strobing blue light marks the transition between realities, and this scene is a great application of that. It's one of the most striking scenes in the film, and is another moment where a character says that they're going to be some place in the future, then all of a sudden they are there. In this film, there's no distinction between thought and reality, characters move through space and time like a person moves through his/her memories, fragments of everything hanging together, cropping up in the most unlikely places.

Nikki, now known as Sue, is first seen passing through the door on the film set. This indicates that she now exists in a fictional realm. The way the rest of the film plays, this entire episode could stem from Nikki's imagination, or, Nikki could be an invention of Sue. The film seems to be a recurring event within reality, something that entraps its actors into a cycle of destruction as the line between actor and character becomes indistinct.

I hesitate to approach this film in the same way as Mulholland Dr. or even Lost Highway, where you come up with a basic explanation, then sculpt to fit what happens in the film. Here, there's so many layers of reality in play, I feel it's better to follow emotional logic. I'm sure you could come up with a valid explanation for the events, but I don't think one is required. I didn't feel a need to "solve the puzzle" at the end of the movie, which is what Mulholland prompts in a lot of people. After seeing MD, I wanted to find an answer, but, either I've grown or the film is different, and now I'm happy to just accept what happened on its own terms. That's not to say it shouldn't be analyzed, rather analysis can't be based around trying to fit everything into a set framework.

Anyway, at first the new setting is a challenge, but gradually enough is revealed that you can piece it into a decent narrative. Sue's monologue to the mysterious guy is near the end of things. She begins as part of a family with a husband and son. However, her son dies and her husband becomes abusive, then eventually leaves to go off with some Polish circus buddies. I think the Polish elements are designed to show the bleed between the Polish woman and Sue/Nikki, this whole world is a reality shared between the two of them.

Though the world of Sue also reflects Nikki's. She's got a jealous husband, who is apparently jealous for a reason. We don't know enough about the movie that they're filming to understand what's drawn from the film and what's drawn from life. Sue seems to be a 'real' person, while Billy remains his fictional self.

I recognized the trailer where Sue lives from the 'Room to Dream' DVD, which also features a scene that didn't make it into Inland Empire, where some of the girls sing a song in a Lynchian way. The scene wasn't very good, so I'm glad it didn't make the cut.

During this time, Sue spends a lot of time wandering around in her apartment, which bleeds into a backstage area. I love these wandering scenes, I think they're very Lynch, and some of the strobe effects he uses are really intense. A lot of films use similar techniques to make you jump, but here I was scared on a deeper level. Some of the images he uses hit deep and frighten you on some kind of subconscious level.

While wandering, Sue encounters new friends, to replace Nikki's stylish twosome. Now, she's got a posse of Polish prostitutes. In most of these scenes, she's placed at a distance, likely seeing in them a reflection of herself, as things go worse, this is what she's headed towards. The girls talk about "tits and ass," reemphasizing the idea that Hollywood values women based solely on their physical qualities. Of course Lynch has one of them raise her shirt for no particular reason so that the others can comment on her breasts. Hey, it's his perogative. I do like how these girls didn't look like typical Hollywood people, you could really believe that they would be turning tricks out on the street.

From there, there's a startling jump cut to...a performance of the Locomotion! I was not expecting that, but it's one of the most fun moments in the film. There's a ton of heavy sound design, but I would have liked a bit more score. The moments where music is used are great, Lynch remains a master of creating a mood via song.

Sue is getting more frazzled, leading up to her journey to the Axxon club. This is another quintessentially Lynch scene, and I would have actually liked to spend a bit more time there. However, she passes through the curtains and up to deliver her monologue upstairs. Throughout the film, Laura Dern is phenomenal. She has to work such intense emotional territory, without a clear picture of her character of the film in general. But, it works and she equals Naomi Watts' stunning work in Mulholland Dr. The monologue is particularly notable, really brutal stuff.

As the film progresses, we get a recurring motif of phone calls or incidents that are shown from one side first, then shown again from a different perspective. Sue's appearance on the stage is a great example of this, as well as the various interactions with the Rabbitsverse. It's really effective in creating a sense of unity to this intimidatingly large work.

