Inland Empire

After watching David Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006), I immediately wanted to re-watch Hamlet, but they only had a crappy-looking modernized version of it at the video store. Meanwhile, every copy of Inland Empire, newly released, sat on the shelf unchecked out. So I watched Inland Empire again. And again. Perhaps I had to make up for the fact that I had anxiously awaited its arrival for almost a year, because when it was first released in theatres in Portland, it played for exactly a week and then inexplicably vanished before I had gotten a chance to see it.

Inland Empire is about unspeakable atrocities, and the fear, obsession, confusion, regret, desire and guilt which accompany them. These are things Americans tend to try to ignore and avoid, preferring to be distracted from intolerable behavior, destructive actions and the physical and emotional results of these things on the victims (and the perpetrators). But ignored problems only grow, and ignored emotions inevitably surface inappropriately. Mass entertainment begs to be used not just to distract us from reality, but to reveal reality, a reality that can only be discovered by asking questions which usually do not provide answers so much as reveal dark paths and doors opening to new questions and possibilities. At best, these doors open to eerie, diffused lamps exposing the darkest parts of humanity. Anyway, that’s how David Lynch sees it.

Despite the claim of many critics, Inland Empire has a storyline; it just doesn’t play like a narrative. Truth be told, it has several storylines which seem separate until they disturbingly and illogically interrupt each other. The title of the movie refers to a Polish underground market whose business is buying girls, brainwashing them and selling them as wives in America. Nikki Grace (Laura Dern, whose acting is brilliant throughout) is one of these women. As a result of her brainwashing and in order to cope with her unhappy existence, Nikki lives in a confusing fantasy world. Her various fear and angst-filled fantasies of who she might be demonstrates the extent of this (very real) underground “business.” Sometimes she’s a prostitute. Sometimes she is having a slumber party with the other girls. Sometimes she’s the miserable wife of Piotrek (Peter Lucas), who joins the Polish circus (in reality, he’s part of the Inland Empire, if only a pawn being used by them) after she births an illegitimate child. In her favorite but most delusional fantasy, she’s a successful actress, and Piotrek is her dominating husband. In this fantasy, she stars in a movie with Devon (Justin Theroux). This movie is yet another fantasy with a story line running parallel to her other fantasies. All these fantasies inevitably become entangled with each other, and she (like the audience) has little idea which is which is which. The fact that Nikki’s life is representative of many, many women who have been sold as slaves is, in part, demonstrated by a girl who tearfully watches her own life and/or Nikki’s unfold through a television screen (reminiscent of The Truman Show). Perhaps this girl and/or Nikki’s real family is a group of rabbits, one of whom sold her and two whom live in denial about it.

David Lynch is the mastermind behind every aspect of Inland Empire. His vision is a remarkable one which truly sets him apart from the rest of Hollywood. To borrow from DC Comics terminology, Lynch is Bizarro Quentin Tarantino. If you desire for art to candidly explore and express the vilest of human events and emotions, you will agree that Inland Empire is one of the greatest movies ever created. If not, don’t bother.