INLAND EMPIRE

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I have long been a fan of David Lynch.  My fascination with him started back in high school.  I was at my locker and I heard two teachers chatting a short distance away.  One of the teachers said, “I rented this film the other night called BLUE VELVET.  It was a filthy, disgusting, perverted piece of trash.  I was shocked!”  I smiled when I heard that.  To me, there could have been no greater endorsement!  I raced to my car after school and went straight to the video store and picked up a copy.  I went home and watched it before my parents got home from work.  They were very strict about what we watched and surely this film would have been forbidden.  As I sat in my parents darkened living room watching this strangely perverse film unfold, I remember being thrilled by it!  It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.  It was so strange, dark and oddly exhilarating.  I managed to watch and return it after school the next day.  I have been a HUGE David Lynch fan ever since.  When the chance came to see INLAND EMPIRE with David Lynch and Laura Dern in person, the call was too great for me to resist.  I waited in line for 2 hours before the show started just to get a good seat.  I was on a mission. Simply put, INLAND EMPIRE is the story of a “woman in trouble.”  Obviously with the world of David Lynch it is far deeper, darker and more complex than that.  Laura Dern plays an actress named “Nikki Grace” who is in a career rut.  She is up for a role in a new film called ON HIGH IN BLUE TOMORROW.  She lives in a mansion that is oddly gothic, Victorian and European to be set in Los Angeles.  One day a woman shows up at her doorstep claiming to be her new neighbor.  The woman is small and elderly with bulging eyeballs and a Eastern Eurpean accent.  She indulges in some gossip and then tells Nikki two short parables.  This opens the floodgates for the strangeness that follows.  Nikki then finds herself on the set of her new film.  At this point, fantasy and reality blur as the film becomes a film within a film that fell down a dozen rabbit holes.  Lynch plays with space, time, fantasy, reality, horror, beauty and hallucination in a way that leaves you wondering if you accidentally ate some wild mushrooms before seeing the film.  It is a trippy nightmare and a fever dream extended to a full 3 hours of intensity.  The film is populated by Rabbits who appear in a creepy sitcom, Polish hookers singing “Locomotion” and strung out denizens of Hollywood Blvd. This film is a great companion piece to MULLHOLLAND DRIVE and gives actress Laura Dern yet another fantastic role.  She is always outstanding and this film really gives her an incredible workout.  It was all shot on low end digital video and at first it is horrible to look at until you get used to it.  When blown up on a huge screen, it really looks scattered and surreal and diffused…which serves the style of this film perfectly. http://www.filmradar.com/karies_blog/item/inland_empire/