From the opening credits of the black and white title sequence until the last scenes of the film (I call it film, but this is actually Lynch’s first foray into digital cinema), I was going to call Inland Empire (2006) a masterpiece of humanistic horror. I had wordy appellations of how David Lynch had taken horror to a new level, and how he was now darker than not only Roman Polanksi but also the great Ingmar Bergman himself.
However, after watching the film over a few times, I have changed my opinion. It is still arguably a masterpiece, but it is something very different than a horror movie. The theme and finale of the movie, once understood, is actually the happiest of endings. I don’t believe Lynch has ever ended a movie on such a resounding note of optimism and joy.
“You know what whores do? Yes. They fuck.”
–from the subtitles of the opening scenes of INLAND EMPIRE (Lynch was still pretentious enough to bill this movie in all CAPS.)
But for nearly three hours, Inland Empire shows a world more unsettling, disturbing, and downright creepy that has yet been captured on the big screen. Only the aforementioned Roman Polanski with The Tenant (1976) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968), or Ingmar Bergman with Persona (1966) or Hour of the Wolf (1968) come close. And all those films influence this movie heavily, along with a healthy dose of Stanley Kubrick thrown in (including “borrowing” the Shining’s soundtrack [1980] in the scene where Laura Dern’s character is stabbed.)
“Where am I? I’m scared?”
It’s brilliant horror because even though we knows it’s a film, Lynch confuses us so badly by weaving us in and out of what’s real and what’s not real, that no one, including the characters seem to know where horror ends and the acting begins.
Through this constant “push-pull” of dream vs. waking, acting vs. reality, and viewer vs. the viewed, we the movie-goers are taken to extremities that Lynch has never dared show before. And make no mistake—it’s exhausting. I am very glad I didn’t go see this at the theatre. I have a hard time watching movies over two-hours or so and I’m not ashamed to admit it. This one ran long and because of its relentlessly disturbing and boggling imagery (*cough* the bunny rabbit family) I’d have to say it would probably not be a fun experience at the movie theatre for anyone but a diehard Lynch fan.
Truth be told this film does seem like it was made specifically for his fans and no one else. It is full of so many references to older films that the layered disassociation from reality that Lynch creates in the viewer is enhanced greatly if you are already familiar with his mythos. Casting Laura Dern is part of his plan of “regressing” us. Other familiar allusions are the black and white imagery of what looks like a gramophone. This harkens back to Eraserhead (1977), and the “staticy” TV from Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me (1992) is also accounted for. My personal favorite “flashback” to an older Lynch film is the return of the empty movie theatre from Mullholland Drive (2001).
So what is the key to unlocking the hope in this dark and often mercilessly mesmerizing film? The easiest way to understand it is to consider the Laura Dern character to be David Lynch himself. In Eraserhead it was pretty obvious that certain characteristics of Jack Nance were autobiographical, but I propose that the exact same parallel is here, and making his lead character a female, I believe that is symbolic of not only Lynch’s Anima but more importantly represents his creative side.
“I am a whore!” a dirty-faced Laura Dern screams to the camera. This is the crux of the movie. This is not Laura Dern speaking to us. It’s David Lynch voicing his deepest confession.
For an auteur like Lynch who has never liked working within traditional norms of movie-making, this must have been a hard bean to spill. But here it is, and in the process Lynch sucks us in for an even more involving truth: we are all whores, every last one of us. From studio execs down to the homeless, we all sell ourselves to stay alive.
Through the unfolding of his visionary camerawork, Lynch helps us to come to terms with our whoredom as he comes to terms with his. For Lynch being a whore is the ultimate fate for anyone who dares incarnate into the material world, where everyone is “wild at heart and weird on top.”
The first hint that there is joy in this movie is when the whores sing, “Do the locomotion.” That is our first clue that Lynch has learned to revel in his whoredom, even though it is still creepy and surreal at this point in the movie. The whores dancing in Laura Dern’s bedroom are the pipers coming to call. The price must be paid as the strange lady (another remnant from Twin Peaks) reminds Laura Dern at the very beginning.
Though not a movie with a clear plotline, I think it’s fair to say that the climax of Inland Empire is the one where Laura Dern dies next to the homeless people. This is one of those scenes where Lynch reminds us that he could direct straightforward Hollywood movies of the highest caliber if he so chose. It is poignant, the lighting masterful, and the acting sublime. We feel so broken and sad when Laura Dern is sent off to her final fate by the lighter of a black crack-whore—
But it’s an illusion.
