David Lynch's "Inland Empire"

It really is some kind of achievement. Over the course of 3 hours I was rarely bored. Sure, it could be trimmed 15 or 20 minutes, but that's saying something for a 3 hour, nonsensical, shot-without-a-script headtrip. Even when the film's in the throes of random & unmoored shapeshifting, Dern's performance and Lynch's craft sustain the emotion and mood. This is pure cinema, musical in a way, flowing forward & free under its own dissipation, a piece of ice moving across a hot stove. Not only does the grubby DV cinematography do justice to the nightmare world, it throws into stark relief the total control Lynch has over his materials. The shot composition, set design, lighting, makeup, and sound are impeccable.

And yeah, I've got my own pet theories about what happened. When Nikki wanders into the suburban home, she assumes another role, that of the lost girl watching the TV, following the garden of forking paths that various bad decisions have taken her in her life. On one path she has a son who dies, on another she is reunited with her son and husband. But it somehow seems petty or unfair to force strict logical structure over the movie's open ended mysteries.

I like how the themes resonate throughout; Hollywood & prostitution, performance & illusion, acting & role-playing, time & causality, choices & consequences. Mostly in passing details, like when the first visitor tells the story of the boy going out to play, she says something like "when he went through the door it made a reflection, and it was evil". The obvious word choice here would be "shadow" instead of "reflection", but reflection, doubling, mirroring, are all key to the film.

-- Edward III (edward.thur...), February 7th, 2007.

*clears throat*

Also coulda sworn the walk of fame star she drops the screwdriver on read "Dorothy Valens", but that was probably mind playin' tricks...

Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs

Ah, I'll go w/ latebloomer.

And one of the most beautiful.

I should probably limit my Tarkovsky quotes to somewhere between 0 and 1 a day, but the scene reminded me of this:

The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death...

Most of the laughter I heard at Inland Empire = nervous.

In Hollywood, girls congratulating each other on how great their fake boobs are must be like Pazz & Jop voters backscratching on their insights.

The one thing I feel like I'm missing, reading discussion here and reviews elsewhere, is the impact of the low-res DVD and how that enhanced the movie. I wasn't really feeling it during some of the scenes where the edges were really harsh and everything was pixilated -- I mean, it's an aesthetic choice, of course, but it had a distancing effect for me that didn't necessarily seem right for the mood at times.

I also sat behind Shakey Mo for the screening.

Keep far away from the Pazzin' Jop thread.

Since the film hasn't opened in Miami and probably won't, I've reconstructed the movie based on this thread discussion.

This is key, I think; Lynch being able to shoot + shoot + shoot and pick the best stuff was freeing, as well as the ability to move the setup around easily. I guess a question to ask is, could he have made this movie using traditional film? Lynch sez no. That is a bit of a tradeoff...

also Lb = 47 turned upside down

Nice one.

the whole black background and camera on closeup and having the character walk from out-of into focus is repeated from a similar shot of BOB in either the series or the film.

also Laura Dern checking the screen of the theater and then behind her in real time reminded me of the kyle maclachlan's opening scene of FWWM with david bowie where he's checking the security monitors.

more later, i'm really still processing a lot of the film.

justin thoreaux's character does that fast walk into extreme close-up that echoes a bowie scene in FWWM.

I have never seen FWWM but have reserved it at the library.

I dunno, I really liked the picnic scene. It was like a hellish pixelvision home movie.

FYI: I believe it was "L.B." not "Lb".

It was, but there was also that weird red line running through it. Seems like the kind of visual pun Lynch would pull.

Axxonnn? Action?