Inland Empire (R)
N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
No director works closer to his unconscious than David Lynch, and, stimulated by the use of amateur digital video technology, his latest feature ventures as far inland as this blandly enigmatic filmmaker has ever gone. Familiar tropes include a movie-within-the-movie and the notion of Hollywood as haunted house. But nothing in Lynch's work feels truly familiar: A TV sitcom in Inland Empire features a cast of humanoid rabbits. For most of the film, sinister East Europeans are "looking for a way in"--whether to the industry or the narrative or the empire itself. Reality is first breached when a ditsy Polish gypsy (Grace Zabriskie) traipses into the vintage, disconcertingly empty Hollywood mansion that belongs to actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern). Spooking the star with her wolfsbane accent and aggressive prophesies, the gypsy casts a spell of weirdness that lasts throughout the movie. Suddenly it's tomorrow and Nikki has the role she covets. But something or someone is lurking in the recesses of the set--and, as Nikki's character fissures, it turns out to be her. As if in a dream, Nikki is both spectator and protagonist. At one point she is trapped by a mysterious spotlight and spooks herself; at another she climbs a shabby stairway somewhere in Poland and, suddenly another character altogether, launches into an outrageous, tough-girl confession that might be the world's most preposterous screen test. Inland Empire is Lynch's most experimental film since Eraserhead. But, unlike that brilliant debut (or its two masterful successors, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive), it lacks concentration. It's a miasma. The film is suffused with dread of...what? Sex in Lynch is a priori nightmarish. But there's a sense here that film itself is evil. (J. Hoberman)
Review by J. Hoberman
.