“No hay banda”
Like Bergman revealing himself on the camera dolly at end of Persona, Lynch pulls away from Laura Dern’s death to slowly reveal his camera, which instead of releasing us from the pain of Laura Dern’s death, instead just sends chills down our spine as some new menace makes itself felt—what it means for us is still not clear at this point, but it is ominous and gives no sense of relief to know it was a fantasy death. I don’t understand every trick that Lynch uses to make us feel so completely uncomfortable, but I feel in this case its due to the fact that he movie gives us no safe footing of what is real or not. So even though Lynch shows us her death was staged, we are still left floating and are even more confused as to where reality begins in this movie and acting begins.
Lynch, of course, won’t leave us completely in the dark. At the end of the movie, just like in so many other of his films, Lynch’s magickal blue light comes to make everything okay. Long-time fans know that blue light means safety and comfort in a Lynch a movie. This has been true every since Lynch has started shooting in color. My guess is he had a blue night-light as a child. Either way, it’s a powerful symbol for Lynch fans as it conjures up not just Blue Velvet (1986) and Mullholland Drive, but most specifically it recalls the end of Fire Walk with Me when Laura Palmer joins the angels.
In this movie Laura Dern doesn’t join the angels; the whores come to join her. Since we also have been sucked into the film, we partake of her joy of coming home to whores, which are the angels after all. The whores are actors. The actors are whores. There is no difference. Toot! Toot! “Do the locomotion with me!”
This is exactly like the Twilight Zone episode “The After Hours” (1960), i.e. the one with the mannequins at the department store. At first the girl is mystified by the odd occurrences at the department store and soon becomes deeply afraid of the mannequins. It’s a horrific experience for her until at the end she remembers that she was just on a vacation “to be human” and that she was really a mannequin all along. The top of the department store is her home. (There were even shots in Inland Empire where the prostitutes looked like mannequins, so I don’t think I’m reaching with this comparison. Lynch is clearly a Twilight Zone fan, and I would go so far as to say his suit-wearing, cigarette-smoking persona was also influenced by Serling.)
Like the girl in the Twilight Zone episode, Lynch finally comes home to the whores he once feared, because he himself has always been one.
He is saying we love our suffering here on earth, just like we like watching actors suffer it out on stage. We love it because deep down it’s just at an act. Our soul is always rejoicing because our soul is the actor and NOT the part. We silly humans forget ourselves in our part, forgetting our true actor is the soul, which is to say pure sense perception before it gets caught up in the material plane, i.e. “the world of illusion.”
The ending is the money shot as far as Lynch having his laugh at us as he raises the curtain and shows us that through his direction and camerawork he is partying with all the good looking whores. Lynch is saying to enjoy the rapture of sense impression. He does. He says (in my own words not his), “Look my movies are dark, but you don’t have to be. Deep down I enjoy my life. I enjoy being a whore. I can enjoy all the rewards of being a whore and still create some of the creepiest movies of all time.”
In Fire Walk with Me there was a child-like desperation to believe that Laura Palmer was redeemed and entered a heaven where “everything is fine.” Same thing in Eraserhead and even Mullholand Drive. But here I feel Lynch didn’t just hope for a happy ending in his life, but it has actually come true. I think exorcising his demons about Hollywood, a process which started in Mullholland Drive, has finally done him some good as a person and an artist.
“It’s laid a mindfuck on me.”
So even though I had at first intended to call this the darkest Lynch movie ever, it is actually the contrary. It’s his film most full of hope. I believe this to be reflective of his inner joy as an artist who has finally come to terms with his personal vision and the reality of working in a modern and expensive industry where ultimately even a great independent film director David Lynch himself is a whore.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.
To rate this movie on a single scale of 1 to 5, like I usually do with movies, seems unfair both to the movie and to those who might watch it. As an average movie-going experience I don’t think I would have enjoyed three hours of it. So from that point of view I would only give it 2/5 stars.
But as a work of art—meant not to entertain but to illuminate and horrify at the same time, taking the time to digest and appreciate its beauty and inspiration beneath the creepiness, it is Lynch’s most accomplished and unrelenting film. In that sense it is a perfect 5/5, but here is the thing: I did not feel the soundtrack was up to par for a Lynch movie. I could write a small blog just on the soundtrack (but don’t worry—I won’t!) Suffice it to say that that Beck’s Black Tambourine is no replacement for an In Dreams. And frankly the final two songs were just weak. There was no tear-jerking “Llorando,” nor even a humble and haunting “In Heaven.” Aside from a couple points of genius, this is the limpest soundtrack Lynch has ever had. For that I have to steal a point back and make my final score a 4/5.
*iza
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