Inland Empire (film)
Encyclopedia
Inland Empire, sometimes styled as INLAND EMPIRE, is a 2006 mystery film
written and directed by David Lynch
. It was his first feature-length film since 2001's Mulholland Drive
, and shares many similarities with that film. It premiered in Italy
at the Venice Film Festival
on September 6, 2006. The feature took two and a half years to complete, and was Lynch's first film to have been shot entirely in standard definition digital video
. The film is a co-production of France, Poland, and the United States.
The cast includes such Lynch regulars
as Laura Dern
, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton
and Grace Zabriskie
, as well as Jeremy Irons
and Diane Ladd
. There are also very brief appearances by Nastassja Kinski
, William H. Macy
, Laura Harring
, Terry Crews
, Mary Steenburgen
, and Ben Harper
. The voices of Harring, Naomi Watts
, and Scott Coffey
are included in excerpts from Lynch's Rabbits
website project.
It was named the second-best film of 2007 (tied with two others) by Cahiers du cinéma
, and listed among Sight & Sound
s "thirty best films of the 2000s", as well as The Guardian
's "10 most underrated movies of the decade".
playing Axxon N, “the longest-running radio play in history”. Meanwhile, a young prostitute, identified in the credits as the "Lost Girl", cries while watching television in a hotel room, following an unpleasant encounter with her client. The Lost Girl’s television displays a family of surreal anthropomorphic rabbits
who speak in cryptic statements. These three elements become recurring motifs throughout Inland Empire.
The majority of the first act takes place in Los Angeles
. A local actress named Nikki Grace (Laura Dern
) has applied for a comeback role in a film entitled On High in Blue Tomorrows. The day before the audition, Nikki is visited by an enigmatic old woman from Poland (Grace Zabriskie
) who claims to be her neighbour. The old woman insists that Nikki has won the role, and recounts two Polish folk tales. One tells of a boy who, sparking a reflection after passing through a doorway, “caused evil to be born”. The other tells of a girl who, wandering through an alleyway behind a marketplace, “discovers a palace”. The old woman presses Nikki for details on her new film, asking whether the story is about marriage and involves murder. Nikki denies both, but her neighbour violently insists that she is wrong. Disregarding Nikki’s troubled response, the old woman comments on the confusion of time, claiming that were this tomorrow, Nikki would be sitting on a couch adjacent to them. The film then pans to where the neighbour is pointing, and we see Nikki and two girlfriends sitting on the couch. Her butler walks into the living room – where the old woman no longer reclines – with a phone call from her agent, announcing that she has won the role. Ecstatic, Nikki and her friends celebrate while her husband Piotrek (Peter J. Lucas) ominously surveys them from atop a nearby stairwell.
Some time later, Nikki and her co-star Devon Berk (Justin Theroux) receive an interview on a talk show called The Marilyn Levees Show. The host (Diane Ladd
) asks both actors whether they are having an affair, to which each of them respond negatively. Devon has been warned by his entourage that Nikki is out-of-bounds, due to her husband’s power and influence. Later, on the set being built for the film, Nikki and Devon rehearse a scene with the director Kingsley (Jeremy Irons
). They are interrupted by a disturbance, but Devon finds nothing upon investigation. Shaken by the event, Kingsley confesses that they are shooting a remake of a German feature entitled 47. Production was abandoned after both leads were murdered, creating rumours of the film being cursed due to its roots in an old Polish folk tale.
Immersed in her character "Sue", Nikki appears to begin an affair with Devon – under the guise of his own character "Billy". While filming a scene in which her character buys groceries, Nikki notices a door in the alley marked Axxon N, and enters. It leads to a room behind the studio, where she can see herself rehearsing her lines weeks earlier. When Devon is sent to find who's lurking backstage, Nikki realizes that she was the disturbance, causing her to flee among the half-built backgrounds and into the house of another character named Smithy. Despite the set being merely a wooden facade, Nikki enters to find an illuminated suburban house inside. Devon looks through the windows, but sees only darkness.
At this point, the film takes a drastic stylistic turn. Various plotlines and scenes begin to entwine and complement each other. The chronological order is often confused or nonexistent. Inside the house, Nikki finds her husband in bed. Hiding from him, she encounters a troupe of prostitutes. One of the women advises her to “gaze through a burn hole in the silk”. Nikki complies and witnesses several strange happenings – many of which seem to revolve around her, or an alternate version of herself.
