Review of Inland Empire (2006) by N.e. — 15 Dec 2006

Interesting that so many of these reviews couldn't locate the Inland Empire geographically. For the record, the Inland Empire (aka, the 909) consists of the heavily congested, smog-choked working-class suburbs of western San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

I don't think this makes the film any clearer, but there it is. That said, this movie is incredible. The 1 rule of Lynch's films is that repeated viewing is essential; understanding how all the images fit together requires a real feeling for the scenes.

With all of Lynch's previous work, I've found that the stories make a degree of sense, and contain fascinating insights, but many of the links required to realize this are intuitive rather than logical; they "sink in".

I have no doubt that this will happen once I've seen "Inland Empire" a few more times. Ultimately Lynch is a great artist and makes very few films; if you're trying to decide whether to see this film, imagine what you would do if van Gogh was exhibiting new paintings in your hometown; they might not be his greatest work, and you might not grasp their meaning on the 1st pass, but you would still want to see van Gogh's newest work for yourself.