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INLAND EMPIRE Send This Review to a Friend
David Lynch’s “Inland Empire,” showcased at the 2006 New York Film Festival, is now getting a commercial release. Lynch is an acquired taste and although I found his early “Eraserhead” a shallow bit of surrealism that paled in comparison with what a master like Buñuel could do with surrealism, I was more impressed with “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive.” But with “Inland Empire” he is back to his surrealist meandering in a three-hour spectacle that is a hodgepodge of imagery. It isn’t that the film makes little sense; surrealism doesn’t have to make sense. It’s the lack of wit that makes his work so inferior and ultimately boring despite his command of technique.
In this case Lynch shot with high-definition video. Whatever his method, the banality would still be the same. The film, with such structure as exists, is built around the problems and journey of an actress, portrayed by Laura Dern, who is the best part of the enterprise. Dern gives her all with respect to what is asked of her, and she is striking in most of her scenes in purely visual and emoting terms whether or not you understand or care about what’s going on. Among those whom Lynch has also recruited for the film are Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux, Karolina Gruszka and Harry Dean Stanton
There are fans who gobble up this Lynch stuff, and someone I respect spent time explaining to me what he thought the film was all about. It was as if we had watched two different movies.
Although surrealism doesn’t have to have a sensible narrative or even ask to have its contents understood, it does need ingredients that make it worth sitting through for three hours. There are a few scenes that are amusing, and some that are disturbing. But Lynch doesn’t exhibit the sort of sophistication or—here’s that word again—wit to convince this skeptical viewer that the three hours are well spent. A Studio Canal release.
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