The woman who plays Doris Side - Billy’s wife in the film (Julia Ormond
), tells a policeman that she has been hypnotized to murder someone with a screwdriver – but finds the screwdriver embedded in her own side. A mysterious organization claims to have captives from Inland Empire. In the past, Polish prostitutes are confronted by strange pimps while murder permeates their city. Nikki, having become one of the prostitutes in the present, wanders the streets while her companions directly ask the audience “Who is she?” Both Nikki and her prostitutes frequently ask people to look at them, and say whether “you've known me before”. In a parallel plotline, Sue climbs the dark staircase behind a nightclub to deliver a long monologue to a police detective named Mr. K – which touches upon her childhood molestations, disastrous relationships and revenge missions. Her husband Smithy seems to be connected with both the pimps and the organization – and is said to be good with animals, hence his job with a circus from Poland. There is much talk of The Phantom, an elusive hypnotist. Convinced she’s being stalked by a red-lipped man, Sue arms herself with a screwdriver.
Finally, Sue walks down Hollywood Boulevard
, and is startled to see her doppelgänger across the street. Before Sue can investigate, Doris arrives and attempts to kill her, having been hypnotized by The Phantom. Sue is brutally stabbed in the stomach with her own screwdriver, causing her to stagger down the street and eventually collapse next to some homeless people on the corner of Hollywood and Vine
. An Afro-American woman remarks that Sue is dying, then proceeds to debate with another, younger homeless woman about taking a bus to Pomona. Her companion talks at length about a friend named Niko – the prostitute whose blond wig makes her look like a movie star, thus allowing her to walk through the rich district without drawing attention. The Afro-American woman comforts Sue by holding a lighter in front of her face, until she finally dies, “having no more blue tomorrows”. Off-camera, Kingsley yells “cut”, and the camera pans back to show this has merely been a film scene.
As the actors and film crew wrap for the next scene, Sue slowly arises, Nikki once more. Kingsley announces that her scenes for the film are complete. In a daze, Nikki wanders off set and into a nearby cinema, where she sees not only On High in Blue Tomorrows – encompassing some of the subplots of the film – but events that are currently occurring. She wanders to the projection room, but finds an apartment building marked *Axxon N*. Eventually, Nikki confronts the red-lipped man from earlier, now known to be The Phantom. She shoots him, which causes his face to morph first into a distorted copy of Nikki's own face, but then into something resembling a foetus bleeding from its mouth.
Nikki flees into a nearby room – Room 47, which houses the rabbits on television, though she fails to see them. Elsewhere in the building, Nikki finds The Lost Girl, who has been watching and crying all along. The two women kiss, before Nikki fades away into the light along with the rabbits. The Lost Girl runs out of the hotel and into Smithy’s house, where she happily embraces a man and child.
Nikki is then seen back home, triumphantly smiling at the old woman from the beginning of the film. The concluding scene takes place at her house, where she sits with many other people, among them Laura Harring
, Nastassja Kinski
and Ben Harper
. A one-legged woman who was mentioned in Sue's monologue looks around and says, “Sweet!” Niko, the girl with the blonde wig and monkey, can also be seen. The end credits roll over a group of women dancing to Nina Simone
's "Sinnerman" while a lumberjack saws a log to the beat.
"I’ve never worked on a project in this way before. I don’t know exactly how this thing will finally unfold... This film is very different because I don’t have a script. I write the thing scene by scene and much of it is shot and I don’t have much of a clue where it will end. It’s a risk, but I have this feeling that because all things are unified, this idea over here in that room will somehow relate to that idea over there in the pink room."
Interviewed at the Venice Film Festival
, Laura Dern admitted that she didn't know what Inland Empire was about or the role she was playing, but hoped that seeing the film's premiere at the festival would help her "learn more." Justin Theroux has also stated that he "couldn't possibly tell you what the film's about, and at this point I don't know that David Lynch
could. It's become sort of a pastime—Laura [Dern] and I sit around on set trying to figure out what's going on."
Much of the project was shot in Łódź, Poland
, with local actors, such as Karolina Gruszka
, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Leon Niemczyk
, Piotr Andrzejewski and artists of the local circus Cyrk Zalewski. Some videography was also done in Los Angeles
, and in 2006 Lynch returned from Poland to complete filming. Inland Empire is the first Lynch feature to be completely shot in digital video
; it was shot with a Sony DSR-PD150. Lynch has stated that he will no longer use film to make motion pictures.
