Product Details

• Released on: 2007-08-14
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: NTSC, Import
• Original language: English, Polish, French
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 180 minutes

Amazon.ca
Though Inland Empire's three hours of befuddling abstraction could try the patience of the most devoted David Lynch fan, its aim to reinvigorate the Lynch-ian symbolic order is ambitious, not to mention visually arresting. The director's archetypes recognizable from previous movies once again construct the film's inherent logic, but with a new twist. Sets vibrate between the contemporary and a 1950s alternate universe crammed with dim lamps, long hallways, mysterious doors, sparsely furnished rooms and, this time, a vortex/apartment/sitcom set where rabbit-masked humans dwell, and a Polish town where women are abused and killed. Instead of speaking backwards, mystic soothsayers and criminals speak Polish. Filmed on video, the film's look has the sinister, frightening feel of a Mark Savage film or a bootlegged snuff movie. Constant close-ups, both in and out of focus, make Inland Empire feel as if a stalker covertly filmed it. A straightforward, hokey plot unravels during the first third of Inland Empire to ground the viewer before a dive off the deep end. Actor Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) is cast as Susan Blue, an adulterous white trash Southerner, in a film that mimics too closely her actual life with an overbearingly jealous and dangerous husband. When Nikki and co-star Devon (Justin Theroux) learn that the cursed film project was earlier abandoned when its stars were murdered, the pair lose their grasp of reality. Nikki suffers a schizophrenic identity switch to Sue that lasts until nearly the film's end. Suspense builds as Nikki's alter ego sleuths her way through surreal situations to discover her killer, culminating in Sue's gnarly death on set. Sue's actions drag on because any sign of a narrative thread disappears due to idiosyncratic editing. Non-sensical scenes still captivate, however, such as when Sue stumbles onto the soundstage where she finds Nikki (herself) rehearsing for Sue's part. In this meta-film about identity slippage, Dern's multiple characters remind one of how a victim can become the hunter in their fight for survival. Lynch's portrayal of Nikki/Sue's increasing paranoia is, in its own confusion, utterly realistic. Laura Dern has created her own Lady Macbeth, undone by her guilt over infidelity. Even though Inland Empire is too long and too random, Laura Dern's performance coupled with Lynch's video experiments make it magical. --Trinie Dalton

More Films from David Lynch

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Mulholland Drive

Blue Velvet

Stills from Inland Empire (click for larger image)

On the DVD
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Stories
Trailers
Stills

Synopsis
Cinema of the surreal icon David Lynch follows up the success of his critically acclaimed 2001 feature Mulholland Drive with this dark mystery, shot on a handheld Sony PD150 digital video recorder. It is the tale of an actress whose personality becomes increasingly fragmented as she delves ever deeper into her work for a high-profile filmmaker. Kingsley (Jeremy Irons) is a director looking to adapt for the screen a Polish gypsy folktale that was previously stalled when the two leads were viciously murdered. Having offered the female lead to devoted actress Nikki (Laura Dern), Kingsley warns her male co-star, Devon (Justin Theroux), to maintain his professional distance, as Nikki's husband (Peter J. Lucas) is known to be notoriously possessive. As the passionate co-stars quickly cross the line and become lovers, Nikki's slowly slipping sense of reality causes her to eventually become lost in her character while the mysterious story of a Polish couple unfurls, and a trio of giant stage-bound rabbits (voices of Naomi Watts, Scott Coffey, and Laura Harring) lounge around on the sofa and tend to their domestic duties. Shot over the course of two and a half years and without a formalized script, Lynch's hallucinogenic look at a doomed film project features all of the abstract imagery and strange symbolism that have long made the director a favorite of film fans who embrace his disorienting approach to unconventional storytelling. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

Lynch's Surrealist Gem
This movie has no real narrative structure, from what I can make of it.
The film's an art piece for the adventurous viewer.
It's not the best work Lynch has done- Mulholland Drive is still his masterpiece as far as I'm concerned.
But this film is something special, that's for sure.
Let's hope Lynch doesn't retire any time soon...

Inland Empire and Life - Open Your Eyes and Mind
You will have your eyes wide open from start to finish. You will enjoy the rich, texturized experience, unless you are shallow and need all the answers, right here, right now. Really, do you need all the answers? This a beautiful film, and thus a piece of artwork. Lynch is a painter, and here again we see his art. He refuses to do "commentaries" because he believes you should be able to understand a film in your own way.

This film has so much, that it can be difficult to watch. You can see yourself, and also your other self that may have been, or perhaps in another universe. There is more to our world that what our small philosophies can imagine. Time and space are not handed to you on a silver platter with a clock and a ruler in this film; Lynch's mind works differently, thank goodness, and we can move beyond the straight lines and dumb plotlines of TV and other movies that have become blockbusters (the rabbits in Inland Empire seem to epitomize this mentality). I enjoyed this film much more the second time I watched it, and I am looking forward to seeing it again, for I see something new and amazing in it, that stirs me every time I see it.

No pleasure to watch, but still lingers in the mind
Watching "Mulholland drive" had given me hope that, eventually, all the loose ends would tidy up and make sense. Instead it went the other way. I had the opposite experience from watching "Inland empire". From the beginning, it seemed that none of it was going to make sense at all, and it was only near the end that I had hope that I would be able to make sense of the story. But of course that didn't happen.

This isn't a pleasurable movie to watch. It feels like Lynch is having a private joke at your expense. The only part I truly enjoyed watching was the ending credits, and I don't mean that in a cynical way, they were fun to watch (basically a "Sinnerman" video a la Lynch). That being said, once it's over, the movie lingers in your mind. So if your pleasure lies in thinking about a movie once it's over, this is for you. If you prefer being entertained while watching a movie, this isn't for you.