Review of Inland Empire (2006) by Jack C — 07 Apr 2013

If David Lynch films are structured like dreams, then Inland Empire is a nightmare. It's Lynch's most surreal, creepy, and unusual work to date, with the possible exception of Eraserhead for most surreal and unusual.

That isn't to say it's his best (I feel that Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive were his two masterpieces) but it's definitely very interesting and kept my mind occupied trying to unravel it for the entire running time of nearly three hours.

The story is far from linear and I'm still unsure what it all meant although I have read a few interpretations. On the most basic level, it's about an actress named Nikki (played flawlessly by Laura Dern) who earns a part in a movie called On High in Blue Tomorrows.

However, the movie is a remake of a German movie called Four-Seven which was left unfinished after the two lead actors were brutally murdered, and there are Polish folk tales saying that this movie is cursed, making the remake cursed as well.

This is only the start of Inland Empire however, and about an hour into it the plot goes on various tangents, going back and forth through time and seeming to defy any conventional storytelling logic.

The movie (Inland Empire) is notably more creepy than most other David Lynch films. Most of the movie is very eerie and suspenseful, but every once in a while there's a scene that is terrifying, and there's a scary scene at the end that I'm not going to be forgetting anytime.

To complement its creepy tone, the movie is filmed entirely with a handheld video camera and full of claustrophobic close-up shots, making just about every scene very unnerving to watch. Inland Empire is definitely not for most people; it might even be too abstract for many fans of Lynch's previous work.

I found it to be intensely entertaining though, and itmight appeal to you if you're willing to be open-minded and allow yourself to get wrapped up in its nightmarish world for three very strange hours.