In an NPR
"Weekend Edition" interview, Laura Dern recounted a conversation she had with one of the movie's new producers. He asked if Lynch was joking when he requested a one-legged woman, a monkey and a lumberjack by 3:15. "Yeah, you're on a David Lynch movie, dude," Dern replied. "Sit back and enjoy the ride." Dern reported that by 4 p.m. they were shooting with the requested individuals.
producing. The film was also partially financed by the French
production company StudioCanal
, which had provided funding for three previous Lynch films. StudioCanal
wanted to enter the film in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
, but it was not ready in time. Instead, it premiered at Italy
's Venice Film Festival
on September 6, 2006, where David Lynch also received the Golden Lion
lifetime achievement award for his "contributions to the art of cinema." The film premiered in the United States
on October 8, 2006 at the New York Film Festival
, selling out both showings. The film received a limited release in the US beginning on December 15, 2006; distribution was handled by the specialist company 518 Media
.
Lynch hoped to distribute the film independently, saying that with the entire industry changing, he thought he would attempt a new form of distribution as well. He acquired the rights to the DVD and worked out a deal with Studio Canal in an arrangement that allows him to distribute the film himself, through both digital and traditional means. A North American DVD release occurred on August 14, 2007. Among other special features, the DVD included a 75-minute featurette, "More Things That Happened", which compiled footage elaborating on Sue's marriage to Smithy, her unpleasant life story, the Phantom's influence on women, and the lives of the prostitutes on Hollywood Boulevard.
:
"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
Richard Peña, an New York Film Festival
official and one of the first people to see Inland Empire, has summarized the film as "a plotless collection of snippets that explore themes Lynch has been working on for years," including "a Hollywood story about a young actress who gets a part in a film that might be curse
d; a story about the smuggling
of women from Eastern Europe
; and an abstract story about a family
of people with rabbit
heads sitting around in a living room
" -- Lynch's web-only video series, Rabbits
. Peña's perception of a plot involving "the smuggling of women from Eastern Europe" stems from a scene in which one man asks another, in Polish, if he is selling the woman in the room.
The scholar Delorme indicated that the film is about adultery
, but in a way that Lynch "avoid[s] a chronological unfolding of the scenes and situations provoked by the adultery", but rather "superimpose[s] them instead in as many scenarios developing from the potentials of the adultery", so that "[t]he narrative is constructed on strange characters brought together by a similar terror."
s around the world most notably the Venice Film Festival
in Italy
, New York Film Festival
in New York
, United States
, the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece
, Camerimage Film Festival
in Poland
, Fajr International Film Festival
in Iran
, International Film Festival Rotterdam
in the Netherlands
, San Francisco Independent Film Festival in San Francisco, United States, Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo de la Ciudad de México in México City
, Mexico
, Cinema Digital Seoul in South Korea
and !f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival in Turkey
. In late 2007 it was released in Iceland. The company that showed "Inland Empire" is called Grænaljósið or "The Greenlight".
Inland Empire was released and distributed by RYKO to the United States on August 14, 2007. it was released on August 20, 2007 in the United Kingdom
, released on October 4, 2007 in Belgium
and the Netherlands
and distributed by A-Film
) and on August 6, 2008 and Distributed by Madman Entertainment
in Australia
.
, the film critic for Rolling Stone
magazine wrote, "My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on." The New Yorker was one of the few publications to offer any negative points about the film, calling it a "trenchant, nuanced film" that "quickly devolves into self-parody". Jonathan Ross
, presenter of the BBC
programme Film 2007
, described it as "a work of genius... I think." Damon Wise of Empire Magazine gave it five stars, calling it "A dazzling and exquisitely original riddle as told by an enigma" and Jim Emerson (editor of RogerEbert.com
) gave it 4 stars and praised it: "When people say Inland Empire is Lynch's Sunset Boulevard
, Lynch's Persona
, or Lynch's 8½
, they're quite right, but it also explicitly invokes connections to Stanley Kubrick
's The Shining
, Jean-Luc Godard
's Pierrot le Fou
, Buñuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou
, Maya Deren's LA-experimental Meshes of the Afternoon
(a Lynch favorite), and others". However, Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times
wrote that "the film, which begins promisingly, disappears down so many rabbit holes (one of them involving actual rabbits) that eventually it just disappears for good."
Laura Dern received almost universal acclaim for her performance, with many reviews describing it as her finest to date. Lynch attempted to promote Dern's chances of an Academy Award for Best Actress
nomination at the 2007 Academy Awards
by campaigning with a live cow. She was not nominated for the award.
The film holds a 72% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes
; the consensus states "Typical David Lynch fare: fans of the director will find Inland Empire seductive and deep. All others will consider the heady surrealism impenetrable and pointless."
Mystery film
Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...
written and directed by David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
. It was his first feature-length film since 2001's Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive (film)
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch, starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, and Laura Harring. The surrealist film was highly acclaimed by many critics and earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival...
, and shares many similarities with that film. It premiered in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
on September 6, 2006. The feature took two and a half years to complete, and was Lynch's first film to have been shot entirely in standard definition digital video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
. The film is a co-production of France, Poland, and the United States.
