Any David Lynch fans here? Cos I'm lazy I'm just gonna paste something I put on another site.
Inland Empire - David Lynch - 2006
"This is a story that happened yesterday. But I know it's tomorrow."
I'm far from anything resembling a film buff and I'll fall flat on my face if I attempted a review ( I've usually forgotten key parts of a film 20 minutes after leaving a cinema), but I saw this last night and it compelled me like few others films. As much as I loved Mullholland Dr., I felt like I spent to much time getting my head around the plot strands and trying to understand the symbolism. To me Inland Empire was more tangible; Laura Dern is Nikki who plays Susan, in a remake of a cursed film in which she becomes consumed, and loses her sense of identity and grip on time and reality. On this premises, anything can, and should happen, and this allowed me to enjoy the film for what it was - an experience. A brilliant sensory and psychological experience. This is a Lynch master class. The lingering mystery in each shot, the tension created by the use of sound and stunning lighting, the way he captures Nikki's husband and the eerie old lady who insists "Brutal ****ing murder" in the film to actress Nikki/Susan, those ominous Rabbits. The scene set in a bright and breezy garden where a sexy, ice cold Nikki/Susan tells her love interest/co star (Justin Theroux) "all I see from this is blue tomorrows" is gloriously at odds with the tense tones of the rest of the film, and is strangely the scene I remember most. (I knew the bit with the 'Phantom's' hideous distorted Dern face was coming. Lucky really, cause there's a chance that I would have had a heart attack). The fact that it's got a casual film watcher like me talking about stuff like lighting speaks wonders for Lynch. The soundtrack is flawless too, the way an uplifting piece of orchestral music shifts into menacing drones as a new nightmare unravels. I haven't seen the labyrinth-like nature of dreams expressed so accurately before, and not a moment of these three hours felt wasted.
Laura Dern is stupendous in this, and like Roger Ebert said, her winning an Oscar for this performance('s?) would have been a fitting and fittingly twisted conclusion for Dern/Nikki/Susan. It seems like I've just come into this thread to gush really, but although I obviously like films, they almost always disappoint ( too much filler, cinematic clichés, clumsy exposition), but Inland Empire has burned into my conciseness and hinted at what films can do. *****
It might of helped that I was stoned