The part of the film that represents the biggest growth for Lynch is Sue's collapse on the streets. He does a great job of making the L.A. streets into an alien dimension, populated by burnt out, broken people. Sue throwing up blood on to the Star may be a bit obvious, but it's a very effective image nonetheless. This leads to the fantastic monologue about Niko, the prostitute with a hole in her vaginal wall. I didn't think the subtitles were necessary here, but the fact that Lynch put them on indicates that what she says is absolutely critical to the film. Niko's story is the ultimate Holllywood dejection tale, she falls to the status of hooker, is abused some more, and ultimately loses that which is essentially female. Yet, when she puts on a blond wig, she can still pretend she's a star. And I love the way her companion punctures the drama by saying "Who wants to hear about this shit?"

This segment makes literal what was symbolic in Mulholland Dr., Diane's fear that she would become a bum on the street. Here, Sue reaches that bottom, all her promise used up and her life exhausted. It's a very powerful scene, and I felt a bit cheated when we pulled back to reveal it as a staged occurence. It's odd to puncture such a sincere emotional moment in that way.

The last chunk of the film continues to play with perception and layers of reality. Sue wanders into a movie theater showing herself on the screen, recalling her previous line about watching her own life like it's in a theater where the lights went down. This also connects her with the Polish woman. The end of the film is backed by an ethereal vocal track, bringing back the feel of the final scene of FWWM. Sue and the Polish woman finally meet, and in that moment the Polish woman sees her reality on the screen. She kisses Sue, who then fades away.

I don't see this as sexual at all, it's more an expression of love and sympathy. For the Polish woman, Sue/Nikki was a fantasy figure she was able to connect with through the act of watching the TV. However, once the reality she's watching becomes her own, she's able to reconcicle her issues and her fantasy is no longer required. I'd have to see it again to see exactly how things play out, but the impression I got was that the Sue storyline was a manifestation of her fears, her worst nightmare of the life she could have. However, at the end she finds herself reunited with her husband and son, in a moment of happiness that recalls Dorothy at the end of Blue Velvet.

For Sue/Nikki, she looks to where her dark future began and sees a more innocent version of herself. The music and general emotion of the moment leads me to feel that she too has went through this nightmare and come out the other side able to see a purer version of herself. Both women experience a collective apocalypse and come out stronger on the other side. Rather than Mulholland Dr., where reality is the nightmare, here, it is the fantasy that houses darkness. This fantasy is embodied in the film, which killed both its leads. To act in this film is to go through total destruction of oneself, the film follows the two women to their lowest ebb, only to reveal that this is not what's real, their worlds are still intact, and the best of them is what survives.

So, thinking about it has led me to an explanation that feels right. In the film, we follow two actresses who signed on to appear in a film based on a cursed Polish folk tale. By acting in the film, they become absorbed into its world of darkness and lose the ability to separate the film from the reality. We see Nikki starting to succumb to this during the pre-blue change scenes. At the end, they make it through the darkness and we find that her 'death' on the street frees her from the spell of the film and frees her to go live her own life. When we next see her Nikki is wearing a blue dress, much like the one that Laura Dern wore in Blue Velvet, and it's meant to evoke angelic purity. Much like Laura Palmer, both of them go through all this awfulness and finds peace in the end.

Following this sublime ending, we get something a bit weird, a dance scene over the closing credits. This is usually reserved for comedy films, but it winds up working wonderfully here. I asked Lynch why he chose to include the scene, considering it so radically alters your mood leaving the theater, and he said "It just felt right." I'd agree, after all the film takes you through, it's nice to have a bit of fun. I like the idea that this party just all of a sudden rose up in the place where the film ended.

Plus, the scene is full of easter eggs for Lynch fans, throwbacks to his previous work. We pan over from the one legged woman to find Laura Haring just chilling. There's a monkey leaping around who looks exactly like the 'Judy' monkey from Fire Walk With Me, Laura Dern is wearing her Blue Velvet dress, and we've even got a guy sawing at a log, referencing both Twin Peaks and Industrial Symphony No. 1. This is all set to a rocking song, with all kinds of strobe going on. It's a whole lot of fun, and actually has some of the film's most dynamic visuals.

So, I think this was a thoroughly successful film. There's a few issues, but those could easily dissipate on the second viewing. Even though some scenes and themes were very close to Mulholland Dr., like the homeless thing, I feel like the looser visual and narrative styles made the old Lynch tropes feel fresh. I've called Mulholland a Lynch greatest hits album, taking pieces of everything he's done and combining them into one great film. Inland uses a lot of the same things, but feels fresh and exciting. It's pure Lynch, his ideas unfiltered by the need to script and structure, and that's the source of the film's greatest successes and its failures. But, I honestly don't think this film would work in a more traditional style, it would be too close to MD, the digital liberated Lynch to go as weird as he pleases, and it's exhilirating to watch.