The cast includes such Lynch regulars
Frequent David Lynch collaborators
David Lynch is known for his constant collaborations with many of the same actors and crew in his various productions. Most notably, Angelo Badalamenti to compose music for his productions.Lynch often uses the same actors and crew in his productions:...
as Laura Dern
Laura Dern
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as Smooth Talk , Blue Velvet , Fat Man and Little Boy , Wild at Heart , Jurassic Park and October Sky...
, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
and Grace Zabriskie
Grace Zabriskie
Grace Zabriskie is an American actress. She has appeared in many popular American films but, she is best known for her work in television. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, and Big Love.-Early life:Zabriskie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana...
, as well as Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
and Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd is an American actress, film director, producer and published author. She has appeared in over 120 roles, on television, and in miniseries and feature films, including Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore , Wild at Heart , Rambling Rose , Ghosts of Mississippi, Primary Colors, 28 Days , and...
. There are also very brief appearances by Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films , as well as parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move; Paris,...
, William H. Macy
William H. Macy
William Hall Macy, Jr. is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though...
, Laura Harring
Laura Harring
Laura Harring is a Mexican-American actress and former Miss USA . She is known for her role as Rita in Mulholland Drive.-Early life:...
, Terry Crews
Terry Crews
Terrence Alan "Terry" Crews is an American actor, comedian, voice artist and a former player in the National Football League....
, Mary Steenburgen
Mary Steenburgen
Mary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
, and Ben Harper
Ben Harper
Benjamin Chase "Ben" Harper is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances and activism. Harper's fan base spans several continents...
. The voices of Harring, Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...
, and Scott Coffey
Scott Coffey
Scott Coffey is an American actor, director, producer, screenwriter. His acting credits include films such as Shag, Some Kind of Wonderful, Dream Lover, and Mulholland Drive...
are included in excerpts from Lynch's Rabbits
Rabbits (film)
Rabbits is a 2002 series of short video films written and directed by David Lynch. It depicts three humanoid rabbits in a room, played by Scott Coffey, Laura Elena Harring and Naomi Watts. Their disjointed conversations are interrupted by a random laugh track. Rabbits is presented with the tagline...
website project.
It was named the second-best film of 2007 (tied with two others) by Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 and...
, and listed among Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
s "thirty best films of the 2000s", as well as The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
's "10 most underrated movies of the decade".
Plot
The film opens to the sound of a gramophonePhonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
playing Axxon N, “the longest-running radio play in history”. Meanwhile, a young prostitute, identified in the credits as the "Lost Girl", cries while watching television in a hotel room, following an unpleasant encounter with her client. The Lost Girl’s television displays a family of surreal anthropomorphic rabbits
Rabbits (film)
Rabbits is a 2002 series of short video films written and directed by David Lynch. It depicts three humanoid rabbits in a room, played by Scott Coffey, Laura Elena Harring and Naomi Watts. Their disjointed conversations are interrupted by a random laugh track. Rabbits is presented with the tagline...
who speak in cryptic statements. These three elements become recurring motifs throughout Inland Empire.
The majority of the first act takes place in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. A local actress named Nikki Grace (Laura Dern
Laura Dern
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as Smooth Talk , Blue Velvet , Fat Man and Little Boy , Wild at Heart , Jurassic Park and October Sky...
) has applied for a comeback role in a film entitled On High in Blue Tomorrows. The day before the audition, Nikki is visited by an enigmatic old woman from Poland (Grace Zabriskie
Grace Zabriskie
Grace Zabriskie is an American actress. She has appeared in many popular American films but, she is best known for her work in television. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, and Big Love.-Early life:Zabriskie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana...
) who claims to be her neighbour. The old woman insists that Nikki has won the role, and recounts two Polish folk tales. One tells of a boy who, sparking a reflection after passing through a doorway, “caused evil to be born”. The other tells of a girl who, wandering through an alleyway behind a marketplace, “discovers a palace”. The old woman presses Nikki for details on her new film, asking whether the story is about marriage and involves murder. Nikki denies both, but her neighbour violently insists that she is wrong. Disregarding Nikki’s troubled response, the old woman comments on the confusion of time, claiming that were this tomorrow, Nikki would be sitting on a couch adjacent to them. The film then pans to where the neighbour is pointing, and we see Nikki and two girlfriends sitting on the couch. Her butler walks into the living room – where the old woman no longer reclines – with a phone call from her agent, announcing that she has won the role. Ecstatic, Nikki and her friends celebrate while her husband Piotrek (Peter J. Lucas) ominously surveys them from atop a nearby stairwell.
