Inland Empire (USA/Poland/France) (Studio Canal) (2006) ****Year: 2006iMDB
Director: David Lynch Cast: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux
Sitting through three hours of intense visceral, dreamlike, surreal experience is never easy. And I do understand all those that cannot make it all the way to the end in a movie which, no matter how much time you give it, doesn't become any clearer and things don't really "add up" in a revelational explanation. But if you are so inclined and in the right mood, Inland Empire delivers an experience unlike any other movie could.
Arguably, Inland Empire is Lynch's most surreal movie yet, unrelenting from beginning to end. What is the story? What does it all mean? Is it a meditation of women being treated as whores and suffering the consequences? Is it about Hollywood's malefic influence and fatal attraction? Is it the story of an actress losing track of the difference between reality and script when she lets herself immersed into a story that hits too close to home? Is she following in the footsteps of a previous actress that got trapped by the same story and paid with her life? Or maybe there is only one actress, sitting in front of the TV and letting herself think of all the things she lived and those she could live and struggling with a life-changing decision until one path wins...
The beauty of Lynch's movies is that, even if he ever gives an explanation about the "story", all the alternate interpretations, all one hundred of them, that viewers come up with, remain equally valid. It is all a dream. It is all quasi-abstract art. It is utter crap for some. And extraordinary genius for others. And they are all right.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on January 23, 2007 10:28 PM