David Lynch’s last (and perhaps final?) feature film ‘Inland Empire’ is re-released on Blu-ray this week, following a restoration by Janus Films. Using the same 4K master which entered the Criterion Collection earlier this year, StudioCanal has pulled together an excellent release for the UK market. The Criterion edition comes with a marginally better selection of special features, but at twice the price of this release.
By far Lynch’s most inaccessible film, ‘Inland Empire’ is an abstract, stream-of-consciousness epic. Three hours of looping, twisting, elusive anti-narrative madness. A series of fractured ideas, swirling around Laura Dern’s sensational central performance, as an actress caught in a surreal web of shifting identities and parallel realities. Filmed entirely on a handheld digital camcorder, the film pushed digital cinema (as it was in 2006 at least) to the limit, exposing both the stunning potential and ugly limitations of the format.
‘Inland Empire’ is a film of multitudes. A compelling character study, both fascinating and borderline incomprehensible. It’s difficult, it’s challenging, it’s hilarious, it’s horrifying, thrilling, and exhausting. It’s a pure, singular vision from the unique mind of one of cinemas most uncompromising artists. Mesmerizing and polarizing in equal measure, it’s quite simply a masterpiece.
Dern plays Hollywood actress Nikki Grace, who is shocked to learn that she has been cast in the lead role of a new film called “On High in Blue Tomorrows”. As she begins the rehearsals with the director (Jeremy Irons) and her co-star (Justin Theroux), Nikki’s real life, and that of her character in the film begin to blur. When the director confesses that the film is actually a remake of a German production that had to be abandoned when both leads were murdered, the stage is set for a dark and mysterious Hollywood thriller.
In the hands of another director, you might expect a film noir to emerge out of that premise. This is David Lynch though, and his version of this story is a fragmented, time-jumping horror film, featuring Polish prostitutes, menacing circus performers, dance routines, and a family of humanoid rabbits trapped in a nightmarish sitcom. I wasn’t joking when I said this is Lynch’s most inaccessible film. If you found ‘Mulholland Drive’ or ‘Lost Highway’ a bit too weird, this might not be the film for you.
The unfathomable and disorienting imagery is, as always, accompanied by Lynch’s trademark sound design of industrial static and pulsing distortions of reality, adding further layers of menace to what we are experiencing. And the only way to truly experience ‘Inland Empire’ is to let it wash over you. The visual and aural rhythms are so strange it’s almost impossible to engage with it intellectually, and any attempt to try and make sense of the plot will probably just make you hate it. So don’t even try. Just allow yourself to get lost in the mystery.
Switch over to disc two and you’ll find the special features, which kick off with ‘Lynch (One)’ a feature length documentary from 2008 compiled from behind-the-scenes footage of Lynch during the years he worked on ‘Inland Empire’. Essential viewing for fans of the director. This is followed with a short archival interview with Lynch, touching on digital filmmaking, his love of Hollywood, collaborating with Laura Dern, and his famous cow-based awards campaigning on her behalf. Finally, if the 180-minutes of mind-bending cinema wasn’t enough for you, ‘More Things That Happened’ gives you 75-more minutes of deleted scenes.
Cast: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux Director: David Lynch Writer: David Lynch Released By: StudioCanal UK Certificate: 15 Duration: 180 mins Release Date: 19th June 2023