Some time later, Nikki and her co-star Devon Berk (Justin Theroux) receive an interview on a talk show called The Marilyn Levees Show. The host (Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd is an American actress, film director, producer and published author. She has appeared in over 120 roles, on television, and in miniseries and feature films, including Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore , Wild at Heart , Rambling Rose , Ghosts of Mississippi, Primary Colors, 28 Days , and...
) asks both actors whether they are having an affair, to which each of them respond negatively. Devon has been warned by his entourage that Nikki is out-of-bounds, due to her husband’s power and influence. Later, on the set being built for the film, Nikki and Devon rehearse a scene with the director Kingsley (Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
). They are interrupted by a disturbance, but Devon finds nothing upon investigation. Shaken by the event, Kingsley confesses that they are shooting a remake of a German feature entitled 47. Production was abandoned after both leads were murdered, creating rumours of the film being cursed due to its roots in an old Polish folk tale.
Immersed in her character "Sue", Nikki appears to begin an affair with Devon – under the guise of his own character "Billy". While filming a scene in which her character buys groceries, Nikki notices a door in the alley marked Axxon N, and enters. It leads to a room behind the studio, where she can see herself rehearsing her lines weeks earlier. When Devon is sent to find who's lurking backstage, Nikki realizes that she was the disturbance, causing her to flee among the half-built backgrounds and into the house of another character named Smithy. Despite the set being merely a wooden facade, Nikki enters to find an illuminated suburban house inside. Devon looks through the windows, but sees only darkness.
At this point, the film takes a drastic stylistic turn. Various plotlines and scenes begin to entwine and complement each other. The chronological order is often confused or nonexistent. Inside the house, Nikki finds her husband in bed. Hiding from him, she encounters a troupe of prostitutes. One of the women advises her to “gaze through a burn hole in the silk”. Nikki complies and witnesses several strange happenings – many of which seem to revolve around her, or an alternate version of herself.
The woman who plays Doris Side - Billy’s wife in the film (Julia Ormond
Julia Ormond
Julia Karin Ormond is an English actress who has appeared in film and television and on stage.-Early life and education:...
), tells a policeman that she has been hypnotized to murder someone with a screwdriver – but finds the screwdriver embedded in her own side. A mysterious organization claims to have captives from Inland Empire. In the past, Polish prostitutes are confronted by strange pimps while murder permeates their city. Nikki, having become one of the prostitutes in the present, wanders the streets while her companions directly ask the audience “Who is she?” Both Nikki and her prostitutes frequently ask people to look at them, and say whether “you've known me before”. In a parallel plotline, Sue climbs the dark staircase behind a nightclub to deliver a long monologue to a police detective named Mr. K – which touches upon her childhood molestations, disastrous relationships and revenge missions. Her husband Smithy seems to be connected with both the pimps and the organization – and is said to be good with animals, hence his job with a circus from Poland. There is much talk of The Phantom, an elusive hypnotist. Convinced she’s being stalked by a red-lipped man, Sue arms herself with a screwdriver.
Finally, Sue walks down Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard
-Revitalization:In recent years successful efforts have been made at cleaning up Hollywood Blvd., as the street had gained a reputation for crime and seediness. Central to these efforts was the construction of the Hollywood and Highland shopping center and adjacent Kodak Theatre in 2001...
, and is startled to see her doppelgänger across the street. Before Sue can investigate, Doris arrives and attempts to kill her, having been hypnotized by The Phantom. Sue is brutally stabbed in the stomach with her own screwdriver, causing her to stagger down the street and eventually collapse next to some homeless people on the corner of Hollywood and Vine
Hollywood and Vine
Hollywood and Vine, the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, became famous in the 1920s for its concentration of radio and movie-related businesses. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is centered on the intersection.Today, not many production...
. An Afro-American woman remarks that Sue is dying, then proceeds to debate with another, younger homeless woman about taking a bus to Pomona. Her companion talks at length about a friend named Niko – the prostitute whose blond wig makes her look like a movie star, thus allowing her to walk through the rich district without drawing attention. The Afro-American woman comforts Sue by holding a lighter in front of her face, until she finally dies, “having no more blue tomorrows”. Off-camera, Kingsley yells “cut”, and the camera pans back to show this has merely been a film scene.
As the actors and film crew wrap for the next scene, Sue slowly arises, Nikki once more. Kingsley announces that her scenes for the film are complete. In a daze, Nikki wanders off set and into a nearby cinema, where she sees not only On High in Blue Tomorrows – encompassing some of the subplots of the film – but events that are currently occurring. She wanders to the projection room, but finds an apartment building marked *Axxon N*. Eventually, Nikki confronts the red-lipped man from earlier, now known to be The Phantom. She shoots him, which causes his face to morph first into a distorted copy of Nikki's own face, but then into something resembling a foetus bleeding from its mouth.
Nikki flees into a nearby room – Room 47, which houses the rabbits on television, though she fails to see them. Elsewhere in the building, Nikki finds The Lost Girl, who has been watching and crying all along. The two women kiss, before Nikki fades away into the light along with the rabbits. The Lost Girl runs out of the hotel and into Smithy’s house, where she happily embraces a man and child.
Nikki is then seen back home, triumphantly smiling at the old woman from the beginning of the film. The concluding scene takes place at her house, where she sits with many other people, among them Laura Harring
Laura Harring
Laura Harring is a Mexican-American actress and former Miss USA . She is known for her role as Rita in Mulholland Drive.-Early life:...
, Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films , as well as parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move; Paris,...
and Ben Harper
Ben Harper
Benjamin Chase "Ben" Harper is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances and activism. Harper's fan base spans several continents...
. A one-legged woman who was mentioned in Sue's monologue looks around and says, “Sweet!” Niko, the girl with the blonde wig and monkey, can also be seen. The end credits roll over a group of women dancing to Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
's "Sinnerman" while a lumberjack saws a log to the beat.
Cast
- Laura DernLaura DernLaura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as Smooth Talk , Blue Velvet , Fat Man and Little Boy , Wild at Heart , Jurassic Park and October Sky...
- Nikki Grace / Sue Blue - Justin Theroux - Devon Berk / Billy Side
- Jeremy IronsJeremy IronsJeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
- Kingsley Stewart - Harry Dean StantonHarry Dean StantonHarry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
- Freddie Howard - Julia OrmondJulia OrmondJulia Karin Ormond is an English actress who has appeared in film and television and on stage.-Early life and education:...
- Doris Side - Grace ZabriskieGrace ZabriskieGrace Zabriskie is an American actress. She has appeared in many popular American films but, she is best known for her work in television. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, and Big Love.-Early life:Zabriskie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana...
- Visitor #1 - Mary SteenburgenMary SteenburgenMary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
- Visitor #2 - Karolina GruszkaKarolina GruszkaKarolina Gruszka is a Polish film actress. She has appeared in 20 films since 1996. She was nominated for an award as Best Actress for her role in Kochankowie z Marony at the 2007 Polish Film Awards.-Selected filmography:...
- Lost Girl - Krzysztof Majchrzak - Phantom
- Ian AbercrombieIan AbercrombieIan Abercrombie is an English actor, best known for playing Alfred Pennyworth in Birds of Prey. He appeared as Elaine Benes' boss Justin Pitt during the sixth season of Seinfeld, and as a fastidious butler on Desperate Housewives.-Biography:He is the cousin of John Abercrombie, a jazz guitarist of...
- Henry the Butler - Terry CrewsTerry CrewsTerrence Alan "Terry" Crews is an American actor, comedian, voice artist and a former player in the National Football League....
- Street Man - Laura HarringLaura HarringLaura Harring is a Mexican-American actress and former Miss USA . She is known for her role as Rita in Mulholland Drive.-Early life:...
(voice) - Jane Rabbit - Scott CoffeyScott CoffeyScott Coffey is an American actor, director, producer, screenwriter. His acting credits include films such as Shag, Some Kind of Wonderful, Dream Lover, and Mulholland Drive...
(voice) - Jack Rabbit - Naomi WattsNaomi WattsNaomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...
(voice) - Suzie Rabbit
Production
Lynch shot the film without a complete screenplay. Instead, he handed each actor several pages of freshly written dialogue each day. In a 2005 interview, he described his feelings about the shooting process:"I’ve never worked on a project in this way before. I don’t know exactly how this thing will finally unfold... This film is very different because I don’t have a script. I write the thing scene by scene and much of it is shot and I don’t have much of a clue where it will end. It’s a risk, but I have this feeling that because all things are unified, this idea over here in that room will somehow relate to that idea over there in the pink room."
Interviewed at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, Laura Dern admitted that she didn't know what Inland Empire was about or the role she was playing, but hoped that seeing the film's premiere at the festival would help her "learn more." Justin Theroux has also stated that he "couldn't possibly tell you what the film's about, and at this point I don't know that David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
could. It's become sort of a pastime—Laura [Dern] and I sit around on set trying to figure out what's going on."
Much of the project was shot in Łódź, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, with local actors, such as Karolina Gruszka
Karolina Gruszka
Karolina Gruszka is a Polish film actress. She has appeared in 20 films since 1996. She was nominated for an award as Best Actress for her role in Kochankowie z Marony at the 2007 Polish Film Awards.-Selected filmography:...
, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Leon Niemczyk
Leon Niemczyk
Leon Stanisław Niemczyk was a Polish actor.Niemczyk appeared in over 500 films and television shows over the course of his very long career...
, Piotr Andrzejewski and artists of the local circus Cyrk Zalewski. Some videography was also done in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and in 2006 Lynch returned from Poland to complete filming. Inland Empire is the first Lynch feature to be completely shot in digital video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
; it was shot with a Sony DSR-PD150. Lynch has stated that he will no longer use film to make motion pictures.
In an NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
"Weekend Edition" interview, Laura Dern recounted a conversation she had with one of the movie's new producers. He asked if Lynch was joking when he requested a one-legged woman, a monkey and a lumberjack by 3:15. "Yeah, you're on a David Lynch movie, dude," Dern replied. "Sit back and enjoy the ride." Dern reported that by 4 p.m. they were shooting with the requested individuals.
Financing and distribution
Lynch financed much of the production from his own resources, with longtime artistic collaborator and ex-wife Mary SweeneyMary Sweeney
Mary Sweeney is an American film editor and producer best known for collaborating with the avant-garde American film director, David Lynch...
producing. The film was also partially financed by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
production company StudioCanal
StudioCanal
StudioCanal is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world...
, which had provided funding for three previous Lynch films. StudioCanal
StudioCanal
StudioCanal is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world...
wanted to enter the film in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
2006 Cannes Film Festival
The 2006 Cannes Film Festival ran from May 17, 2006 to May 28, 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the jury....
, but it was not ready in time. Instead, it premiered at Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
's Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
on September 6, 2006, where David Lynch also received the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
lifetime achievement award for his "contributions to the art of cinema." The film premiered in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on October 8, 2006 at the New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
, selling out both showings. The film received a limited release in the US beginning on December 15, 2006; distribution was handled by the specialist company 518 Media
518 Media
518 Media is an American-based production and distribution company.518 Media had a limited release of David Lynch's Inland Empire on December 15, 2006.-List of films distributed by 518 Media:*Inland Empire *The Wild Blue Yonder...
.
Lynch hoped to distribute the film independently, saying that with the entire industry changing, he thought he would attempt a new form of distribution as well. He acquired the rights to the DVD and worked out a deal with Studio Canal in an arrangement that allows him to distribute the film himself, through both digital and traditional means. A North American DVD release occurred on August 14, 2007. Among other special features, the DVD included a 75-minute featurette, "More Things That Happened", which compiled footage elaborating on Sue's marriage to Smithy, her unpleasant life story, the Phantom's influence on women, and the lives of the prostitutes on Hollywood Boulevard.
Release
When asked about Inland Empire, Lynch responded that it is "about a woman in trouble, and it's a mystery, and that's all I want to say about it." When presenting screenings of the digital work, Lynch sometimes offers a clue in the form of a quotation from the Brihadaranyaka UpanishadBrihadaranyaka Upanishad
The Upanishad is one of the older, "primary" Upanishads. It is contained within the Shatapatha Brahmana, and its status as an independent Upanishad may be considered a secondary extraction of a portion of the Brahmana text. This makes it one of the oldest texts of the Upanishad corpus...
:
"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
Richard Peña, an New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
official and one of the first people to see Inland Empire, has summarized the film as "a plotless collection of snippets that explore themes Lynch has been working on for years," including "a Hollywood story about a young actress who gets a part in a film that might be curse
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
d; a story about the smuggling
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
of women from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
; and an abstract story about a family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
of people with rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
heads sitting around in a living room
Living room
A living room, also known as sitting room, lounge room or lounge , is a room for entertaining adult guests, reading, or other activities...
" -- Lynch's web-only video series, Rabbits
Rabbits (film)
Rabbits is a 2002 series of short video films written and directed by David Lynch. It depicts three humanoid rabbits in a room, played by Scott Coffey, Laura Elena Harring and Naomi Watts. Their disjointed conversations are interrupted by a random laugh track. Rabbits is presented with the tagline...
. Peña's perception of a plot involving "the smuggling of women from Eastern Europe" stems from a scene in which one man asks another, in Polish, if he is selling the woman in the room.
The scholar Delorme indicated that the film is about adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
, but in a way that Lynch "avoid[s] a chronological unfolding of the scenes and situations provoked by the adultery", but rather "superimpose[s] them instead in as many scenarios developing from the potentials of the adultery", so that "[t]he narrative is constructed on strange characters brought together by a similar terror."
Release dates
The film debuted on several film festivalFilm festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
s around the world most notably the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Camerimage Film Festival
Camerimage
The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE is a festival dedicated to cinematography and its creators cinematographers.The first seven events were held in Toruń, Poland. The next ten events were held in Łódź...
in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Fajr International Film Festival
Fajr International Film Festival
The Fajr Film Festival or Fajr International Film Festival is Iran's annual film festival, held every February in Tehran.The festival, started in 1982, is under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture in Iran...
in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, International Film Festival Rotterdam
International Film Festival Rotterdam
The International Film Festival Rotterdam is an annual film festival held in various cinemas in Rotterdam, Netherlands held at the end of January. It is approximately comparable in size to other major European festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Locarno...
in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, San Francisco Independent Film Festival in San Francisco, United States, Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo de la Ciudad de México in México City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Cinema Digital Seoul in South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
and !f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. In late 2007 it was released in Iceland. The company that showed "Inland Empire" is called Grænaljósið or "The Greenlight".
Inland Empire was released and distributed by RYKO to the United States on August 14, 2007. it was released on August 20, 2007 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, released on October 4, 2007 in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and distributed by A-Film
A-Film
A-Film is an independent film distributor, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The company was founded in 1999 and has an office in Pand Noord in Amsterdam-Noord, in which several companies in the film industry are located...
) and on August 6, 2008 and Distributed by Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment is an Australian company that distributes international films as well as Japanese anime and manga in Australia and New Zealand. The company is owned by Funtastic Limited and is one of the major entertainment companies in Australia. It employs 130 people and has an annual...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Reception
Overall the film has been well-received by critics. The New York Times classified Inland Empire as "fitfully brilliant" after the Venice Film Festival screening. Peter TraversPeter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
, the film critic for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine wrote, "My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on." The New Yorker was one of the few publications to offer any negative points about the film, calling it a "trenchant, nuanced film" that "quickly devolves into self-parody". Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross (television presenter)
Jonathan Stephen Ross, OBE is an English television and radio presenter, best known for presenting the BBC One chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross from 2001 until he left the BBC in 2010. Ross began hosting a new chat show on ITV1 starting 3 September 2011...
, presenter of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
programme Film 2007
The Film programme
The Film programme is a British film review television programme, broadcast weekly on BBC One, presented by Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh. The title of the show changes each year to incorporate the year of broadcast, with the current series being Film 2011, but when referring to successive...
, described it as "a work of genius... I think." Damon Wise of Empire Magazine gave it five stars, calling it "A dazzling and exquisitely original riddle as told by an enigma" and Jim Emerson (editor of RogerEbert.com
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
) gave it 4 stars and praised it: "When people say Inland Empire is Lynch's Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard (film)
Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett...
, Lynch's Persona
Persona (film)
Persona is a film by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, released in 1966, and starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. Bergman held this film to be one of his most important; in his book Images, he writes: "Today I feel that in Persona—and later in Cries and Whispers—I had gone as far as I could go...
, or Lynch's 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
, they're quite right, but it also explicitly invokes connections to Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's The Shining
The Shining (film)
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an...
, Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
's Pierrot le Fou
Pierrot le fou
Pierrot le fou is a 1965 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo. The film is based on Obsession, a novel by Lionel White. It was Jean-Luc Godard's tenth feature film, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin...
, Buñuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
, Maya Deren's LA-experimental Meshes of the Afternoon
Meshes of the Afternoon
Meshes of the Afternoon is a short experimental film directed by wife and husband team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular, and repeats a number of psychologically symbolic images, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a...
(a Lynch favorite), and others". However, Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
wrote that "the film, which begins promisingly, disappears down so many rabbit holes (one of them involving actual rabbits) that eventually it just disappears for good."
Laura Dern received almost universal acclaim for her performance, with many reviews describing it as her finest to date. Lynch attempted to promote Dern's chances of an Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
nomination at the 2007 Academy Awards
2007 Academy Awards
2007 Academy Awards may refer to:* 79th Academy Awards, the 2007 ceremony honoring the best in film for 2006* 80th Academy Awards, the 2008 ceremony honoring the best in film for 2007...
by campaigning with a live cow. She was not nominated for the award.
The film holds a 72% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
; the consensus states "Typical David Lynch fare: fans of the director will find Inland Empire seductive and deep. All others will consider the heady surrealism impenetrable and pointless."
External links
- An essay on Inland Empire, and David Lynch by Dennis Lim at the New York Times.
- Review of Inland Empire for Kulturfabric by Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde.
- Photos and audio from Venice Film Festival Press Conference
- Mars Distribution's Inland Empire flash site
- A discussion of the critical issues raised by Inland Empire at Alternate Takes
- A discussion board dedicated to Inland Empire